The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point is excited to invite you to The International Aquaponics Conference: Aquaponics and Global Food Security June 19 – 21, 2013.

This event will bring together experts and enthusiasts from around the world to look at best practices, research, and experiences in the growing field of Aquaponics.

The conference will include the latest in aquaponic technology, methods, applications and regulations; a student research poster contest; demonstrations by chefs on preparing aquaponically grown products; tours of an aquaponic greenhouse; and the first meeting of the International Aquaponic Society. One of several featured presenters will be author and nationally known expert in organic farming, Joel Salatin!

Space is limited so reserve your spot now to be a part of this three-day festivity!

For detailed information and registration, click here or contact UW-Stevens Point Continuing Education at 1-800-898-9472 or 715-346-3838.

Scientists at Nofima are participating in a major EU-financed project in which “active” packaging based on raw materials from shrimp shell improves and conserves food products – and after use the packaging biodegrades. Environmentally stubborn plastic is getting competition from biodegradable packaging made of chitin and chitosan from shrimp shell.

Nofima’s part of the project equates to around NOK 1 million (USD 172,430) over a two-year period. Together with the coordinator, Italian company Mavi, the majority of the project involves four medium-sized companies in EU and three research centres.

“Our job is to ensure food contact safety in the project and quantify the effect on bacteria. Chitosan used as an integrated part of the packaging can have an antibacterial effect on the food products,” says Morten Sivertsvik, Director of Research at Nofima’s department for Processing Technology in Stavanger.

“The EU has strict regulations in this area, and our role is to see that the active packaging have a positive and not negative impact on the food products. The chitosan-based fibres that are used in the packaging are based on nanotechnology, so we are talking about minute particles that by no means have to break down so they come in the food products.”

Sivertsvik has worked on packaging technology at Nofima, Europe’s largest food research institute, since 1992.  Read more …

The NOA Fisheries company is excited to be hosting a 2-day Advanced Aquaponics Workshop on June 6 & 7, 2013.  The venue is the University of Guelph.   This informative workshop will follow the Aquaculture Association of Canada’s annual conference Aquaculture Canada 2013, which NOA will be attending.

Click here to Register.

Early bird registration for this 2-day workshop is $799, student rate $399. Participants have the option of attending one day, on either date for $399.

Click here to see the Schedule.

Freshwater prawn is starting to gain attention and we are excited to have Shawn Coyle joining us from Kentucky State University.  Not only is Shawn very active in research, he is the owner and operator of one of only 3 shrimp hatcheries in the USA.

The textbook Recirculating Aquaculture by M.B. Timmons and J.M. Ebeling will be available at the discounted rate of $125 ($110 for students and WAS members).  Read the rest of this entry »

A group of researchers at the University of Bergen (UiB) and Uni Research (Norway) – engaged in research and development in the fields of marine biology, the environment, climate, petroleum, culture and the social sciences – have found that a certain type of tunicate – ascidiacea – can be used as a renewable source of biofuel and fish food. This is particularly good news for the growing aquaculture industry, which for years has struggled to find enough quality feed for its fish. There also is the prospect of reducing emissions from traffic.

It is the cellulose, the protein, and the Omega-3 fatty acids in the ascidiacea that is the cause for its many uses. Its mantle consists of cellulose, which is a collection of sugars. When cellulose is cleaved, one can obtain ethanol. And ethanol can be used for biofuel in cars. The animal’s body consists of large amounts of protein and Omega-3. This can be used for fish feed, says professor Eric Thompson at UiB’s Department of Biology. Read more …

A Sustainability Concept: Recycling of End-of-Life Netting Materials
An advanced recycling technology is helping to recycle polyamide 6 spent nets into carpeting and apparels.

The Aquafil Group specializes primarily in the production, marketing and supply of nylon 6 synthetic yarns and polymers. The company has developed a strong focus in applying sustainability principles in two ways. The first is in the development of new sustainable products from recycle raw material sources with co-marketing activities with clients and suppliers. The second is the use of low environmental impact or renewable energies during production.

The Group employs more than 1,900 people and has a presence in three continents: Europe, North America and Asia. In Europe, it has five production facilities in Italy, three in Slovenia and one in Croatia. The North American facility is in Cartersville, Georgia, USA. In Asia, there is a facility in Thailand and a new 2011 production facility opened in China, located in Jiaxing City, near Shanghai.

