by Jack Rudloe
When I started Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in 1965 in a shack in Panacea, Fla., I had no idea that fifty years later we would become one of the Florida panhandle’s major environmental education and tourism centers. My dream, which started shortly after I graduated from Leon High School, was to start a marine biological supply company that would sell specimens to schools and research laboratories around the United States. That we did, and we’re still doing it, but by popular demand we also became a regional educational center. My late wife, Dr. Anne Rudloe, who taught at FSU, helped shape it into the popular facility that it is today.
Starting in 1980, we began modifying our facilities, putting in signage and bathrooms, and posters and story boards to explain what these perplexing creatures were, never dreaming that the tanks we built to hold the inventory of sea creatures would become our iconic touch tanks. Gulf Specimen Marine Lab and Aquarium was not built, or planned – it evolved. I would have never believed that the shack would transform into a public aquarium with a gift shop, and that thousands of school children would visit us each year on Weld trips. Over the past half century it has become a very different place with large tanks filled with sharks, sea turtles, redfish, and trays of colorful and interesting marine invertebrates.
Turning Gulf Specimen into an environmental education center was part of our life’s work in teaching the public about the fragile nature of the oceans and the threats posed by pollution and development. We wrote books (available at our gift shop and through Kindle) and published articles for National Geographic, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated and other magazines telling the world about the precious life in the sea and in many ways succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. We have influenced many and changed lives. Today we have an intern program where students come to us through local universities to get hands on experience and a high intensity crash course in marine biology and aquaculture.
Gulf Specimen does not get government grants. We are a self-supporting nonprofit organization that is supported by admissions, sales of specimens to schools and research laboratories and by memberships and donations from the community. It makes me proud that we won the Environmental Law Institute’s 2014 National Wetlands Award for outreach and education, and last year were recognized by National Geographic’s Wall of Heroes in Washington, D.C. We have won many honors before that. I only wish that my wife Anne, who helped build it all, were here to share it. And it all started in a little shack in the rural, hidden community of Panacea, Fla., which has been a “cure all” for us all.
Jack Rudloe is a writer, naturalist, environmental activist and co-founder of the Gulf Specimen Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Panacea,Fla.
