Presentation: Garage-a-Culture! Starting an aquaculture company at home

Garage-a-culture is a presentation based on our home aquaculture venture highlighting the techniques and feasibility of small scale ornamental aquaculture.

Bios: 

Travis Knorr, a former aquarium fish collector in the Florida Keys, worked as the aquaculture lab technician at the College of the Florida Keys where he also co-founded the CFK Aquaculture Club. In 2020, he became the Curator and Operations Manager of the Key West Aquarium, and then began work at MOTE’s Elizabeth Moore International Center for Coral Reef Restoration and Research as the Life Support Systems Manager.

Dr. Mick Walsh: Dr. Walsh strives to ally scientific, academic, stakeholder, and policy objectives of fisheries and aquaculture with an inclusive, multi-operational approach that involves fishermen, students, academia, managers, policymakers, industry, and the public to establish effective mechanisms for sustainable utilization and stewardship of these resources.

After completing her undergraduate degree at Rutgers University, Dr. Walsh worked as a laboratory technician for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), National Marine Fisheries Service, at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Sandy Hook, NJ. This opportunity paved her career in fish culture, as working with the Life History and recruitment Group offered the experience of rearing local fishery – important marine species. Those species were reared to examine environmental influences on growth, development, morphology, and mortality of larvae and juveniles — ultimately contributing to the best scientific information available for use in fishery stock assessments.

Dr. Walsh’s experience then broadened to focus on hatchery and release strategies for flatfish stock enhancement both in the U.S. (as Graduate student at the University of New Hampshire) and Japan (where she spent 2 years as a Fulbright Graduate Research Fellow working with Japanese scientists, hatchery managers, and fishermen). Subsequently, she spent 3 years concentrating on sustainable seafood as a Fishery Policy Analyst for the Office of Sustainable Fisheries at NOAA Fisheries Service in Silver Spring, MD. Walsh’s research interests center on the early life of fish species, including nutritional requirements and feeding behavior.