Friday Feeds

SAASTA MD Visits SAIAB:

Penny and Jabu outside the SAIAB building

The Managing Director of the South African Agency for Science and Technology Advancement (SAASTA) paid SAIAB a visit as part of SAASTA’s efforts to stimulate science advancement across the country through strengthening ties with sister organisations within the NRF. The meeting was attended by Angus, Penny, Noziphiwe from SAEON, Vanessa and Garth. In this meeting, Jabu pointed out that SAASTA is committed to aiding facilities such as SAIAB which have the capacity but not necessarily the human capital for science advancement. One of the main points from the meeting was the fact that in order for science advancement to be carried out effectively, SAASTA would need to have regional offices across the country. Angus assured Jabu that SAIAB would be more than happy to house such regional offices. SAIAB and SAASTA have always had strong ties particularly with events such as the upcoming annual National Science Week.  For more information about this years’ National Science Week, to go http://www.saasta.ac.za/

Paul Cowley – SuperSport TV personality



Paul (extreme right, second row from top) with participants of his Catch and Release workshops

Paul Cowley recently did a couple of television shows stressing Catch and Release Practices. These shows were aired on SuperSports’ (SS6) Inside Angling show. The last show was filmed at Kleinemonde and they advertised the “A guide to the Ecology of Temporary Open/Closed Estuaries” booklet. Ever since, we have had a flood of requests coming in for this booklet. According to Vanessa, not only have we had hundreds of requests of the Estuaries booklet, this has also had a huge knock-on effect on pushing up the demand for other stock. “We’ve had people phoning about posters, other books (mostly coastal fishes) and there’s also been demand for the “Biology and Ecology of fishes in Southern African Estuaries” by Dr Alan Whitfield which is normally a very quiet book”.  SAIAB will be purchasing the aired programmes and copies will be made available in the library.

American student joins SAIAB Family

Gavin and Jessica shortly after her arrival

Jessica Glass is a Masters student from the University of Alaska in Fairbairns. She’ll be with us for about two months (nine weeks to be exact). She’ll be doing a genetics and morphology research project with Dr Gavin Gouws as well as some telemetry work and outreach with Dr Paul Cowley. She says she’s looking forward to her experience at SAIAB.

Winter School 2012

The SAIAB Winter School kicks off in less than two weeks. This year we had a total of 25 applications from Universities around the Eastern Cape and a few from outside of the province. Applicants have been shortlisted to 16 participants. Three SAIAB interns (Elethu Duna, Jessica Glass and Kanya Ncoyo) will have the opportunity to attend the Winter School along with seven students from Walter Sisulu University, four from Fort Hare and two LG SETA interns from DIFS at Rhodes.