page_title: Gordon Gunter
section_title: Commemoration
hierarchical_section_title: Gordon Gunter / Commemoration
caption_attribution_description: NOAA Ship Gordon Gunter ex-Relentless (T-AGOS-18)
context_page_description: Gordon Gunter was an American marine biologist and fisheries scientist. He is noted for his pioneering study of fisheries in the northern Gulf of Mexico, a topic to which he devoted his entire professional life over a career spanning 60 years. His own research, and that of the scientists under his direction, established an understanding of the ecology, comparative physiology of the plant and animal life, and commercial fisheries of the region, and he coined the phrase "fertile fisheries crescent" to refer to Mississippi Sound and adjacent waters along the United States Gulf Coast. He also pioneered the study of the comparative physiology of shellfish and fish.
context_section_description: On December 21, 1972, the Board of Trustees of the Institutes of Higher Learning of the State of Mississippi named the library Gunter established and expanded at the Gulf Coast Research Library the Gunter Library in his honor.
  The National Shellfish Association created its Gordon Gunter Poster Award in Gunter's honor.
  Thomas D. McIlwain, a student of Gunter's who served as director of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory from 1989 to 1994 and then became an administrator at the  National Marine Fisheries Service, an element of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), led an effort to honor Gunter's fisheries work in the Gulf of Mexico by having a ship of the NOAA fleet named after him, saying of Gunter, "He was one of the pioneers." McIlwain's efforts paid off when the NOAA research ship NOAAS Gordon Gunter (R 336) was named in honor of Gunter. Gunter attended the ship's commissioning ceremony on August 28, 1998, only 16 weeks before his death.
caption: NOAAS Gordon Gunter (R 336)
exif: {}