Congratulations to Jim Turek, recipient of the 2025 Stanley A. Moberly Award for Outstanding Contributions to Fish Habitat Conservation.
James (“Jim”) Turek is a restoration ecologist, living in Rhode Island, with more than 40 years of work experience in fishery biology, aquatic ecology, and ecological restoration. Before retiring in April 2025, Jim worked for 25 years with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), Office of Habitat Conservation’s Restoration Center (RC), his duty station located at NMFS’ Northeast Fisheries Science Center Laboratory in Narragansett, RI. His RC experience focused on river restoration, dam removals and other fish passage barrier restoration, and tidal and non-tidal wetlands restoration benefiting migratory and estuarine fish populations and essential fish habitats.
His successes included 55 dam removal planning and design projects and completed barrier removals, 42 technical fishway and 8 nature-like fishway projects, and more than 22 saltmarsh restoration projects funded through NMFS’ Community-based Restoration Program (CRP) and its Damage, Assessment, Remediation and Restoration Program (DARRP). Jim worked on 12 DARRP cases, both oil spill and other contaminant releases in New England, New York and Michigan, with completed restoration offsetting a broad range of natural resource injuries and lost public uses.
Jim’s career has also included 13 years as an environmental scientist completing impact assessments with two East Coast consulting firms, and another 3 years as a fishery biologist with the NMFS’ Office of Habitat Conservation in the Chesapeake Bay region. Jim’s community service includes more than 23 years as chairman of a local conservation commission. He received his bachelor’s degree in Zoology (focused in Fisheries) and a Geological Sciences minor from the University of Maine; and his master’s degree in Marine Affairs from the University of Rhode Island, with his thesis being a process and outcome evaluation of habitat changes in the Chesapeake Bay region. Jim’s many passions include flyfishing, mineral collecting, paddleboarding, hiking, and listening to music with a rhythm.
