Timothy D. Birthisel

B.S. Zool., Ohio State University, 1976

Certified Scuba Diver Since 1970

Employed (primarily) in Research and Development for The Andersons, Inc., an agribusiness company in Maumee, Ohio since 1976

Proprietor of TerraSubAqua, a coral and live rock aquaculture located in the Florida Keys since 1995.

Publication, "Can Capitalism and Conservation Coexist?" Jan. 2000, FAMA.

Presentation: "Adventures in Aquaculture with TerraSubAqua," National Coral Reef Institute, Ft. Lauderdale, April, 1999

The Terra Sub Aqua Project is a unique for-profit enterprise with the intent of assisting the success of the main reef-building coral species, Montastraea (Mountainous Star) and Acropora (Elkhorn and Staghorn) in the Florida Keys via aquaculture and practical research. The commercial value offered by the products we produce funds the research effort, and the commercial challenges coincide well with the research questions. The current research focus of the TSA project is to assist recruitment and maintenance of corals in a renewable live rock and coral operation off Plantation Key, and we are working to help improve the success of these corals' reproductive power via techniques with the potential to economically implant hundreds of thousands of colonies in a short period of time. According to marine life surveys, our operation has been responsible for an over 1000% increase in the population and biodiversity in the area of our operations since we began in 1996.