Marine Lab Opens Doors to Students
By Bill Mcdonald, Connecticut Post, Bridgeport
Oct. 13–MILFORD — Jonathan Paglinco, of Milford, said learning more about scallops, oysters and mussels helped him work with fish at his job in a pet store.
John-Michael Brereton, of Branford, didn’t know having clams in a fish tank helped clean the algae out.
Erica Hottin, of East Haven, wanted to learn as much as possible touring the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Marine Fisheries Service laboratory in Milford. She hoped to eventually work there pursuing a career in marine biology.
Paglinco, part of a community experience class from Law and Foran, along with Brereton, a Branford High senior, and Hottin, a University of New Haven marine biologist freshman, were among 400 students touring the federal fisheries unit Friday. Groups from the region ranged from elementary to college students.
It was a rare visit since the facility, an arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce, only opens to the public one weekend a year.
Friday was the day for touring school groups. Today is the annual open house for public tours of the 212 Rogers Ave. facility bordering Milford Harbor.
Guided tours will be given from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with marine scientists, displays and a touch tank of local fish, all explaining research at the laboratory that has been there since 1930.
“This is a secure federal research facility,” said laboratory director Christopher Brown, a Milford resident. “We’re mainly into the research of scallops, clams and oysters. We like to have the open house once a year to show the public what we do.”
He noted the laboratory was interested in aquaculture or farming in the ocean as opposed to agriculture or farming on land.
“This is the first place that domesticated the oyster,” he said of the pioneering work of the first laboratory director, Victor Loosanoff, in the 1930s.
“This has always been a great oystering area,” Brown said. “What was done before was gathering them up in the wild, out on the Sound. Here it’s called stock enhancement. We grow seeds here and plant them in a certain area in the Sound, which can assure commercial fishermen of a crop.”
The facility includes 40 employees in two laboratory buildings, a greenhouse and the 50-foot research vessel, “RV Loosanoff.”
Visitors are set to be shown eight different touring stations today with explanations of history, genetics, aquaculture water quality, aquaculture for both finfish and shellfish and a discussion of boats and sampling gear used.
A touch tank for children shows close up views of such fish as crabs, lobsters, bluefish and sculpins.
Carmela Cuomo, associate professor and coordinator of marine biology at the University of New Haven, was leading a group of 11 marine biology freshmen Friday.
“I work on aquaculture horseshoe crabs. I breed them and grow them in the tanks here,” she said. “Some of our juniors and seniors end up here as interns looking for a career in aquaculture. To have a facility like this locally is a gift.”
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