Follow The Coastline

In this book, the author describes some aspects of being a marine biologist that might be of most interest to the inquisitive reader. It does not deal with scientific matters, but describes some of the more amusing events in a career that extended over forty years, beginning with university training and extending through employment as a field biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and ending with being a Laboratory Director with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, (NOAA).In the field studies of fisheries, the author undertook research assignments along the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts through Florida, with intensive studies of fish populations in the Connecticut, Delaware, York, Mattaponi, Pamunkey, James, Chickahominy, Roanoke, Neuse, Edisto, Ogeechee, and St. Johns Rivers. The studies ranged from determining estimates of sizes of spawning runs of shad and striped bass, to the design of fish passage facilities where the runs were blocked to upstream spawning by existing or proposed dams. As one might expect, many intriguing and sometimes amusing events occurred during these studies, some of which are described. These episodes ranged from a hazardous ride down the Delaware River in a confiscated canoe, through a clandestine meeting with an American Indian Tribe in the middle of the night, to a battle with a staff member over ballpoint pens.Through means of various job advancements, the author later became a biological research leader in Florida, where he found himself heavily immersed in such administrative duties as the management of research, people and budgets. These ten years are noted, however, as the most interesting and rewarding of the authors career, because it gave him the opportunity of testing his legs and using his imagination to create his own version of how things should be run in marine science. There, he pushed for and succeeded in developing a staff that published its findings, rather them let them sit in unused files. He persuaded fishery officials of the Gulf States to join his lab in developing a cooperative Gulf of Mexico Estuarine Inventory, which was published and is still useful today. He and his lab staff took a case of land development to the Supreme Court and won, on the basis of fish and wildlife values. These are examples of pleasant accomplishments and fun things that occurred during the authors career. Work with other biologists of the Gulf and South Atlantic States had its ups and downs, but as a whole, was very pleasant. He found that the less he had to deal with politicians and the more with scientists or science administrators, the better off he was.After almost ten years of running the Florida lab, Jim transferred to Sandy Hook, New Jersey, for a brief stay, and then back to Beaufort, NC, to become Chief of the Division of Fisheries. This too, was an interesting set of duties, in that it dealt with an emerging interest in sport fishery research on such species as grouper and king mackerel, and also the commercial menhaden fishery. The latter, he could have done without, in that the job was full of frustrations with an industry that thought it owned all of the fish stocks and should not practice any conservatism in harvesting them. Also, having a chief in the Washington office who agreed with them over the dead bodies of NOAA biologists, did not help. As an antidote, however, the author also became involved in helping membership growth of the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists after being elected to serve a two year term as its President.Eventually, came retirement, and on to a less stressful environment, although emerging from one which had been both successful and enjoyable. The author settled down to two main activities; that of woodworking or decoy carving and furniture building, and serving on the Morehead City Planning Board and on the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission. To those enterprises, he was able to apply some of the know