The Aquafil mission is to generate a closed loop cycle of sustainable polyamide 6 products. In doing this, the group has also discovered a wide range of end-of-life goods that can be used for this purpose, such as fish-nets (fish farm cage nets, gill nets and some trawling and purse seine nets). This is possible due to an advanced recycling technology. The recovery of polyamide 6 spent nets also avoids environmental concerns to water bodies, oceans and beaches, from stray or abandoned ghost netting materials. The group is operating a new post-consumer recycling plant in Slovenia.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Aquaculture Association of Canada and our conference co-hosts invite you to join us at Aquaculture Canada 2013, “Farming Our Waters: Agrifood Innovations” in Guelph, ON, June 2nd-5th, 2013. A program is planned to deliver a comprehensive agenda of aquaculture science and technology presentations as well as thought-provoking keynote and plenary speakers.

We will also provide a full social agenda featuring the annual Dr. Joe Brown Fundraiser and Silent Auction (in aid of the AAC Student Endowment Fund) and our Gala Banquet.

Don’t miss this once-a-year premier networking and technology and scientific exchange opportunity!

The presentations will be 20 minutes long (including around 3 minutes of question period). A poster session is also being offered to highlight latest research from a range of current topics.

The deadline for abstract submission, and registration with the early bird rate, has been extended to March 15.

All the information regarding the AC2013 conference can be found by clicking here. 

See you in Guelph this coming June!

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., recently announced that its 12,200 Online Books would be made available through the Research4Life initiatives of HINARI, AGORA and OARE, benefitting research and academic communities in 80 low- and middle-income countries including Malawi, Cambodia, and Bolivia.

Research4Life provides 6,000 institutions in developing countries with free or low cost access to peer-reviewed online content from the world’s leading scientific, technical and medical publishers. The addition of Wiley’s Online Books brings the total number of peer reviewed scientific journals, books and databases now available through the public-private Research4life partnership to almost 30,000.  Read the rest of this entry »

ACG – The Aquaculture Communications Group is partnering with SmartAqua to promote ACG’s Norwegian Aquaculture Tours to the Australian and New Zealand aquaculture industry, government, research and academic communities.

ACG is organizing a number of tours in conjunction with the upcoming Aqua Nor trade show in Trondheim, Norway in August 2013 to enable visitors to get out and see some of the Norwegian science and technology at work. “Given SmartAqua’s reputation as an aquaculture and seafood industry consulting practice with extensive domestic and international experience, it is a natural fit for us to be working together,” said Dave Conley, Senior Partner at ACG. This is the first collaborative initiative since ACG joined SmartAqua’s network of alliances last year.

“Joining one of ACG’s tours will maximise the opportunity to gain information and valuable network contacts outside the main event,” said Alastair Smart, Managing Director, SmartAqua. “It will allow participants to learn how Norway enables its industry to grow and prosper through innovative government support programs, which can be transferred and adapted to any region of the world.” Read the rest of this entry »

Information concerning Aquaculture Europe 2013 is now online and general information on the event can be found here.

The AE2013 theme – Making Sense of Science – will focus on knowledge management to support technological development and innovation. Making sense of science implies setting priorities for knowledge generation; using the best people and infrastructure to create the knowledge and using the most suitable communication channels to ensure maximum impact of the results for all the different players in the value chain as well as for the end users. The AE2013 Plenary sessions will provide delegates of concrete examples in various sectors and submission of abstracts for the parallel sessions will focus on how the knowledge generated will impact the sector. AE2013 will target all persons and institutions engaged and/or interested in aquaculture.

AE2013 will be held in Trondheim, Norway from August 9-12, 2013 and just prior to the AQUA NOR 2013 Exhibition (August 13-16, 2013).  Read the rest of this entry »

Sea lice infestation is unlikely to be a significant factor influencing the conservation status of salmon stocks according to a research paper published in the latest edition of the prestigious Journal of Fish Diseases.

This definitive research, involving more than 350,000 fish, released into eight different rivers in 28 separate experiments was carried out over a nine year period by the Marine Institute and NUI Galway to investigate the impact of sea lice on the marine mortality of Irish salmon smolts and assesses the extent of sea lice-induced mortality in Irish Atlantic salmon stocks.

