Dr. C. Phillip Goodyear of Havana, FL passed away on April 25.

TBF and all of fishery science lost a leader with the death of Dr. C. Phillip (Phil) Goodyear, an internationally recognized expert in fish population dynamics. Phil worked for TBF as its consulting scientist for 28 years, during which he advanced billfish science further than any other researcher. In his career prior to working for TBF, Goodyear was pivotal in providing the science for management of high-profile species such as red drum, red snapper, striped bass, and Atlantic salmon. Phil was previously profiled in Billfish Magazine, when in 2013 he received the Oscar Sette Award for Sustained Excellence in Marine Fishery Biology from the Marine Fisheries Section of the American Fisheries Society.

His primary focus at TBF was on advancing and improving stock assessment methodologies, which estimates a species’ abundance after being fished for decades with continually more sophisticated technologies.

As recently as 2019, he was the sole author of a top-cited, featured article in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society. This was Modeling Growth: Consequences from Selecting Samples by Size. Another one of his models was a species distribution model that mapped time-varying, three-dimensional distribution of a highly migratory fish within its habitat. The models are highly technical and can be applied to estimating stock abundance, visualizing stock boundaries and estimating abundance from catch per unit of effort data. His species distribution modelling incorporated a wide range of biological and environmental data, including depth, annual average estimated total chlorophyll by latitude and longitude, water temperature and oxygen by latitude, longitude, depth by month and year and oxygen at depth. The wider application of his models included analyzing data to answer a huge array of questions.

One of Goodyear’s most recent contributions was to the science of estimating stock abundance of highly migratory species with fishery-dependent information. He constructed a flexible longline-fishing simulator that was the basis of improving how catch per unit effort is used to support stock assessment of tuna and tuna-like species. He was one of the first scientists to include vertical fish habitat into the estimation of abundance. He also published the first papers on habitat compression and how the oxygen minimum zone in the equatorial Atlantic was affecting the vertical distribution of fish and how climate change was exacerbating this phenomenon. This work promoted many more papers on the topic from interdisciplinary scientists around the world.

Phil was a leader for billfish on the science committee of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the treaty organization whose members fish for tunas and other highly migratory tuna-like species in the Atlantic Ocean and all adjacent waters (Mediterranean, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico). When he was called upon to lead ICCAT technical sessions, confidence in outcomes rose and science advanced.

For the decade before TBF, Phil was Senior Stock Assessment Analyst for the National Marine Fisheries Service at the Southeast Fisheries Science Center. There he provided groundbreaking science for management of overfished and often contentious Gulf of Mexico fisheries, including red drum and the reef species red snapper, vermilion snapper, red grouper and gag. He led a team that made some of the most significant advances in the management of U.S. domestic fisheries. His work in biological reference points is still used not only in the Gulf of Mexico but also in the South Atlantic and Caribbean. In addition, he made significant contributions to the science of properly sampling fisheries for studies such as growth and age composition; these are still referenced as keystone publications of the science. As far back as 1987 while at SEFSC, Goodyear was already instrumental in billfish analysis, when he estimated swordfish yield and spawning stock biomass so the NMFS could better understand impacts of minimum size alternatives under consideration at the time.

Phil’s reputation in population dynamics was established at the beginning of his career, while at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the early 1970s, when he became the first scientist to document the importance of entrainment of larval fish in power plant cooling water systems. His models of the potential impacts of entrainment of early life stages of striped bass in the Hudson River were decisive components of the environmental impact statements for the Indian Point nuclear power facility. They served as the basis for entrainment impact analyses for many other power plant cases and species around the U.S., and his techniques are still being used today to regulate the power plant industry. This reputation grew in the mid- to late 1970s, when he was the lead technical expert on the USFWS National Power Plant Team, an interdisciplinary group that addressed power plant issues on a national scale. Notably, Phil’s research on compensatory responses of populations to entrainment and impingement mortality led to metrics that support almost every stock assessment done worldwide today.
In 1980, Goodyear became synonymous with the Joint Emergency Striped Bass Study, authorized by Congress to determine the causes for the collapse of the Atlantic Coast fishery and to propose remedies to restore the coastal migratory stock. Then at the USFWS National Fisheries Center-Leetown, Phil demonstrated that reducing overfishing would rapidly rebuild the stock, irrespective of other contributing factors. His 1984 testimony before Congress paved the way for passage of the Atlantic Coast Striped Bass Conservation Act, by which the Atlantic states and federal agencies jointly developed enforceable inter-jurisdictional management regulations. By the early 1990s the coastal migratory stock had rebuilt to historical levels. Also while at Leetown, Phil developed new analytical methods to study the population dynamics of Atlantic salmon, especially to forecast the effects of management and enhancement activities. This research was critical to USFWS in planning for the Atlantic Salmon Restoration Program and evaluating hydropower facilities.

Phil’s expertise was recognized nationally and internationally. He was routinely called upon to testify before U.S. House and Senate committees, state legislatures, and multiple Federal agencies, most often in highly contentious cases. He sat on numerous advisory panels and committees for organizations such as the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, Hudson River Foundation, ICCAT, and Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, where he served for more than a decade on its Red Drum and Reef Fish Stock Assessment panels.

In his research Phil always saw the signal, while others focused on the noise. Long before simulation studies became the norm for theoretical advances, Goodyear used simulation models to translate uncertainty of current observations into consequences for future conditions. His deep understanding of basic biology and animal behavior, developed during a lifetime of fishing and hunting, shaped his ability to craft meaningful models to provide simple, but not simplistic, management guidance.
Phil’s extensive publication record of over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and countless gray-literature reports is evidence of his exceptionally distinguished career. Phil would consider it just as important to his legacy, however, to recognize that he took every opportunity to pass along his knowledge, in person, to younger scientists. This started with the students he taught as Assistant Leader of the Tennessee Cooperative Fishery Research Unit at Tennessee Tech University in the mid-1970s. Current and past colleagues have commented about how significant his mentorship was to their careers. He always took time to explain his work, generously share ideas, provide good counsel, and assist others beyond what was asked of him.

The range of Phil’s research over more than 60 years was vast, from trematodes in cutlass fish (published as a freshman in college) to sun-compass orientation in mosquitofish and amphibians to effects of contamination stress on fish populations to the movements of blue marlin in the open ocean. His scientific curiosity and desire to keep learning about the natural world never faded. At the time of his death, he was in the process of editing the manuscript of a self-started study on age and growth of black crappie in the North Florida lake on which he and his wife Carole resided. He had even found a way to return to his early love of herpetology by leading surveys of the lake’s alligator population for his community’s HOA.

There has been a remarkable consensus in the personal descriptors by which friends and colleagues say they will remember Phil: Quiet and thoughtful. Great intellect. A man of few words, but you had better listen because those words were almost always important. Always a gentleman who spoke with respect and calmness when dealing with others. Patient. Kind. Wise. Extraordinary intuition and insights.

Phil always cut his own path, never followed fads, and found deep satisfaction in advancing science. He had few, if any, peers in the fisheries profession and will be deeply missed by those who were privileged to know him and appreciated by those who didn’t get that opportunity.