Fred S. Conte, Ph.D.
Aquaculture Specialist, Lecturer
Department of Animal Science
University of California
Davis, CA 95616-8521
USA
Phone: (530)752-7689
FAX: (530)752-0175
E-mail:
fsconte@ucdavis.edu
URL:
http://animalscience.ucdavis.edu/faculty/conte/
About This Web Site
Good
day, my name is Fred Conte, and welcome to the
California Aquaculture web site. Aquaculture is aquatic
farming of plants and animals, and has been our subject
since the site went on line in the early 1990s. The
website is connected to the computer network of the
Department of Animal Science and is located on the
campus of the University of California, Davis. It is
designed to provide information to Californians, but has
regional, national, and international audiences.
The
website is designed as a working tool that leads the
user to aquaculture information, publications, and
services. It is also a gateway to information on other
web sites, including universities, societies and
associations, nation-wide, and international sources of
aquatic-related information. You may find valuable and
interesting links to federal and state agencies with
programs of interest to fish and shellfish farmers.
Links to other university sites and even commercial
services may be of interest to our audiences. We invite
you to look over the site’s content as we believe that
you will find it both informative and especially
valuable to those with an interest or even a curiosity
about aquaculture.
Recently, we have updated the website’s appearance, and
added four new features. You will find links to these
features on the Primary Page. They are links to News,
Podcasts, Video Presentations, and Health and Welfare.
News
will contain announcements of meetings and events of
interest to our viewers, and will also contain news from
state, federal and international sources that impact, or
are of interest to aquatic farmers. Each month, the
posted information will be archived in sections that are
organized by month. This information is retrievable from
the Archive section of the site. We encourage you to
visit the News section often, as it will be updated,
even daily, as information is received.
Podcasts are digital sound files, that in our use
contain information. Although we are introducing this
section with two podcasts that describe the site and who
we are, future podcasts will include discussions ranging
from technology, or even how to stock and manage a pond
or lake, to social and political issues impacting
aquaculture and aquatic farmers. This area will not
develop as rapidly as News, but will show a steady
growth.
Video Presentations will use technology that merges
PowerPoint presentations with sound to create a Flash
video presentation that is more powerful, but in a
smaller file format than the original PowerPoint file.
We believe that you will find this section both
entertaining and informative as it allows us to post
presentations created for the site, and those we present
at professional meetings. They will include science,
technology, and social and political issues surrounding
aquaculture.
Our
fourth addition to the website is Health and Welfare. We
have always hosted animal health issues in California
Aquaculture; however, we are now including materials
addressing aquatic animal welfare. We have started with
a few links to essential external websites that address
aquatic animal welfare, but will quickly expand to
additional links and to our own materials that will also
be presented in Podcasts and Video presentations.
About the People
It is good to put names on the people operating
California Aquaculture and the organizations associated
with the web site; especially as you have chosen to give
us your time.
California Aquaculture is maintained by the Dr. Fred
Conte, Extension Aquaculture Specialist and Lecturer,
and Dr. Abbas Ahmadi, Software Engineer and senior
programmer in the Department of Animal Science at the
University of California, Davis. I am Fred, and Abbas
has been my colleague who has kept me digitally
proficient over the years.
I am
part of the Extension faculty of the Department, with
teaching and research responsibilities. As a Cooperative
Extension Specialist, my primary responsibilities is to
develop and conduct programs that benefit my clientele
group, which include aquaculture producers, State and
Federal agencies impacting aquaculture, and the general
public. My work includes both marine and freshwater
aquaculture. My teaching includes lectures and workshops
in aquaculture technology, public policy, aquaculture
regulations, and social issues including environmental
impacts and animal welfare.
Abbas works with departmental faculty to create animal
production-related software programs, performs
programming and statistical services to the Department,
builds our websites and keeps the faculty current in the
digital world. He has been my co-author on numerous
computer-related publications and presentations, and
designed and built the software that operates the
various search and sort functions on California
Aquaculture’s publication section.
The California Aquaculture website is among many of the
websites located on the
University of California,
Davis Campus. U.C. Davis is one among the ten U.C.
campuses located throughout the state, and is one of the
three U.C. campuses that are part of the Land Grant
System. The United States Land Grant System is an
organization of universities that operate through state
funds, but have some financial ties to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. Among other social
responsibilities, they have an agriculture mission to
teach, do research and extend that information to both
rural and urban communities.
The
Land Grant network within the University of California
includes Experiment Station researchers, Cooperative
Extension Specialists and Cooperative Extension
Advisors. Advisors are located at the University of
California, and at County Cooperative Extension offices
throughout the state. The University of California is
also a Sea Grant institution. Campus Sea Grant
specialist hold joint Cooperative Extension and Sea
Grant appointments, but work more exclusively on marine
resource issues. Sea Grant advisors are located in the
coastal counties of the state.
The “Water Carrier” is the artwork of Sheila Waters, and
highlights the graphics used in the California
Aquaculture web site.
Ms.
Waters is a renowned artist, whose works in calligraphy,
design and art education have international recognition.
Special thanks are extended to Ms. Waters and we
encourage you to click on "The Water Carrier" to visit
her web site.
The
montage of photographs will be a collection of
aquaculture scenes from California, the nation and
international sites. You may see these pictures change
over time. Some of the pictures will have no relation to
aquaculture, but represent the community of students and
other University personnel. Others will be international
fish and shellfish culturists, and a diversity of people
who just grace the presentation. Our logo of the
University of California appears in the left margin of
site pages.
Thank you for giving us your time to get to know who we
are and where we are located.
Fred Conte
