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Highlights Insider
News Awards and Appointments Winter E-currents Home |
Regional Highlights
Click on a region to read the latest news!
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Multi-state,
bi-national team guides rapid research response to new
invasive species
New
York Sea Grant is working to develop a rapid research
response to the discovery of Hemimysis in Lake Ontario
as part of a multi-state, bi-national group coordinated
by NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory
(GLERL). Research is needed to determine how Hemimysis
will affect the Great Lakes’ food webs and fisheries.
Full Story |
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Law
Center
Law
Center Awards Grants
The National Sea Grant Law Center awarded $550,000 in
competitive grants for legal research and outreach projects
in 2007. For more information about this and the monthly
Case Alert highlighting recent court decisions, please
visit: Sea
Grant Law Center.
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National Sea Grant Library
February 2007 Sea Grant publications
now available
The latest listing of new Sea Grant publications
produced by the National Sea Grant College Program can be found at the National
Sea Grant Library. |
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Regional Highlights Continued....
Pacific:
Alaska Sea Grant crab research program prepares for egg
hatch
More than one million king crabs are expected to hatch at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Seward Marine Center in the coming weeks. The hatch will mark an important milestone in efforts aimed at rebuilding wild king crab stocks around Kodiak and the Pribilof Islands. “We feel like expectant parents," said Brian Allee, director of Alaska Sea Grant and manager of the Alaska King Crab Research and Rehabilitation Program. The program was launched in 2006 at the urging of coastal communities and fishermen from Kodiak and the Pribilof Islands. The newly hatched crab will help scientists understand what is needed to succeed in large-scale hatchery restoration of red and blue king crab stocks in parts of Alaska where their numbers are low. The Alaska King Crab Research and Rehabilitation Program was born out of a grassroots effort by fishermen and coastal communities to reverse a decades-long slump in wild king crab production.
More Pacific News (AK CA [CA,USC] HI OR SC WA)
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Lakes: Minnesota
Sea Grant scientists find that Lake Superior's combination
of cold water and bacteria allow it to retain toxins
Sea Grant researchers reviewed the processes driving
pollutants in and through Lake Superior. The resulting
article, “Synthetic Organic Toxicants in Lake
Superior,” published in the peer-reviewed journal
Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Management, summarizes
25 years’ worth of investigations. The researchers
report that Lake Superior’s microbial community,
cold temperature, vast surface area, and long retention
time allow airborne pollutants to enter the lake and
stay. They document that: Most toxins make a long journey
through the atmosphere before encountering Lake Superior.
Once in Lake Superior, a toxin’s fate depends
on its ability to cling to or become part of larger
things, like algae. Toxins accumulate as they move up
food webs. Most toxins are recycled into the food web
by microbes. In addition, the researchers found that
Lake Superior has just the right conditions to hold
onto toxaphene (a pesticide banned in 1990), and that
the lake contains twice as much as Lake Michigan and
five times more than Lake Erie.
More
Great Lakes News
(IL-IN MI MN NY OH PA VT WI)
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Northeast:
Rhode Island Sea Grant extension leader chairs $2.3
million initiative
For
years, a bacterial shell disease has affected local lobster
populations without any clear explanations of the cause.
Now, a concerted search for answers is underway. A $3-million
appropriation, sponsored by Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, was used to create the New
England Lobster Research Initiative based at the University
of Rhode Island. Kathleen Castro, Rhode Island Sea Grant's
fisheries extension leader, was named chairwoman of the
initiative’s executive committee. A total of $2.3 million
in grants was awarded to nine research projects and two
monitoring programs targeted towards finding out more
about a disease that afflicts as many as a quarter of
the lobsters hauled in Rhode Island.
More Northeast News (CT MA [MIT, Woods Hole] ME NH NY RI
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Mid-Atlantic:
Delaware Sea Grant survey shows support for wind power
Delaware residents are strongly in favor of offshore wind
power (whirling wind turbines as tall as 40-story buildings
would be erected off the coast to generate electricity)
as a future source of energy for the state, according
to a survey conducted by University of Delaware researchers.
When asked to select from a variety of sources to help
the state increase its energy supply, more than 90 percent
of the 949 Delaware residents supported an offshore wind
option, even if wind power were to add between $1 and
$30 per month to their electric bills. Fewer than 10 percent
voted for an expansion of coal or natural gas power at
current prices. This summer, the Sea Grant scientists
and their graduate students will survey out-of-state visitors
to Delaware's beaches to further explore how an offshore
wind farm would affect tourism. The interim report on
the survey and a one-page executive summary are available
at http://www.ocean.udel.edu/windpower
More Mid-Atlantic News (DE MD NC NJ VA)
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Southeast:
Louisiana Sea Grant eliminates organic contaminants from
menhaden oil
Fish
oil is an important ingredient in pet foods and aquaculture
feeds, but organic contaminants have kept the processed
product from being sold in lucrative international markets.
A Sea Grant researcher demonstrated a simple refining
process to eliminate dioxin from crude fish oil. A fish
oil producer operating in the Gulf of Mexico has implemented
this process and is now able to deliver product that
meets European Union specifications.
More Southeast/Gulf/Caribbean News (FL GA LA MS-AL PR SC TX)
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