Name: FMAS March Meeting: Jason Den Haese - Lessons Learned
Start: 2026-03-07T18:00:00-05:00
Location: IMAG History & Science Center

FMAS March Meeting: Jason Den Haese - Lessons Learned

Join us Saturday, March 7th at 6pm for our monthly meeting and fish/plant auction.
Talk Title: Lessons Learned from Setting up a Fish Research and Conservation Lab at D'Youville University
Talk Description: In this presentation, I will share the process of building my fish research laboratory at D’Youville University, beginning with its inception in January 2020 and continuing to the present. I will discuss the challenges encountered along the way, how I worked through them, and the lessons that shaped the development of the lab. I will also highlight a number of meaningful successes that emerged as the work progressed. To conclude, I will share photographs of several of my L-number pleco breeding groups and their fry, and provide updates on our ongoing research initiatives.
Speaker Bio: I have a strong and diverse research background acquired from experience in industry, clinical, and academic settings. In an academic setting, I began teaching at D’Youville University (DYU) in the Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics in 2009.
In 2020, I started my own research program at D’Youville University working with fish from the armored catfish families; Loricariidae and Callichthyidae. The natural habitat of these fish is the Amazon River Basin of South America. I maintain over 100 tanks in my fish research lab. My research focuses on the breeding, growth, and survival of armored catfish fry. To date, I have spawned and produced fry from 32 different species spanning 9 different genera from Loricariidae and 7 different species spanning 4 different genera from Callichthyidae.
In addition to this research, I am also interested in fish conservation. My conservation work focuses on establishing captive breeding groups of wild fish that have been listed as near threatened (NT), vulnerable (VU), endangered (EN) or critically endangered (CR) on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened species. Species with these designations could become extinct in the wild. I have established breeding groups for Hypancistrus zebra (CR), Peckoltia compta (EN), Leporacanthicus joselimai (VU) and Ancistomus wernekei (NT). If, or rather, when these species on the IUCN red list become extinct in the wild, fry from my captive breeding groups can be made available to both scientists and hobbyists.