Sea
Grant’s 2006
2nd Quarter Highlights
(Archive
of SG Highlights)
![thumbnail image of newsletter](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20130217113552im_/http://www.seagrant.noaa.gov/newsletter/images/thumbnail_newsletter3.jpg) Sea Grant E-Currents Newsletter now available! |
The National
Science Foundation and NOAA-National Sea Grant announced funding support
this week for COSEE Great Lakes, the eighth center in a nationwide
network. Funds will be divided among seven programs that make
up the Great Lakes Sea Grant Network: Illinois-Indiana, Michigan,
Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. COSEE Great
Lakes is expected to create dynamic connections between Great Lakes
and ocean research and education with the goal of enhancing scientific
literacy and environmental stewardship.
For years Hawaii’s longline
fishermen have been collecting derelict net and fishing gear encountered
while out at sea and discarding it in the county landfill upon their
return. Recognizing the efforts made by these fishermen, HI Sea Grant
and partners helped form a private-public partnership
to coordinate a more environmentally friendly approach to this debris
disposal. With the new derelict net disposal program the debris
will be taken to the City and County of Honolulu’s HPower facility
and recycled to produce electricity.
Sea Grant's Seafood specialist Quentin
Fong traveled to Asia to promote Alaska seafood
in order to enhance market development for Alaska processors and the
Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development's
Asian Trade Development project. Fong was able to get statistics
on Hong Kong sea urchin roe import and re-export for the Southeast
Alaska Regional Dive Fisheries Association, from the Hong Kong Census
and Statistics Department. On his return he reported on China and
Hong Kong seafood markets to James Wemyss, aide to Sen. Lisa Murkowski
on Asian trade.
Results from a study that a Sea
Grant extension agent took part in will allow Alaska Department of
Fish and Game to define acceptable gear for
the directed octopus fishery. They also measured and tagged
forty-two octopuses, which may give information on growth rate, population
estimates, and migration.
Florida Sea
Grant Extension (FSGE) coordinated a hurricane action and assessment
response in service training. Participants included 28 extension
faculty from the states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama,
Florida and Georgia. Discussion centered on pre-hurricane event, response,
recovery and rebuilding strategies and exploration of regional cooperative,
mutual aid efforts in preparation for the 2006 hurricane season. The
training was developed by Don Jackson, FSGE Special Project Coordinator.
MIT and Hawaii
Sea Grant Bring Underwater Robots to Classrooms: Hawaii teachers
are using "Sea Perch," an underwater remote-controlled vehicle
made of PVC pipes and hardware store materials, to help students probe
underwater environments and learn engineering skills. As a result
of this Sea Grant training workshop, community college students will
introduce Sea Perch to high school students this summer.
Sea Grant funded biologists have
identified the molecular mechanisms by which marine sponges synthesize
their silica skeletons. They are now translating these mechanisms
to develop new approaches for low-cost synthesis of semiconductors.
Compared to current manufacturing practices, the methods they have
developed operate at low temperature and use no harmful or caustic
chemicals. Materials with novel structures and electronic properties
are being produced. Results are especially encouraging for lowering
manufacturing costs and improving energy efficiency of solar energy
(photovoltaic) converters.
California
Sea Grant researchers detected algal toxin and domoic acid in the
viscera (guts) of two popular sport fish - white croaker and
staghorn sculpin, but the toxin has not been detected in muscle tissue
of either fish. The preliminary findings do present compelling evidence
of the need for further study, as domoic acid was found in white croaker
specimens four of the 13 times the fish were caught off the wharf.
The toxin was found in staghorn sculpin on only one of the 10 sampling
dates. To expand the study and more fully document public health risks,
California Sea Grant has awarded a research grant to quantify toxin
exposure rates for different sub-groups of anglers at the wharf.
New Hampshire
Sea Grant researchers have collected thousands of seaweed samples
from 200 sites around Casco Bay. Comparing their findings to samples
collected from the Gulf of Maine during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, they’ve discovered that the
bay’s seaweed community is quite similar to that of the late
1800s, overall. Specifically, the researchers found 79 percent
of the species that existed in the bay a century ago. In some specific
sites within the bay, however, the similarity between historical and
modern seaweed flora was less than 50 percent.
A bill that would allow Wisconsin
to grant Brown County the rights and title to certain submerged and
dry lands of the Cat Island Chain for the purpose of restoring
it to its former function of protecting water quality in the bay and
providing natural habitat to area plant life, aquatic life, birds
and water fowl. The chain also will serve as a place to deposit
dredged material from navigation channels and will allow opportunity
for public use. The effort is the result of a partnership between
Brown County, the Department of Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the University
of Wisconsin Sea Grant Institute.
New Hampshire
Sea Grant and the Northeast Consortium have partnered to produce "A
Guide to Fisheries Stock Assessment: From Data to Recommendations."
Stock assessments lie at the heart of virtually all fisheries
regulations, providing decision-makers with the information necessary
to make sound management choices. For many people affected by those
choices, though, the stock assessment process is largely a mystery.
"A Guide to Fisheries Stock Assessment" is designed to clarify
the stock-assessment process for fishermen, regulators, science journalists
and others interested in the fishing industry.
Commercial fishermen and seafood
processors now can turn to a single web site, aptly called AlaskaFishBiz.org,
for information and resources about financing,
small business development, education and training, and other seafood
industry business needs and services. The web site is part
of the Alaska Fisheries Business Assistance Project, or FishBiz, created
by the Alaska Sea Grant Extension Program.
Through the combined efforts
of Louisiana, Washington and
Alaska Sea Grant programs,
the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Pacific Coast Congress
of Harbormasters (PCCH) and Valdez Port Director Alan Sorum,
the idea of donating a surplus Travelift
to help the hundreds of fishing vessels
that were pushed by Hurricanes Katrina and
Rita into areas from which –
when the storms subsided – they could no longer reach the sea.