Sea Lice 2010

Opening Reception

The Opening Reception will be held at the Inn at Laurel Point, Sunday May 9^th, 2010 starting at 7pm. All delegates are welcome to attend this informal social evening organized for networking and interacting with colleagues and research partners and meeting important new contacts.

May 11^th Evening Reception

A reception on May 11^th has been organized for Sea Lice 2010 delegates attending the conference evening session. Featuring beverages and light food this event will be held prior to the May 11^th evening session.

Dinner

All delegates are invited to the dinner Monday May 10^th, 2010 evening at the Inn at Laurel Point, which includes guest speaker Dr. Brian Harvey, a fisheries biologist and author of The End of the River ECW Press.

Dinner Presentation: From Galileo to Geisha
What's happened to science? Biologist and writer Brian Harvey spent the first half of his career "practicing science" in developing countries. Back home, when he was asked to review the research on sea lice, he ended up rethinking what it means to be a scientist.

Dinner fees are included with conference registration and a no host bar will be available before and during the dinner.

Tours

The Local Organising Committee, in collaboration with ITT Wilson's Tours, have put together three local tour excursion for conference delegates. All tours will take place Wednesday afternoon, May 12^th and will include return transportation from the Inn at Laurel Point. See below for further information and link to sign up. Tourism Victoria also has information on tours and events.

Tour 1 - World Renowned Butchart Gardens

Butchart Gardens will be alive with the colours and scents of spring. One of the finest displays of flowers in the world heralds the season with hundreds of thousands of bulbs in bloom, joined by a host of flowering trees and shrubs. The tour has options to attend High Tea Lunch at the gardens, and an excursion to nearby Butterfly World, which houses collections of Butterflies, rare birds, koi, 200 species of orchids and thousands of tropical plants.

Tour 2 - Jack Brooks Salmon Hatchery and Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery

Jack Brooks Hatchery is operated by the Sooke Salmon Enhancement Society and is currently working with chinook and coho salmon as well as Steelhead (sea run rainbow trout). Staff at the hatchery are all volunteers, who rear and release between 600,000 to 1 million fish each year. Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery, also located in Sooke, has been in operation since 2003, producing local honey and up to 12,000 bottles of award winning honey wine, or mead.

Tour 3 - Pacific Coast Whale Watching

Leaving from Victoria Harbour, the whale watching excursion will travel out to view the Southern Resident Killer Whales. Arriving in the spring from the open ocean, the whales migrate to inland water around Sooke, Victoria and Vancouver to feed during summer. Using photo-identification techniques and a little help from on-board naturalists, individual whales can be identified from the known family groups which have been extensively studied on West Coast.