Seahorse breeding
While Malte Stuecker was a wonderful student and guest at Heaven, his seahorse breeding project* unfortunately didn’t go to plan. Lack of technology and the remoteness of the site led to breeding problems. But the monkeys eventually shut Malte down when they broke into the aquarium and wrecked the joint. They bounced through the roof, ripped all the electrical cables off the wall and shorted the electricity system. However, Malte was not too discouraged. He is now undertaking his PhD with the guidance of Dr Kerry Black and his science colleagues (Prof Terry Healy, Prof Greg Jenkins, Dr Paul Hamer and Dr Steve Swearer) on an Australian Research Council investigation of snapper breeding in Port Phillip Bay, Victoria, Australia.
*The seahorse breeding project was another Hotplanet sponsored program to aid the local villagers. The goal was to set up a low-tech operation as a demonstration and then hand this over to the locals for their livelihood improvement. This project led us to work more in the ocean, rather than trying to breed on the land and the next student Tobias successfully created an artificial reef (see News)