We live in interesting times. After 2 years of real disruption of our academic pursuits along with our personal and social lives, much of the world is now affected by an active international conflict with wide-reaching implications. In meetings and conversations, along with official statements related to collaboration between governmental institutions, it has become clear that international collaboration and cooperation linkages may be more severely impacted in the future. While the COVID-19 crisis greatly reduced mobility between nations and within them, and limited access to sites and resources, the current conflict in Ukraine is already reducing official collaboration between highly valued institutions across geopolitical divides. While the latest official separations of collaboration do not impact aquaculture research directly, it can be expected that disturbances to our cooperations will arise. What does that mean for us as researchers? It can be fairly argued that aquaculture research has always been a far more international research community than many others. There is a strong production imbalance toward Asia, South America, and now Africa in global aquaculture. Fabulous science and many innovations built around aquaculture production have come from nations otherwise under-represented in large-scale scientific research. Many of us have more international collaborations than national! This international spread and collaboration is central to the success of the World Aquaculture Society and JWAS. “…individual ability to improve production reaches a limit that is not overcome unless there is appropriation of outsiders' knowledge through collaboration, which can be associated to best aquaculture practices from locals, all the way to state-of-the-art knowledge-based technologies developed by academic institutions or large corporations.” These collaborations have not only improved our scientific quality and outputs, they have also resulted in lasting friendships and mentorships, and they have improved our understanding of the people active in our fields in other nations. In this way, respectful scientific collaboration can only be viewed with the highest level of positivity as it benefits us professionally and personally. It benefits our own and host nations and creates, in the long-term, an international community based on shared goals and mutual understanding. We all value our international networks and we value the people within them. The question arises: how should we react now, if confronted with requests to sever official collaboration with institutions, or with individuals who we hold in high regard? Managing the continued disturbance to our international mobility has become further complicated. Yet, if we can maintain our networks by applying some of the principles above, we can also maintain their benefits to our discipline and ourselves. We can only hope that what seems to be a spiraling trend of international discord centered on military conflict will soon cease and a peaceful process of healing and greater scientific cooperation can emerge.