[Coral-List] The passing or one of the coral greats

[Eugene Shinn]

      The coral reef research community and conservationists have lost 
one of its Greats. Dr. John C. Ogden left us at 11:10 PM June 25. He was 
only 82 when he passed following complications from a hip operation. 
John received his PhD from Stanford University under the famous 
Population Bomb author, Paul R. Ehrlich. Although John began as bird 
Specialist, he headed to Panama for a post doc with the Smithsonian 
Tropical Research Institute where he studied parrotfish. That led him to 
the West Indies Lab on St. Croix in 1971 where he became resident marine 
biologist and later the director. He was also Original Director of the 
NOAA HYDROLAB facility and became an aquanaut. John was an early leader 
in the developing field of behavioral ecology and initiated 
Caribbean-wide Seagrass Ecosystem studies.

He moved to St. Petersburg, Florida as director of the Florida Institute 
of Oceanography where he added the Keys Marine Lab to FIO facilities. He 
worked tirelessly to help get the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary 
established in 1990. John published over 70 papers, contributed to 
numerous books and produced several television programs about tropical 
ecosystems. He worked on policy and research relating to the 
conservation of coral reefs and tropical ecosystems with NSF, NOAA, U. S 
Dept of State, the World Bank, UNESCO, WWF, and private Foundations. 
Anyone involved with coral reef research will know he is responsible for 
much, much more. When he served on numerous coral reef committees in the 
Florida Keys he always brought up the most important subjects. John will 
be greatly missed by the coral reef research community world-wide. Gene