In this long-term study, one group of salmon smolts were treated with a commercial agent which protects them against sea lice infestation for eight weeks after going to sea. The return rates of control or unprotected mirror groups of fish were compared with the ‘protected’ fish to see if they suffered any additional sea lice induced mortality following release into the sea. The research also took account of the results of a similar but much smaller study carried out by Inland Fisheries Ireland. Read more …

Click here for a copy of the research paper courtesy of the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation.

When the sequencing of the salmon genome is completed in the first half of 2013, it will generate a treasure trove of knowledge for solving current challenges in salmon production.

The Research Council of Norway is encouraging researchers to use information from the salmon genome to enhance understanding of the mechanisms behind the traits and biology of this valuable production species. Three projects have been granted a total of NOK 41 million for this purpose.

Understanding salmon biology

Knowledge about how traits are regulated can help to raise the efficiency of selective breeding programmes through more precise selection of broodstock individuals.

“The challenge now is to convert new genomic information into biological understanding by using biotechnology tools and expertise,” says Christina Abildgaard, Director of the Research Council of Norway’s Department for Environmental Research and Marine Resources. “It will be exciting to follow these projects for improving selective breeding of production salmon, both in general and specifically targeting sea lice and climate change.”  Read more …

A new handbook on how to start capture-based cod aquaculture has been published. Based on decades of research, it outlines the equipment and procedures required to succeed with this new form of capture. The book also provides good advice on topics such as the most gentle capture methods for cod, how to keep the fish alive, design of fishing boats, transfer to sea cages and feed enhancement.

The handbook is written by scientists Kjell Midling at the food research institute Nofima in Tromsø and Bjørnar Isaksen at the Institute of Marine Research in Bergen.

“Besides research-based knowledge, much of what we know about capture-based aquaculture is based on trial and error. When new vessels have expressed their interest in this fishery, inexperienced fishermen have started without any form of training and, unfortunately, the same mistakes have been repeated far too often. The objective of this book is to raise the interest in this new form of fishing that provides the highest quality of cod in the world,” say the two authors, Kjell Midling and Bjørnar Isaksen.  Read the rest of this entry »

In order to better serve customers in North America, Aqua Nor has entered into a cooperation agreement with the Aquaculture Communications Group (ACG) in Canada and the United States, which has been designated Official North American Partner for Aqua Nor 2013.

“By partnering with ACG, we hope to attract more visitors from Canada, the USA, Mexico and other countries in the Caribbean and Central America region, and to serve our customers in this region better” says Erik Hempel, Director of Communications for the Nor-Fishing Foundation, which owns and operates the aquaculture technology exhibition Aqua Nor.

Aqua Nor is today the largest aquaculture technology exhibition in the world, and has been held in Trondheim, Norway, every other years since 1979. It is expected that about 500 – 550 exhibitors from more than 30 countries will participate in this year’s exhibition, which is held 13 – 16 August 2013. Between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors from over 60 countries are expected to attend the event.

“Modern North American cold-water aquaculture is to a large extent built on the science and technology developed for salmon farming in Norway,” comments Tor-Eddie Fossbakk, senior partner in ACG. “But over the years, the exhibition has developed into a much more comprehensive show that also focuses on other species and associated technologies. Consequently, it is very important for operators and investors from North America to attend this event to see new technologies and practices that they can adapt to their operations here. Aqua Nor is not ‘just a salmon farmers event’, it is a global aquaculture business, science and technology event.”  Read the rest of this entry »

Europe is gradually losing its position as the world’s leading center of aquaculture research to Asia, particularly China, according to Jean Dhont, secretary of the ASEM Aquaculture Platform, an EU funded research program promoting EU-Asia cooperation in aquaculture. Europe badly needs to build research relationships in Asia to secure its relevance as well as future seafood stocks from Asia, says Dhont.

“We need to build partnerships now because in the future Asia will take over the lead in technology and innovation and won’t need us,” says Dhont, a researcher based at the Laboratory of Aquaculture & Artemia Reference Center at Belgium’s Ghent University.

Dhont says China has leaped ahead of Europe in the area of polyculture: simultaneously cultivating multiple species of fish, seaweed and shellfish in giant tracts of coast. “Previously it was tradition, but now they’re approaching these in a more scientific way, for instance documenting the positive environmental effects of the polyculture approach … Imagine what the situation would be with coastal eutrophication if they would not be farming and harvesting millions of tons of seaweed on an annual basis from these coastal lagoons.”  Read more …

Nutrition Business Journal has recognized Aker BioMarine for its role in building the krill fishery infrastructure. For these efforts, the company has been given NBJ’s 2012 award for “Investing in the Future.”

