Jack Rudloe
Woodstork Press; 3rd Edition (March 28, 2015)
THE LIVING DOCK
Overview.
PRAISE |
Sometimes, a dock isn't just a dock. It's a habitat, a living thing.
In the tiny fishing community of Panacea, Florida, the author's floating dock nurtures an abundance of marine life. Crabs, worms, mollusks and algae make their home there, attracting and feeding fish and other creatures higher up the food chain. These also feed the author's business, Gulf Specimen Marine Lab, which supplies specimens to research and teaching institutions: marine fauna from his dock, from nearby mud flats and beaches, and netted offshore from his little shrimp boat, "Penaeus."
This entertaining and educational book looks at the life histories of some of these creatures, and recounts Rudloe's experiences in collecting them, in the process examining man's relationship with the natural world.
Biography
Jack Rudloe is an acclaimed writer, naturalist, marine ecologist and activist, who founded Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratories in Panacea, Florida. He is considered by many to be the father of marine ecology. He is the author of nine books, both fiction and non-fiction, most of which are about the sea.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Rudloe moved to Carrabelle, Florida at age 14. His first work "Experiments with Sensitive Plants, Cassia Nictitans." was published in Scientific American while he was still in high school. He enrolled at Florida State University in the early sixties but was asked to leave by the Dean who decided he was not college material.
In spite of his departure from FSU, Rudloe was hired by Marine Biologist Dexter M. Easton of Harvard University to collect striped burrfish and bat fish. This launched his independent career as a writer and specimen collector. In the early days, he was mentored by John Steinbeck and heavily influenced by his books, Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday.
During the early sixties, Rudloe participated in International Indian Ocean Expedition during which he discovered a new species of Jellyfish. He was recognized for this discovery by the Smithsonian Institute in 2014. Rudloe also made collecting trips for the National Cancer Institute and New York Aquarium capturing the Giant Sea Roach and Suriname Toadfish from the Gulf depths.
Rudloe has written six highly acclaimed and widely reviewed non-fiction books on the sea. His novel Potluck, a story of shrimping and smuggling is regarded as a Florida panhandle classic. Together, with his wife Anne, they have published articles in National Geographic Magazine, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated, Natural History, Audubon, and other national and international publications. Their more recent books are Chicken Wars (a novel about a divinely inspired rooster that leads a revolution and overthrows the chicken factory) and Shrimp, the Endless Quest for Pink Gold.
Jack Rudloe has been featured in several major television documentaries on PBS and has been interviewed numerous times on the NBC Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox Network and National Public Radio.
In 2014, the Jack and his late wife, Anne Rudloe, Ph.D. were awarded the prestigious National Wetlands Award for education and outreach by the Environmental Institute in Washington, D.C.
Rudloe continues to assist at Gulf Specimen Marine Lab and write.
Watch for his upcoming trilogy starting with The Cretaceous Sea about an unusual and quirky team of scientists who are thrown back into the Cretaceous period as a result of a bizarre government conspiracy.