Mal-U student wins W.E. Ricker Scholarship

Amanda Warman, a fourth-year student in the Fisheries and Aquaculture degree program at Malaspina University-College, is the first ever recipient of the W.E. Ricker Memorial Scholarship. The award is named in honour of world famous fisheries scientist, the late Dr. W.E. Ricker of Nanaimo.

The prestigious $1,500 scholarship was presented to Warman recently by Ricker’s family members. They established the award at Malaspina when Dr. Ricker passed away three years ago at the age of 93.

"The W.E. Ricker Scholarship is only given out to truly outstanding fourth year students who plan to further their careers in graduate school," said Dr. Chris Foote, a professor in Malaspina’s Fisheries and Aquaculture program. "This is the first time the Ricker family has bestowed this award, and we could not have a better representative than Amanda."

Foote said many faculty members describe Warman as the best student they have ever seen. "In addition to being smart, Amanda complements W.E. Ricker in being humble and helpful to students, energetic and enthusiastic and phenomenally inquisitive," Foote added. "Dr. W.E. Ricker was (and still is) a world-renowned fisheries scientist and ecologist. Anybody who studies fish, knows who he is."

Dr. Ricker dedicated his life to learning and discovery. Best known for his fisheries work, Ricker was also a musician, poet, journalist, naturalist, outdoorsman and author. Early in his career, he undertook studies of Fraser River sockeye salmon.

On completion of his PhD at the University of Toronto in 1936, he took a position with the International Salmon Commission. In 1939, Ricker accepted a teaching and research position in the Biology Department at the University of Indianna, where he remained for 11 years.

Ricker wrote a series of books on biological statistics of fish populations often referred to as the "Green Books", used widely by students of fisheries science throughout the world. Ricker returned to Canada in 1950 and worked at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo for 27 years. He assumed the job of editor of the Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada and made it into one of the premier aquatic scientific journals in the world. He later became the senior scientist of the Board.

Ricker was one of the first to discover that fish populations responded to fishing in a measurable way. Fisheries scientists could estimate the maximum number of fish that could be caught without endangering stocks. His discovery became known throughout the scientific world as the "Ricker Curve."

During his lifetime, Ricker produced an amazing array of scientific publications including 296 published papers and books, 238 published translations, and 148 scientific or literary manuscripts. Among his publications, were 38 papers on stoneflies, which described about 88 new species, including some from outside of North America as well as one fossil species. Two of his major works on fish population dynamics won awards from the North American Wildlife Society and have been widely used in national and international fisheries management.

Self-taught in Russian, Ricker created awareness of Russian fishery science in the Western world through translations, professional contacts and compiliation of a Russian-English dictionary of fisheries and aquatic biology. He received many awards for his scientific work, including Officer of the Order of Canada in 1986.