Aker BioMarine has invested significantly in creating a controlled krill supply chain in the Antarctic, with a long-term focus on sustainable harvesting. Sustainability has been at the core of Aker BioMarine’s business since its inception. From its cooperation with World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF)-Norway to its certification from the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) to its collaboration with the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resource’s (CCAMLR), Aker continues to do its part to ensure the future of the company as well as the krill fishery at large.  Read more …

Asian-Pacific Aquaculture 2013 is lined up to take place in Saigon, Vietnam on 10-13 December 2013. Event organizers promise the chance for the international aquaculture community to see how Vietnam’s aquaculture industry has grown by nearly 50% in terms of hectares in the last 5 years, and over 100% per year increase in tons produced every year for the last 16 years.

Attendees will be able to see what is happening in Vietnamese aquaculture to create this growth as well as aquaculture developments in the rest of Southeast Asia.

The event will include a special Farmer’s Day, providing the latest in practical knowledge for Vietnam’s aquaculture producers, while sessions and workshops will cover all aspects of aquaculture in Vietnam as well as Southeast Asia.

A further bonus is that the World Oyster Society will simultaneously hold its 5th Oyster Symposium in the same location.

For more information, click here.

Although there are still seven months until Aqua Nor 2013 opens its doors, many exhibitors are already busy planning their participation. “I don’t think we have ever seen such a great interest in the show at such an early date,” says Project manager Kari Steinsbø at the Nor-Fishing Foundation. “Many exhibitors have already booked their stands, and several of the exhibition halls are actually fully booked now. Because of this, we have decided to use Hall G, which is very popular during the fisheries exhibition Nor-Fishing. We have also increased the outdoor exhibition area so that those who wish to have an outdoor stand have more choice. And then don’t forget Skansen, our waterfront exhibition space where you can show floating equipment in its proper environment!

“Because of the great and early interest, we remind potential exhibitors that it is important to book space as soon as possible. We will be posting maps of the exhibition area and the halls on our web site in late January.”

Watch the video from Aqua Nor 2011 by clicking here. Read the rest of this entry »

ACG is a proud supporter of Aquaculture without Frontiers (AwF) and we encourage other members of the global aquaculture community to get involved.

If you are going to Nashville, TN for the Aquaculture 2013 conference, please make time in your schedule on Friday 22 February at 3:30-5:30 PM for the Aquaculture without Frontiers Special Session chaired by co-executive director, Dave Conley.

Session Agenda:

3:30:  Dave Conley – AQUACULTURE WITHOUT FRONTIERS: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

3:45:  Kevin Fitzsimmons – AQUACULTURE WITHOUT FRONTIERS FARMER TO FARMER PROGRAMS

4:00:  Patricia Moraes-Valenti – POSSIBILITIES OF AwF COLLABORATION WITH BRAZILIAN ORGANIZATIONS WORKING ON POVERTY ALLEVIATION

4:15:  Dave Little – TILAPIA HATCHERY STRATEGIES IN ASIA – SPANNING THE INTENSITY CONTINUUM

4:30:  William N. Mebane – LOW RESOURCE TILAPIA CULTURE IN HAITI, LIMITATIONS, OPPORTUNITIES, AND POSSIBLE STRATEGIES FOR INTENSIFICATION

4:45:  May Myat Moe Lwin – AWF’S ROLE IN DEVELOPING MYANMAR’S AQUACULTURE POTENTIAL

5:00:  Roy Palmer – MARKETING AwF INTO THE FUTURE

5:15:  Dave Conley & Roy Palmer – Q&A SESSION + TILAPIA AQUACULTURE IN HAITI WORKSHOP 2011: HIGHLIGHTS AND OUTCOMES  Read the rest of this entry »

BioMarine and Mare Life’s mission is to be the champion for marine bio-resources. 

The organizations have been working together for several months and will develop common strategic orientations. They will advocate for policies that will enable the realization of biotechnology’s promise for providing breakthrough products to feeding the world, and cleaning our environment, and improving health and nutrition.

BioMarine and MareLife work with industry leaders to enable the future International Association to provide a singular voice and united policy focus for our industry. 

