Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
across the bridge lugging buckets of fish to feed them. I was always
surprised how fast and agile an alligator can be after basking in the hot
summer sun of Marin County.
When all the tanks were completed, the temperate fishes that had been
temporarily held in the new marine mammal tank were moved to their
new permanent quarters. The mammal tank was cleaned and refilled
and made ready for its new occupants, two Pacific white-sided dolphins
from Monterey Bay and two rescued harbor seal pups (
Phoca vitulina
).
MONTEREY WEEKENDS
Before too long, my cousins Norman and Wilkie Powell trailered my
boat up from Redondo Beach to Monterey, two hours south of San
Francisco. I found a place to store it in the abandoned Monterey Can-
ning Company building, right next to Ed “Doc” Ricketts's old West-
ern Biological Lab. I could peer through cracks in the cannery wall
and see the tanks where Ricketts had kept his marine animals.
On weekends I drove down to Monterey from San Francisco, launched
my boat in the harbor, and went diving. At the time, Steinhart Aquar-
ium didn't have a collecting boat or even much in the way of sta¤ who
could dive. I therefore began to collect animals for the aquarium on
my days o¤. Some of the Academy sta¤, including Herald's secretary,
Phyllis Ensrud, and aquarist Lloyd Gomez, were divers and would some-
times come with me. In spite of not having a truck with holding tanks,
I was able to bring colorful invertebrates and fishes back to San Fran-
cisco in our 1957 Chevy station wagon. Among my prizes were beau-
tiful, then-undescribed Tealia sea anemones (
Urticina piscivora
), with
their red body and pure-white tentacles, and colorful painted green-
lings (
Oxylebius pictus
). They, and many others, made wonderful ad-
ditions to Steinhart's exhibits of local animals.
A number of times a buddy diver and I would camp overnight with
our sleeping bags in what later became Monterey's Veteran's Memor-
ial Park so we could do some night diving. The night diving I had done
for lobsters in southern California made me curious about the crea-
tures I would see in the colder waters of central California. I learned
that you don't have to travel to exotic places to see new animals or
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