27 Facts About Gordon Gunter

Gordon Pennington Gunter was an American marine biologist and fisheries scientist.

Gordon Gunter is noted for his pioneering study of fisheries in the northern Gulf of Mexico, a topic to which he devoted his entire professional life over a career spanning 60 years.

Gordon Gunter pioneered the study of the comparative physiology of shellfish and fish.

Gordon Pennington Gunter was born in Goldonna, Louisiana, on August 18,1909.

Gordon Gunter then attended the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, to study bacteriology and received a master's degree in 1931.

Gordon Gunter belonged to the American Fisheries Society for 50 years, and received its highest honor when he was named an Honorary Member of the Society.

Gordon Gunter was a member of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences and was elected its president in 1966; it presented him with its prestigious Outstanding Contributions to Science in Mississippi award in 1975.

In 1939, Gordon Gunter returned to the University of Texas as an instructor in physiology, concurrently taking a position as a marine biologist with the Texas Fish, Game and Oyster Commission.

The University of Texas founded the Institute of Marine Science at Port Aransas, Texas, in 1945, and Gordon Gunter began research there after receiving his Ph.

Gordon Gunter served as acting director of the institute from 1949 to 1954 and as its director from 1954 to 1955.

Gordon Gunter was the editor of the University of Texas's Publications of the Institute of Marine Science from 1950 to 1955 and founded the publication Contributions to Marine Science.

Gordon Gunter had a vision of the laboratory becoming a major research center for the study of marine biology and fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico; he set about fulfilling that vision, and he is best known for his tenure at the laboratory.

The laboratory's first project under Gordon Gunter's direction funded by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service was a study of the life cycle of the menhaden published in 1958, and much of the significant early fisheries research in the northern Gulf of Mexico took place under his direct supervision as director.

Gordon Gunter was an avid and voracious reader and believed strongly in keeping up to date on current professional literature, and on September 1,1955, as one of his first initiatives as director, he established a research library at the laboratory for use by faculty, staff, visiting scientists, and students.

Gordon Gunter's tenure saw the construction of the laboratory's oceanography building, a 40-room brick dormitory, the anadromous fisheries building, the research building, the Caylor Building, and a maintenance shop, as well as the rebuilding of the Hopkins teaching laboratory.

Gordon Gunter was an early advocate of aquaculture, and he foresaw an industry involving the mariculture of shrimp eventually growing along the US Gulf Coast.

Gordon Gunter's pioneering work helped lead to a burgeoning shrimp-farming industry along the US Gulf Coast by the mid-1980s.

Gordon Gunter saw an understanding of the effects of the Mississippi River on the biology of fisheries in the north-central Gulf of Mexico as essential to understanding and managing fisheries resources in the area, and he supported the idea of a large, 20-to-25-year effort by a multidisciplinary team of scientists to discover and assess the river's impact.

Gordon Gunter concluded that without the work of the Corps of Engineers, the Atchafalaya River increasingly would capture the waters of the Mississippi, that the two rivers would be of equal size by 2038, and that the Mississippi eventually would cease to flow past New Orleans, and instead would turn westward to flow down to the Gulf of Mexico down the course of the Atchafalaya, entering the Gulf of Mexico near Morgan City, Louisiana.

Colleagues credited Gordon Gunter with being instrumental in urging the Corps of Engineers to require environmental impact statements.

Gordon Gunter stepped down as director of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in 1971, but he continued to work at the laboratory as professor of zoology and director emeritus until 1979 when he retired from active service to the state government of Mississippi at the age of 70.

Gordon Gunter wrote over 330 scientific papers and scholarly and popular articles, covering every aspect of US Gulf Coast fisheries, and his writings on the relationships of salinity and temperature to marine life in the northern Gulf of Mexico became standard college marine biology texts.

Gordon Gunter married the former Carlotta "Lottie" Gertrude La Cour in 1932, with whom he had a daughter and two sons.

Gordon Gunter was an active member of the Sons of the American Revolution.

Gordon Gunter died on December 19,1998, his career in marine biology and fisheries science having lasted more than 60 years.

On December 21,1972, the Board of Trustees of the Institutes of Higher Learning of the State of Mississippi named the library Gordon Gunter established and expanded at the Gulf Coast Research Library the Gordon Gunter Library in his honor.

Gordon Gunter attended the ship's commissioning ceremony on August 28,1998, only 16 weeks before his death.