aquaculture

The guide disappeared offline for a while and I was worried that the online draft guide to learning and teaching ichthyology was lost and gone forever. But it’s back.

This online course is free, and uses the FishBase.org data sets. There’s probably not a more comprehensive ichthyology course available online, and being available for free makes it a real treasure. It’s self-paced – you work through, use the FishBase data for reference, makes some notes and reflect, and all for free – a generous gift by the authors.

The guide provides a structure and case study material for a computer-based course in ichthyology for upper undergraduate and graduates students in biology or environmental science.

The key resource made accessible through this guide is FishBase, a large database on the biology of fish, available on CD-ROM (for the Windows operating system) and on the Internet (www.fishbase.org/search.cfm).

A free version on Huxley’s classic book The Crayfish is maintained on online by Rich Palmer, at the University of Alberta.

The book is subtitled: ‘An introduction to the study of zoology’. I particularly enjoy the ‘kinder, gentler’ writing style and it feels (or perhaps more accurately – reads) as though Huxley is very attuned to a more holistic approach to describing the crayfish.

The online version is supported by the original elegant woodblock illustrations and, as well, Rich has created a glossary (which was not part of the orginial edition).

In May, 1993, Eileen M. McVey produced a revised edition of Aquaculture for Youth and Youth Educators, National Agricultural Library Aquaculture Information Center. The document – a curriculum and teacher resource – is hosted by cyfernet.org.

This revision of the original Aqua-Topic, titled _Aquaculture for Youth and Youth Educators_, was created in response to continued demand from teachers, youth leaders, and students who are interested in receiving information and ideas on aquaculture for projects and study. The information which follows is for students at upper elementary through high school learning levels. Recommended activities at the end of the text are organized by level of difficulty; Level I being the least difficult and Level III being the most difficult. The activities can be modified depending on geographic area and availability of resources. A glossary is also included at the end of the text for those students who need assistance with vocabulary. Words that are marked by asterisks in the text can be found in the glossary. Bibliographies are also included at the end for both students and teachers.

The Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry has produced a brief overview of aquaculture and a checklist of questions to ask yourself before getting starting in an aquaculture venture.

The focus is on starting an aquaculture enterprise in an Australian-type of context – i.e. where an investment of millions of dollars is required, rather than a backyard type of operation where the goal is to raise fish for yourself, or perhaps a small local market. The information is still valuable, with the checklist covering site, species etc being relevant to fish farming everywhere.

Setting up in aquaculture can be an expensive exercise and is not for the faint-hearted. First you need to acknowledge that this represents a significant business decision and requires a serious commitment.

Just like any other business venture, aquaculture requires a detailed feasibility study before investment decisions are made. Anything less than that puts you in the category of hobby farming, which is an excellent lifestyle choice but may not earn income.

The perception of aquaculture as an appealing lifestyle choice is a commonly held belief in Australia, possibly fuelled by our by our preference for coastal living. This has led on occasions to emotional rather than hard economic reasons driving what can be a ‘make or break’ financial decision. In retrospect, it appears that there are a number of conceptual hurdles at which the prospective aquaculturist may stumble. They are:

• a too ready acceptance of new or untried technology
• ignorance of the fact that aquaculture is a farming/business enterprise
• under capitalisation
• lack of market intelligence
• failure to understand that the product is a living organism with special requirements, because of its specific water quality requirements.