Montana State fisheries biologist wins career achievement award

BOZEMAN - Alexander Zale, an affiliate professor of fisheries science at Montana State University who leads the U.S. Geological Survey's Montana Cooperative Fishery Research Unit based at MSU, has been recognized by the Montana Chapter of the American Fisheries Society with its 2026 Career Achievement Award.

Zale came to MSU in 1994, the year the presence of whirling disease, a devastating trout condition, was confirmed in the Madison River and soon after the film "A River Runs Through It" cast the state in the national spotlight as a recreational fishing destination and drew an influx of eager anglers to the state.

These were among the many circumstances Zale has helped navigate as a leader in the Montana Cooperative Fishery Research Unit, which is part of the federal cooperative research units program created in 1935 to enhance graduate education in wildlife and fisheries sciences and to facilitate research and technical assistance among universities and natural resource agencies on topics of mutual concern.

It's a career for which Zale believes he was particularly well suited. As a self-described lifelong "fish geek," he's been focused on providing agencies such as the National Park Service and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks with useful and practical information to understand and manage fishery resources - and on ensuring his students are prepared for similar work.

"One of the things I've taken pride in is my ability to be a jack of all trades, not a master in anything, and to be able to help those agencies with whatever they were having a problem with," said Zale, who is part of MSU's Department of Ecology in the College of Letters and Science. "Being an applied fisheries person - a problem solver for the agencies - is what I like to do and also what the co-op units do very well."

The American Fisheries Society Career Achievement Award was presented in recognition of Zale's contributions to protecting and restoring aquatic habitats and fishes in Montana. It's an honor that his colleagues, students and officials from the agencies he has worked with agree is well deserved.

"Dr. Zale is an icon in the fisheries profession whose work has left an enduring legacy of improving and protecting the natural world," wrote Christopher Guy, MSU professor of ecology and assistant leader of the fisheries co-op unit, in a letter nominating Zale for the award.

Added ecology department head Diane Debinski, "In the eight years that I have worked with Dr. Zale at MSU, his commitment to the co-op unit and the associated partnerships with state and federal agencies has been steadfast, always with the goals of providing the highest quality of scientific research to state and federal partners, training excellent graduate students, and understanding the social as well as the scientific aspects of environmental issues."

Originally from Boston, Zale earned his bachelor's degree in fisheries biology at the University of Massachusetts, where he worked with salmon, shad and sturgeon in the Connecticut River. He conducted research on freshwater mussels at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, where he earned his master's degree in fisheries and wildlife, and then moved to Florida, where he gained experience in working with nuisance species while earning a Ph.D. in forest resources and conservation and working with the fishery unit co-op there. Wishing to pursue a career in the Unit Co-op system, he accepted a position in Oklahoma, which he held for nine years before coming to MSU to be the assistant leader for the Montana unit. He became unit leader in 2002.

In his 32 years with MSU, Zale has consulted on issues for fishery resources across Montana and much of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, either directly through his work with fish species or indirectly by educating biologists. Rather than finding the continual challenges daunting, Zale said they have been rewarding.

"I like to think we make progress," he said. "We understand things better, and that helps the managers to work around some of these problems and issues."

Whirling disease is an example of a problem that ultimately was resolved by nature but which also gave biologists the opportunity to research and better understand a problem. The outbreak came amid what Zale calls a perfect storm of conditions that led to a drastic decline of the rainbow trout population in the Madison River. The condition is caused by a parasite that infects juvenile fish and is carried by a worm that lives in areas of the Madison where rainbow trout like to spawn.

"Early on, we thought that maybe the problem would take care of itself, that the fish would adapt and become resistant to it, and then for a while it didn't seem like that was going to happen," Zale recalled. Ultimately, the trout did develop resistance, but Zale said biologists can't take credit for that. Instead, they facilitated research that broadened understanding of the disease and advised agencies on ways to prevent its spread to other waterways.

More recently, the unit has worked to address fish mortality stemming from warming waters and inadequate stream flows. In such cases, where agricultural use or other stakeholder interests come into play, he said, the unit looks for little things that can be done to improve the survival of fish while bigger solutions are being worked out.

"Understanding the different constituencies and what their needs are is something a lot of biologists don't get trained in, so then they're blindsided when they have to deal with it and don't really know what to do," Zale said. "Perhaps the most important thing that we learn is how people have different values and nobody's wrong. If we understand that, sometimes we can find a third way that meets everybody's needs and solves the problem."

He has incorporated that concept into his mentorship of graduate students, as well as MSU's "Human Dimensions of Fisheries and Wildlife Management" graduate course he taught for years.

Many of the 45 students Zale advised or co-advised have gone on to work for management agencies where, according to former student and Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center biologist Brian Tornabene, "his influence extends far beyond publications and projects; it lives in the careers he launched and the confidence he instilled."

Through the years, Zale and his students have helped facilitate numerous projects, such as adjusting winter water releases into the Henry's Fork in Idaho, restoring Westslope cutthroat trout to Cherry Creek in southwest Montana and numerous fish recovery projects in Yellowstone National Park.

Though his lifelong interest formed as a youngster while fishing with his father, Zale said he no longer fishes. He plans, after retiring this summer, to travel to warm-water scuba destinations to observe fish recreationally rather than professionally.

He looks back on what he describes as a very rewarding, gratifying and interesting career, proud of the successes the unit has helped to facilitate and, above all, the successes of his students.

"This is a great place to be a fish person. It's easy to attract great students here," he said. "They've gone on to run agencies and have made very important contributions in their jobs. That, I have to say, is really the best part."