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Sylvia Spalding & David Vosseler NEW TIME!
Marine Aquarium Council
Friday, December 13, at 9 PM Eastern in Fish and Marine Chat
While everyone involved in the marine industry may have different problems and face different issues, they all agree that consumer demand for environmentally sound products can motivate the industry to adopt and adhere to standards that ensure resources are sustainable, responsibly managed and supported by good husbandry and handling practices. More than 3,000 aquarists, industry operators, conservationists and researchers in 60 countries belong to the Marine Aquarium Council network.

Sylvia Spalding is communications coordinator for MAC, and has experience spanning 20 years combining fisheries/marine conservation and journalism. While working for the Fisheries Training Project in the South Pacific Commission (now, Secretariat of the Pacific Community), Sylvia produced the Fisheries Newsletter and coauthored a manual on fisheries training opportunities for South Pacific islanders. She has served as media and publication specialist for the Pacific Business Center Program and editor for the Pelagic Fisheries Research Program and Hawaii Fishing News.

David Vosseler has broad experience in business management and the management and capacity building of international and national non-government organizations. He held senior positions with Counterpart International, Australian Foundation for Asia and the Pacific and Foundation of the Peoples of the South Pacific. He developed and managed programs linking social and economic activities, education and conservation and often containing marketing, product and resource certification, credit provision and other business development components. David wrote successful proposals to foundations, government agencies, UN and multilateral institutions and corporations. His many years of field experience includes community work throughout the Pacific, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

NEW! Josh Frey, Moody Gardens, Galveston, TX
Working at a Public Aquarium
Friday, December 13, at 10 PM Eastern in Fish and Marine Chat
The giant, 1.5 million-gallon Aquarium Pyramid at Moody Gardens, offering a splashy tribute to the North Pacific, Caribbean, Tropical Pacific and South Atlantic Oceans, opened in the summer of 1999. As one of the largest aquariums in the world, the facility features close-up views of penguins, sharks, seals, seahorses, moray eels and much more. Josh, who has been keeping reef aquariums for about 8 years, has worked at Moody for over a year, and studies marine biology and marine fisheries at Texas A&M. He helped set up a coral propagation system, which mainly houses SPS corals.

How to Attend

These events will be held in chat rooms listed above. There are two ways to access the chat rooms. The first is simply to follow the link as given. There is no registration required and there is nothing to download or install. The room does require you to have java enabled in your browser settings. We strongly suggest you access the room before the chat, so you have time to address any access difficulties you might have. You might want to drop by one of our regular nightly chats as a test run.

If you don't have java enabled in your browser, or aren't sure but find you cannot access the room, you can access the chats by downloading and installing any program that enables you to use Internet Relay Chat. The two most common programs are mIRC for PCs and IRCle for Macs. You can find more information on how to access our room using those programs here: ChatFAQ.

More Information There is information about chats on other species available at the links in the right hand column. Simply click on the species in which you are interested for a more detailed listing. Some of the chats even have free email reminders you can sign up for!