Ocean Wanderers: MA Sturgeon and Lampreys
May 12, 2010
Hosted by Rob Moir
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Guest Information
Episode Description
Sturgeons and lampreys are truly ocean river dwellers. My understanding and awe of anadromous fish was forever altered by lamprey nest building behavior and what the behavior of two sturgeon told Dr Boyd Kynard last month. Many years ago, he discovered in his neighborhood the only Massachusetts tributary river of the Connecticut River watershed that is not dammed, the Fort River. We talk about an amazing fish, the lamprey, which stops feeding in Long Island Sound to travel to the Pelham Hills transporting carbon and ocean chemicals including boron to endow ecosystems far from the sea. Discover the many ways lamprey leave an environment better off than found. Don’t miss Dr. Kynard’s remarkable research findings of Atlantic and shortnose sturgeon populations in the CT and Merrimack Rivers. Both sturgeon and lamprey are resilient, long-lived fish, ocean wanderers with life histories and survival strategies very different from the well-studied salmon.
Moir’s Environmental Dialogues
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With the knowledge of Carson and the courage of Achilles, individuals are steadfastly going the distance to defend wildlife and ecosystems from assaults of environmental degradations and destructions. Join environmental studies scientist Dr. Rob Moir for lively dialogue and revealing narrative inquiry into how individuals are overcoming the obstacles turning forlorn hope into effective actions for oceans, rivers, watersheds, wildlife and ecosystems. Discover how listening to individuals, thinking locally, and acting in concert with other, you can act to save ecosystems. Got environmental stewardship? Become an Eco-steward. Act to bring about a greener and blue Planet Earth.
Rob Moir
Rob Moir is director and founder of the Ocean River Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Dr. Moir, an educator and scientist, has been a leader of citizen science and efforts to clean up Salem Sound and Boston Harbor, as founder of Salem Sound Harbor Monitors & Salem Sound 2000, later president of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, and through his appointment by the Secretary of Interior to the Boston Harbor Islands Partnership. He was formerly Curator of Natural History at the Peabody Essex Museum, Curator of Education at the New England Aquarium and Executive Director of the Discovery Museums in Acton, MA. Dr. Moir was awarded a Switzer Environmental Fellowship from the Robert & Patricia Switzer Foundation, and the James Centorino Award for Distinguished Performance in Marine Education by the National Marine Educators Association, which he later served as president. He was Sea Education Association’s first assistant scientist to work consecutive voyages of the R.V. Westward in 1979 and 1980, an advancement officer for his alma mater, Hampshire College and serves today on the boards of his alma mater, Cambridge School of Weston, Ocean Champions, and the Massachusetts League of Environmental Voters. Dr. Moir has a Ph.D. in Environmental Studies and a Masters of Science and Teaching from Antioch New England Graduate School in Keene, NH and certificate of studies from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole.