Another year seems to have come and gone since the last Porcupine!, but this does not reflect a lack of activity – rather a rather rapid passing of time! SWIMS, as ever, has been a centre of research activities, including hosting workshops and talks (the most notable being on tidal movements and patterns with the Hong Kong Marine Biological Association); receiving research visitors (from China, Germany, Italy, UK, Korea, Singapore, Russia) and participating in the second year of the highly successful Ocean Park Conservation Foundation Internships, during which students worked with giant pandas, river dolphins and baiji.

This year has also seen a huge increase in visitor numbers and outreach activities, the most ambitious involving 17 King George V school students on work experience, who, together with helpers from other Hong Kong schools and universities in the UK, Canada and of course our own HKU students, helped boost the research and also social activities at SWIMS.

We have also seen an influx of new research students and Post Doctoral fellows. Ex-SWIMS graduate, Dr Ng Wai Chuen, returned in January to coordinate an RGC project on barnacle distribution and genetics, joined by Dr Wai Tak Cheung, who has been working on the trophodynamics of marine communities. The SWIMS research community was further strengthened by the arrival of Dr James True, from James Cook University in Australia. James is a coral biologist and has initiated a system to cultivate and grow local corals. The transfer of Ms Joyce Ng to help establish culture facilities in SWIMS from the Kadoorie Agricultural and Research Centre has further enhanced this development.

Finally, congratulations to Drs Andy Cornish and Benny Chan who left SWIMS for new positions at WWF (HK) and Academia Sinica, Taiwan, respectively. We look forward to collaborating with them in the near future.

Gray A. Williams

Hon. Director SWIMS

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