A School of Fishes

Dr. Craig Harms ('89)
Do fish sleep? Yes, when properly anesthetized. And that's the goal of a unique one-week selective class taught annually by Craig Harms of North Carolina State University at the Center for Marine Sciences and Technology (CMAST). In an all-day class in a research and clinical lab at the center, students work in pairs not only to learn the proper technique to put a two-pound bass under, but also to do exploratory surgery and then suture them up again. Harms, the director of the CMAST's Marine Health Program, not only oversees the teaching program, but also provides veterinary oversight to the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center and several marine mammal and sea turtle stranding networks. "When I was first based down here, people were always asking me what a veterinarian was going to do at a marine lab," Harms says. "The truth is, we have more happening here than we can keep up with."