Gordon Gunter

He is noted for his pioneering study of fisheries in the northern Gulf of Mexico,[1] a topic to which he devoted his entire professional life over a career spanning 60 years.

[4] In 1955, Gunter left Texas to become director of the University of Southern Mississippi′s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Mississippi,[3] a position he assumed on September 1, 1955.

[1][3] During its 16 years with Gunter as its director, the laboratory experienced tremendous growth in the size of its scientific staff, its educational efforts, and its physical plant.

[2] Gunter was an avid and voracious reader and believed strongly in keeping up to date on current professional literature,[3] and on September 1, 1955,[5] 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.

[4] Gunter was an early advocate of aquaculture,[3] and he foresaw an industry involving the mariculture of shrimp eventually growing along the U.S. Gulf Coast.

He 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.

[4] Gunter also saw the laboratory through Hurricane Camille, which struck during the night of August 17–18, 1969, flooding its grounds with a storm surge that reached a depth of 18.5 feet (5.6 meters).

[4] Gunter told the students at the laboratory to go home the day after the storm because of the destruction of the facilities necessary to accommodate them, which he described as "one if the sadder duties of my life.

In 1971, it had a staff of 100 employees, technicians, and support personnel,[2] including over 20 scientists and other professionals divided into 13 sections (botany, chemistry, data processing, ecological physiology, fisheries management, fisheries research and development, geology, library, microbiology, museum, noxious animals, parasitology, and public information), each with technical staff, aides, and a few supervised graduate students, as well as custodial workers, tradesmen, and groundskeepers to clean and maintain the building and grounds.

[2] In addition to his writings on fisheries, he wrote articles on a variety of other topics, such as the abilities and behaviors of shore birds, insects, and primroses.

[3] He became known among animal rights groups for an article he wrote for the journal Science in 1961 entitled "Painless Killing of Crabs and Other Large Crustaceans" in which he called the boiling of life lobsters "unnecessary torture.

[2] An American Civil War (1861–1865) enthusiast who sympathized strongly with the Southern cause[2] – he wrote in 1969 that he found comfort and inspiration in the sight of the Confederate battle flag flying over the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory grounds after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Camille that year[4] – Gunter was an active member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and the Military Order of the Stars and Bars.