Southern Maryland Marine Aquarium Society (SMMAS) Next Meeting

[Petroinmd]

SMMAS is now holding quarterly meetings.

Our next meeting is on March 10th from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. in Solomon's Island Maryland

 

Many of us are WAMAS members also. We would like to invite all our saltwater and freshwater friends to our next meeting that will include raffles,door prizes,frags for sale from a few local vendors and club members, AND an informative talk from a local coral researcher.

 

More info to come or visit us at www.SMMAS.org

[Petroinmd]

The University of Maryland Press Release has been provided below:

 

SOUTHERN MARYLAND MARINE AQUARIUM SOCIETY CORAL CONFERENCE MARCH 10

Chesapeake Biological Laboratory to Host SMMAS on Solomons

 

Solomons Island, MD - The Chesapeake Biological Laboratory (CBL) Bernie Fowler Lab Building will host members of the Southern Maryland Marine Aquarium Society for a “Coral Health and Culture Conference” Saturday, March 10 1pm-4pm

 

There will be a meeting of the membership and a presentation from Dr. Carys Mitchelmore, a professor at CBL. Dr. Mitchelmore’s work is in investigating the effects of aquatic pollutants and other stressors on the health of aquatic organisms, including corals. Her presentation will describe some of the threats to coral reefs at the global and local scale, highlighting research in her laboratory concerning the response of corals to environmental stressors.

  

“We’re pleased to have our meeting at CBL and to learn more about Dr. Mitchelmore’s research,” said SMMAS president Lynne Caplinger. “The goal of the SMMAS is to educate ourselves as well as the general public about the saltwater aquarium hobby and to raise awareness of the delicate reefs we take care of, in and out of our aquariums.”

SMMAS meets quarterly to exchange ideas, discuss current conditions in member’s tanks, share and trade corals, and plan field trips. There is also the SMMAS School Program with five area schools participating. “Members host tanks in schools and at the Dr. James A. Forrest Career and Technology Center,” continued Caplinger. “We’re helping the next generation learn about the hobby and about the marine environment.” 

 

Current SMMAS board members are:

Lynne Caplinger, President

Cynthia Cunningham, Vice President

Paul Wieland, Secretary

Sheleen Spencer, Treasurer

Ken Higgins, Trustee

Contact:  smmas@smmas.org   or website:  www.smmas.org

[AlanM]

Just a quick bump for this.  I'm planning to attend, and I think the family will come along to do some sightseeing.

 

The talk sounds great, and is what I'm primarily interested in hearing.  Do you know a breakdown of the timing of the event and when the talk will be?  I will also email the contact email to ask.

[Petroinmd]

Hi Alan

 

I'm copying in Lynne's reply (our club president):

We plan to start the club meeting until 1:30ish, so Dr. Mitchelmore will start around 2:00 pm. 

We like to give members time to meet and talk before the meeting starts.
We will have the club meeting first to go over upcoming events, club info and give people an opportunity to talk about tank issues they are having.
I am looking forward to meeting you.

 

 

Thanks for the bump

-sheleen

[AlanM]

The meeting was great.  I'm glad I was able to go.  I'm going to keep in touch with the speaker, and maybe she'll come up to do some research at our lab or send a grad student. 

 

It will be interesting to hear the results of her sampling in Hawaii.  For those who weren't there, their speaker took water, sand, and coral tissue samples at three different locations around Oahu principally looking to sample concentrations of oxybenzone, an active ingredient that has been blamed for killing corals. 

 

She believes that the science on it is far from settled and that it's way too early to start making legislation banning it as a result of a single study that showed that the chemical in some concentration is able to kill a coral cell culture.  Nearly anything can be toxic at some concentration.  They didn't even test on whole corals, nor did they test on corals from Hawaii, nor did they duplicate the results, nor did they sample the amount of the chemical around Hawaii before banning it.  

 

She sampled in different locations, tourist heavy ones like Waikiki with sunscreen literally in the air, mid-range tourist ones like Kahaluu with fewer tourists visiting the sandbars, and one other, which I can't recall where there are almost no tourists.  Then they just drove around the cost and took a bunch of water samples from all over because it was easy to do.