When: Thursday, January 18, 2007, at 3 p.m.

Contact: Dan Svedarsky, head, Natural Resources Department, 218-281-8129 (dsvedars@umn.edu ) Elizabeth Tollefson, assistant director of communications, 218-281-8432 (ltollefs@umn.edu)

CROOKSTON, Minn. (January 16, 2007) – The University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) will host a seminar featuring Stephen Stephen Bortone, Ph.D., Director of the Minnesota Sea Grant College on the U of M Duluth campus will be at UMC on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007. Bortone, Ph.D. on Thursday, Jan. 18, 2007. His presentation entitled, “Sanctuaries and Artificial Reefs as Ecosystem Management Alternatives in the Great Lakes” will be held in Youngquist Auditorium at 3 p.m. and is open to the public. Bortone is the fifth director of the Minnesota Sea Grant College. He has worked for over 30 years in the coastal subtropics, but moved to Duluth to focus on Lake Superior and Minnesota’s inland lakes. Bortone, directed the Marine Laboratory at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation on Sanibel Island in Florida. He brings a wealth of research and leadership to the Minnesota Sea Grant College and as a tenured faculty member of the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Department of Biology. Bortone earned a Ph.D. in marine sciences from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and spent most of his career as a faculty member in the biology department at the University of West Florida. His research has focused on the biology of fish and seagrasses in brackish water, and most lately on the plausibility of monitoring environmental trends through the study of the growth patterns of an economically important sportfish, the spotted seatrout. For more information on the Bortone presentation or UMC’s Natural Resources Department, please contact Judy Baatz at 218-281-8128 or baatz@umn.edu. The University of Minnesota, Crookston (UMC) delivers more than 24 different undergraduate degree programs, including online options, in agriculture; arts, humanities and social sciences; business; math, science and technology; and natural resources. UMC is dedicated to helping students and the region aim higher, reach further and dream big dreams. To learn more, visit www.UMCrookston.edu.