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Aquaculture proponents view the ocean off Southern California as an ideal place for an emerging industry. The key, new research found, will be to carefully locate facilities to minimize environmental risks and conflicts with other marine uses.
“If we’re going to have more seafood to eat, we’re going to have to start growing it,” said Paul Olin, an aquaculture expert and extension specialist with the California Sea Grant program.
A new report out of UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds that methods of tracking coastal cliff erosion using historical data to predict the impacts of sea-level rise may be unreliable.
The report called out California’s worst areas for cliff failure in the first decade of this century — including San Onofre State Beach, Daly City, Point Reyes National Seashore and Palos Verdes. The research was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s California Sea Grant program.
To help drone operators observe animals without inadvertently harming them, Alicia Amerson founded the San Diego-based company AliMoSphere, which trains drone pilots to fly safely in marine environments.
Two years ago, Amerson completed a California Sea Grant State Fellowship as a resource consultant for Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom. In his office, she worked on a variety of projects concerning marine conservation and marine mammal safety.
Peter Halmay is 76, but retirement is the furthest thing from his mind. He works six days a week diving for sea urchins, organizing his catch, or doing boat work. He spends his day off speaking in front of fisheries managers or working on his latest endeavor—recruiting and educating a new generation of fishers through apprenticeships.
Halmay and Theresa Talley, a scientist from California Sea Grant at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, are in the early stages of developing the apprenticeship curriculum for future fishers in San Diego, California.
The newly released Coastal Ecosystem Vulnerability Assessment (CEVA), funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, details the potential impacts of climate change to Santa Barbara County’s coastline ecosystems, especially beaches and wetlands. “If we value them, we have to make plans for them,” said Monique Myers, a California Sea Grant researcher who organized the study. “They are on the frontline of climate change.”
Today a deadly herpes virus, Ostreid herpesvirus 1 (OsHV-1), is threatening Pacific oysters (Crassostrea gigas), the world’s most popular and valuable oyster species. It is almost certain to spread more widely in our globally connected world.
Colleen Burge is currently funded by the NOAA Sea Grant Aquaculture Program and the UMBC-UMB Research and Innovation Partnership Grant Program for her work on OsHV-1. She has been funded in the past by California Sea Grant College Program and National Sea Grant.