Archie Carr

Archie Carr
Born June 16, 1909
Mobile, Alabama
Died May 21, 1987(1987-05-21) (aged 77)
Micanopy, Florida
Fields Herpetology Conservation Biology Ecology Marine Biology
Institutions University of Florida
Alma mater University of Florida
Known for World authority on sea turtles
Notable awards Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal (1952)

Archie Fairly Carr, Jr. (June 16, 1909 – May 21, 1987) was an American herpetologist, ecologist and a pioneering conservationist. He was a Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida. In 1987 he was awarded the Eminent Ecologist Award by the Ecological Society of America. He made extraordinary contribution to sea turtle conservation by way of bringing attention to the world's declining turtle populations due to over-exploitation and loss of safe habitat.

Biography

Born in Mobile, Alabama, Carr was the son of a Presbyterian pastor, and grew up in Mobile, Fort Worth, Texas, and Savannah, Georgia. He studied zoology at the University of Florida, eventually specializing in herpetology. He further refined that interest to the study of turtles and eventually became one of the world's foremost authorities on sea turtles. He was married to Marjorie Harris Carr a conservationist herself.

While a student at UF, he became a member of the Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity.[1]

He started out as a high school science teacher before becoming a college professor. He published numerous books and articles, including Ulendo: Travels of a Naturalist in and out of Africa, High Jungles and Low, So Excellent a Fishe (about his green turtles), The Windward Road and several Time-Life books such as The Everglades and The Reptiles. He was also the author of the Handbook of Turtles, and with Coleman J. Goin, Guide to the Reptiles, Amphibians and Freshwater Fishes of Florida. While a serious scientific and nature writer, he also had a remarkable sense of humor, which led him to publish the parody of scientific taxonomic keys - his A Subjective Key to the Fishes of Alachua County, Florida, affectionately known as the "Carr Key".

Carr became a bit of a legend at the University of Florida and students vied with one another to take his Community Ecology course in which they were involved in several major and minor field trips around northern Florida and southern Georgia. Listening to Carr talk about the Sand Pine scrub near Ocala or his comments as he guided students through the Okefenokee Swamp in canoes was considered a great privilege.

Carr was also known for his efforts in conservation, especially for sea turtles, helping convince Costa Rica to establish Tortuguero National Park in 1975. He was a co-founder of the Caribbean Conservation Corporation, which helps to save and monitor sea turtles in Tortuguero, Costa Rica. He was often joined in his conservation work by his wife Marjorie Carr, who was a major advocate for conservation in her own right. In 1952 Carr was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences.[2]

Legacy

Works

Academic genealogy

Archie Carr graduated with his PHD in 1938 from the University of Florida under J.S. Rogers. His academic ancestry passes from Rogers (PHD 1929 University of Illinois), through Stephen Alfred Forbes (PHD 1884 Indiana University) (the first Chief of the Illinois Natural History Survey and a founder of aquatic ecosystem science[3]), the eminent evolutionary biologist and ecologist David Starr Jordan (PHD 1872 Cornell), to Louis Agassiz (PHD 1829 Munich, Germany) the eminent ichthyologist, geologist, and natural historian. Carr advised and graduated 18 PHD students while faculty at the University of Florida: D.A. Belkin (1961), Karen A. Bjorndal (1979), D.K. Caldwell (1957), S.Pl. Christman (1975), M.J. Corn (1981), J.W. Crenshaw, Jr. (1955), D.C. Dietz (1979), D.W> Ehrenfeld (1966), D.E. Goodman (1971), E.V. Gourley (1969), H.F. Hirth (1962), C.G. Jackson (1964), J.F. Jackson (1972), A.B. Meylan (1984), J.A. Mortimer (1981), Robert H. Mount (1961), Peter C. Pritchard (1969), and Douglas A. Rossman (1962).[4]

References

  1. The Seminole Yearbook. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida. 1932. p. 41.
  2. "Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal". National Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on June 4, 2011. Retrieved February 15, 2011.
  3. Illinois Natural History Survey
  4. Adler, Kraig, ed. (2012). Contributions to the History of Herpetology. Volume 3. Vancouver, British Columbia: Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. ISBN 9780916984823.
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