Sarasota Livin'

Mote Marine Laboratory ... is much more than an aquarium ... it is an important science facility ....

What started as a one-woman operation in 1955 by the now-famous shark researcher, Dr. Eugenie Clark, has evolved into seven research centers home to more than 230 staff members, including about 40 Ph.D. scientists who lead their respective fields. 2005 marks the 50th anniversary of Mote's founding and a half century of advancing the science of the sea, concentrating on nearshore marine research.

How about a story in the Alaska Fisherman's Journal about Mote Marine (it is a reprint from the Bradenton Herald...

Aquaculture Expands at Mote

Nov. 4--SARASOTA -- Nestled on 200 acres in east Sarasota County is an environmentally-sound aquaculture park that may some day pave the way for a new type of economy in Florida.

Mote Marine Laboratory purchased the land in 2001 to increase domestic aquaculture production, according to Jim Michaels, project manager for the facility's sturgeon aquaculture program.

The sturgeon production hatchery was the first program at the park. The program started in the late 1990s at Mote on Longboat Key, but was transferred to the park about six months after it opened.

The sturgeon program was created with many goals in mind, including demonstrating the economic viability of growing sturgeon for meat and caviar products, Michaels said.

Mote raises Siberian sturgeon, which takes nearly six years to reach the stage where they can be harvested for caviar, Michaels said.

"We'd like to help develop an industry in Florida that will allow the state to be known as a caviar producer. It would also help reduce the fishing pressure on threatened and endangered wild stocks," Michaels said.

Mote scientist searches for history Sarasota Herald Tribune article about Archaeologist J. "Coz" Cozzi working for Mote...

Cozzi, 49, a nautical archaeologist with Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, specializes in locating and examining historic shipwrecks. He's been doing the work for nearly 25 years.

He was on a 1996 expedition off the Texas coast where he and others made a rare find: a 300-year-old skeleton so preserved by the sand that its skull still had brain matter inside.

But in Charlotte Harbor, Cozzi is hoping to find boats once used by American Indians, turn-of-the-century phosphate workers or perhaps even Spanish explorers, all of whom once sailed Charlotte Harbor.