BioMarine is supporting The Marine Innovation Seminar organized by Mare Life at the occasion of the North Atlantic Seafood Conference. BioMarine will attend the pre-conference seminar and actively contribute to the debate in order to build the momentum for the September 2013 Halifax Convention. 

Registrations are building for the first Aquafeed.com conference to take place in North America. “Practical Developments in Aquafeeds – Feed Advances to Boost Profitability” is the name and the theme of the Aquafeed.com meeting, which will focus firmly on practical feed solutions for the commercial aquaculture sector.

“We are excited to be able to help inform the industry about the latest trends and developments in Aquafeed formulation and processing by bringing a workshop to North America”, Aquafeed.com’s proprietor Suzi Dominy said. “We have been presenting similar programs in Europe and Asia for a number of years and welcome the opportunity to put on a workshop during the World Aquaculture Society meeting”.

“At the last triennial, the WAS Aquaculture meeting attracted more than 4,000 attendees from 90 countries, and that internationalism is already beeing seen in our registrations, with delegates from countries such as Australia, China, Indonesia and South Korea as well as the USA, signing up”.  Read the rest of this entry »

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued for public comment a draft environmental assessment (EA) related to the agency’s review of an application concerning AquAdvantage Salmon, a genetically engineered Atlantic salmon. FDA’s preliminary finding is that an approval of this application, under the specific conditions proposed in the application, would not have a significant impact (FONSI) on the U.S. environment. AquAdvantage Salmon is a product of AquaBounty Technologies (ABT), of Maynard, Mass.

AquAdvantage Salmon Draft Environmental Assessment (PDF)

AquAdvantage Salmon Preliminary Finding of No Significant Impact (PDF)

Read Forbes news article:

White House reverses itself, lifts political block on FDA approval of GM salmon

As president, Barack Obama promised to change “the posture of our federal government from being one of the most anti-science administrations in American history to one that embraces science and technology.” To publicly guarantee that, the White House issued a science integrity memorandum in 2009 pledging, “Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions.”

Except, it appears, when it comes to the fate of the first transgenic animal to be considered for federal approval—a genetically modified (GM) salmon developed by AquaBounty Technologies of Massachusetts. The so-called AquAdvantage salmon is a fish that has been modified to grow to market size in about half the usual time. It’s raised in contained structures that eliminate many of the environmental effects that make farmed salmon unpopular with some environmentalists, including the generation of excess waste and the potential to spread disease or escape and compete with wild salmon.

The bioengineered salmon has been winding its way through a labyrinthine approval process for 17 years. And it’s been in regulatory purgatory for more than two years since the Food and Drug Administration held public hearings—and promised a final determination within weeks.

As recently as last week, a spokeswoman for the Food and Drug Administration told me, “The application is still under review.” But that’s not the whole story.  Read more …

Editor’s note: Reading the comments posted by readers below the article illustrates the polarization of perspectives that this topic generates.

There appears to be a renewed interest in land-based aquaculture (replacing cages). This seems to be driven in part as a means of addressing some of the concerns of special interest groups. Some have been distorting the dangers of ocean-based salmon farming making them appear to be far worse then the science shows. Claiming that fish farms endanger wild fish populations is very difficult to test (and prove) and some appear to distort data to support claims, all the while ignoring data that supports the opposite. Will land based farms address these issues?

Land based basically means producing fish in large land based tank systems (raceways and ponds are possible as well) with very high water throughput rates of either water pumped directly or via closed systems that recirculate “used” water that has been cleaned up via biological processes. These recirculating aquaculture systems or RAS are a well-defined technology and in use in many countries. They are however, not without some problems and add additional elements of risk and cost to the culture system. The reliance on electricity is one of these. Read more …

A small British company has developed a way to create petrol from air and water, technology it hopes may one day contribute to large-scale production of green fuels.

Engineers at Air Fuel Synthesis (AFS) in Teeside, northern England, say they have produced 5 liters of synthetic petrol over a period of three months.

The technique involves extracting carbon dioxide from air and hydrogen from water, and combining them in a reactor with a catalyst to make methanol. The methanol is then converted into petrol.

“It’s actually cleaner because it’s synthetic,” Peter Harrison, chief executive officer of AFS, said in an interview.  Read more …

Editor’s note:  if this technology can be scaled up for industrial production volumes then it will be a game-changer in the renewable fuels sector.

On Tuesday, 27 November 2012, the Standing Committee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry tabled its report on their inquiry into the Role of Science for the Future of Fisheries and Aquaculture entitled Netting the benefits.

To view or print the report, you will need Adobe Acrobat® PDF Reader, which can be downloaded free of charge from Adobe.®

Report accessibility:

• Single chapter version downloads
• Consolidated version download (PDF 1906KB)
• Hypertext markup language – HTML – version download coming soon

Waste from salmon production is currently being discharged into Norwegian coastal waters. Researchers say this is a resource – worth NOK 6 billion each year – that should be exploited for new biological production.

In 2009 Norwegian fish farms produced over a million tonnes of salmon and salmon trout; nearly 1.2 million tonnes of high-quality feed went into this production. But a considerable amount of feed administered is released to the surrounding waters as respiratory products, faeces and uneaten feed .

This means that a significant portion of the aquaculture industry’s feed is actually wasted on fertilising the ocean with both organic and inorganic nutrients. The value of these nutrients is estimated at NOK 6 billion annually.

Higher economic yield, less pollution

In the project “Integrated open seawater aquaculture, technology for sustainable culture of high productive areas (INTEGRATE)”, researchers have studied whether this waste can be put to use as nutrients for cultivating kelp and/or mussels. The project was headed by Associate Professor Kjell Inge Reitan of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and received funding from the Research Council of Norway as part of the initiative to promote sustainable seafood production.

“The thinking is that integrated multi-trophic aquaculture (IMTA) will provide significant added value on investments in aquaculture,” explains Dr Reitan, “while at the same time reducing potentially negative environmental impacts.”  Read more …

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) projects that the world’s wild fish harvest will fall to 90 million tons in 2012, down 2 percent from 2011. This is close to 4 percent below the all-time peak haul of nearly 94 million tons in 1996. The wild fish catch per person has dropped even more dramatically, from 17 kilograms (37.5 pounds) per person at its height in 1988 to 13 kilograms in 2012—a 37-year low. While wild fish harvests have flattened out during this time, the output from fish farming has soared from 24 million tons in the mid-1990s to a projected 67 million tons in 2012.

Over the last several decades, as demand for fish and shellfish for food, feed, and other products rose dramatically, fishing operations have used increasingly sophisticated technologies—such as on-vessel refrigeration and processing facilities, spotter planes, and GPS satellites. Industrial fishing fleets initially targeted the northern hemisphere’s coastal fish stocks, then as stocks were depleted they expanded progressively southward on average close to one degree of latitude annually since 1950. The fastest expansion was during the 1980s and early 1990s. Thereafter, the only frontiers remaining were the high seas, the hard-to-reach waters near Antarctica and in the Arctic, and the depths of the oceans.  Read more …

London 2012 was definitively a successful business meeting place. So far we can estimate that over 6.2 M€ in deals are already in the pipe. There should me more good news in the next four coming months.

As for the one to one meetings we did organized over 450 pre-arranged meetings and most probably the same amount in a more informal way.

Our team of moderators have done a tremendous job and have been working very hard to finalize the 2012 final reports in such a short period of time. Download them from our home page or directly from the following link:  FINAL REPORTS.  Read the rest of this entry »

The Aquaculture Research Institute at the University of Maine invites applications for a four-year PhD studentship modeling the infectious pressure of the salmon louse within the coastal zone where salmon aquaculture occurs. The work is connected to a recently funded NOAA Sea Grant project on the role of farmed and wild salmonids in modulating the infectious pressure of the salmon louse. Minimal requirements for this position are a MSc. in marine science, parasitology, zoology, oceanography or related field; however, an exceptional candidate without an MSc may be considered. Preferred qualifications are experience in at least one (and preferably more) of the following areas: ecological modeling, salmon louse biology, DNA extraction, PCR and sequencing, and statistical analysis. The preferred candidate will have published (or submitted) their master’s dissertation in peer-reviewed journals.  Read the rest of this entry »

After the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010, a number of individuals and groups had informal discussions to explore various options for the recovery and redevelopment process. Of specific interest was how aquaculture might be implemented to feed the people and develop commercial enterprises that would enhance the long-term food security of Haiti.

A one-day meeting was organized to take place in New Orleans, LA on the day prior to the start of Aquaculture America 2011. The meeting, organized and supported by Novus International, the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Aquaculture without Frontiers, and the World Aquaculture Society, attracted over 50 representatives from various organizations with interests in helping the Haitian recovery.  Read more …