Christopher Vandergoot passed away suddenly on September 22, 2024, while in Nova Scotia attending the 2024 Ocean Tracking Network Symposium. Chris (known as Goot to many) was Director of the Great Lakes Acoustic Telemetry Observation System (GLATOS) for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission and an Associate Professor in the Michigan State University Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. As GLATOS Director, Chris championed, coordinated, and supported telemetry-based research of fishes throughout the Great Lakes. Under his leadership, the GLATOS network of receivers expanded to a nearly complete grid in Lakes Erie, Huron, and Ontario as well as in northern Lake Michigan. Additionally, tagging expanded to include species that were once thought to be impossible to tag with transmitters, including Alewife Alosa pseudoharengus and Lake Whitefish Coregonus clupeaformis. As an associate professor at MSU, he directed research projects and advised graduate students and postdoctoral research associates and previously taught a senior-level fisheries management class. A native of New Jersey, Chris earned a PhD in fisheries and wildlife from Michigan State University, a MS in biology from Tennessee Technological University, and a BS in forestry and wildlife (biology minor) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Chris worked for many years in Sandusky, Ohio as both a fish research biologist and fish biology supervisor with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and as a research fish biologist with the U. S. Geological Survey Great Lakes Science Center. Before moving to Ohio, Chris worked as a fisheries biologist for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in Walker, Minnesota. Chris had served as an Associate Editor for the North American Journal of Fisheries Management since 2018 and as a science review panel member for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission fishery research program. At the Midwest Fish and Wildlife Conference in January 2025, Chris was posthumously recognized with the Fisheries Excellence Award bestowed by the North Central Division of the American Fisheries Society for his outstanding contributions to the fisheries science profession.
Chris had an intense passion for fisheries and for helping people. His positive attitude and work ethic were contagious, and he was a consummate problem solver. While at Tennessee Tech, his thesis required newly hatched Walleye Sander vitreus fry, and he singlehandedly built the fourth largest Walleye hatchery in the state in the basement of Pennebaker Hall. Chris was constantly tinkering with better ways to electrically immobilize fish for implanting transmitters, building and testing various devices of his own construction. He was an icon among Great Lakes biologists and researchers, both for his extensive work with telemetry throughout the basin and for his time spent working on Lake Erie, largely on Walleye. He published dozens of papers in a wide array of journals. Most importantly, he was a devoted and loving husband of 26 years to his wife Ellyn and father to his three kids, Katelyn, Aaron, and Ada. Chris loved the outdoors, especially duck hunting, and he shared this passion with his kids and supported them in all their endeavors. He was extremely devoted to his faith and served as an elder in the Firelands Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
June 10, 1976 – September 22, 2024
Chris was exceptional in all of these many roles—husband, father, friend, leader, church elder, scientist, teacher, advisor, and colleague, and he had a tremendous positive influence on those who were blessed to know him. He was a big man with an even bigger heart. Goot will be missed terribly by his friends and colleagues, but he leaves a legacy that will not be forgotten.
