Dr. Ronald G. Oldfield

Biography

Dr. Ronald (‘R.G.’) Oldfield first became interested in aquarium fishes when he won a goldfish at a local county fair in 1978, at the age of 6 years old. In a 10th-grade speech class, he gave a presentation on the cichlid fish Amphilophus trimaculatus. The class was shocked when he opened a brown paper bag and pulled out a 1-gallon glass jar containing a live 6-inch long fish!

He conducted his graduate research studying cichlid fishes in the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology and earned a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in 2007. Afterward, Dr. Oldfield spent 18 years teaching in the Department of Biology at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, most notably creating and leading an Ichthyology course that involved field collecting trips around northern Ohio (18 semesters) and the short-term study abroad course Biology Field Studies at La Selva Biological Station in Costa Rica and other sites in Central America (8 semesters). He also created and taught courses on human-animal interactions and animal welfare (8 semesters).

Dr. Oldfield’s research on the taxonomy, behavior, physiology, and welfare of fishes has been published in many scientific journals and featured in many news and internet outlets. The term “animal welfare” describes how well an animal is doing. It describes more than just the physical health of the animal and includes its mental and emotional states. Although fish welfare has long been an active research field in Europe due to the public’s concern over the treatment of food fishes on fish farms, such research has been nonexistent in the US. Dr. Oldfield spearheaded the fish welfare research movement in the US, recently publishing several studies that assess the effect of aquarium size and environmental enrichment on behavior in several species of aquarium fishes.