Since Superstorm Sandy, the most popular buzz-words among planners and municipal officials are “resiliency” and “green infrastructure,” said Lisa Auermuller as she opened Tuesday’s conference focused on those very words, held at the Jacque Cousteau Estuarine Research Reserve Education Center in Tuckerton. Planners, officials and concerned citizens from as far away as Staten Island and as close as Tuckerton came, hoping to “make a better world, even if global warming is a hoax,” to paraphrase a popular joke… Green infrastructure can be many things. It can be creating green spaces, new storm water practices and rules, building a rain garden, collecting water in a rain barrel or mitigating wetlands and shorelines with oyster reefs or coconut-fiber wave barriers… Chris Obropta from Rutgers University’s Water Resources Program and the Rutgers Cooperative Extension discussed green infrastructure in the urban landscape. He said it was his job to help people solve problems as cheaply as possible.
Rutgers Scientist Explains Fisheries Management in New Jersey
Olaf Jensen, assistant professor at Rutgers University’s Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, is one member of the scientific community who helps decide how best to manage fish species in New Jersey as a member of the Mid-Atlantic Fishery Management Council’s Scientific and Statistical Committee… Jensen explained the challenges and difficulties in assessing dynamic fish populations. To put his audience of mostly recreational fishermen at ease, he told a funny story about a forester and a scientist having a conversation on numbers. “The forester says he goes out and counts the trees and makes a decision on how many he can cut down while still sustaining the forest. The fisheries manager says, “I do the same thing, except you can’t see the fish and they move.”… Determining the amount of the black sea bass biomass and subsequently setting fishing limits has been made more difficult by the biology of that species. Black sea bass are “protogenous hermaphrodites,” said Jensen. “They start out as females and change sex,” he said.
Rutgers Doctoral Student Focuses Bay Scallop Study in Barnegat Bay
With volunteer help from the Rutgers Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration Program, Samantha Gilbert is doing her doctorate in ecology and evolution on the effects of algae blooms on bay scallops in Barnegat Bay… BBSRP Director Gef Flimlin offered Gilbe…
Station 119: From Lifesaving to Marine Research by Ken Able Covers a Landmark
Not everyone would be able to write about their workplace with such dedication and passion as Ken Able, the director of the Rutgers Marine Field Station situated at the end of Great Bay Boulevard in Little Egg Harbor… Able, a fish biologist and profe…