{"id":785,"date":"2016-08-08T21:02:06","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T21:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/?p=785"},"modified":"2016-08-08T21:03:33","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T21:03:33","slug":"from-humble-shack-to-thriving-marine-environmental-education-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/2016\/08\/08\/from-humble-shack-to-thriving-marine-environmental-education-center\/","title":{"rendered":"From Humble Shack to Thriving Marine Environmental Education Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Jack Rudloe<\/p>\n

\"TFM_Summer_Web_Page_43_Image_0001\"When I started Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in 1965 in\u00a0a shack in Panacea, Fla., I had no idea that fifty years later\u00a0we would become one of the Florida panhandle\u2019s major\u00a0environmental education and tourism centers. My dream,\u00a0which started shortly after I\u00a0graduated from Leon High\u00a0School, was to start a marine\u00a0biological supply company\u00a0that would sell specimens to\u00a0schools and research laboratories\u00a0around the United\u00a0States. That we did, and we\u2019re\u00a0still doing it, but by popular demand we also became a regional\u00a0educational center. My late wife, Dr. Anne Rudloe,\u00a0who taught at FSU, helped shape it into the popular facility\u00a0that it is today.<\/p>\n

Starting in 1980, we began modifying our facilities, putting\u00a0in signage and bathrooms, and posters and story boards to\u00a0explain what these perplexing creatures were, never dreaming\u00a0that the tanks we built to hold the inventory of sea creatures\u00a0would become our iconic touch tanks. Gulf Specimen Marine\u00a0Lab and Aquarium was not built, or planned \u2013 it evolved.\u00a0I would have never believed that the shack would transform\u00a0into a public aquarium with a gift shop, and that thousands\u00a0of school children would visit us each year on Weld trips. Over\u00a0the past half century it has become a very different place with\u00a0large tanks filled with sharks, sea turtles, redfish, and trays of\u00a0colorful and interesting marine invertebrates.<\/p>\n

Turning Gulf Specimen into an environmental education\u00a0center was part of our life\u2019s work in teaching the public about\u00a0the fragile nature of the oceans and the threats posed by pollution\u00a0and development. We wrote books (available at our\u00a0gift shop and through Kindle) and published articles for National\u00a0Geographic, Smithsonian, Sports Illustrated and other\u00a0magazines telling the world about the precious life in the sea\u00a0and in many ways succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. We\u00a0have influenced many and changed lives. Today we have an\u00a0intern program where students come to us through local universities\u00a0to get hands on experience and a high intensity crash\u00a0course in marine biology and aquaculture.<\/p>\n

\"TFM_Summer_Web_Page_43_Image_0002\"Gulf Specimen does not get government grants. We are a\u00a0self-supporting nonprofit organization that is supported by\u00a0admissions, sales of specimens to schools and research laboratories\u00a0and by memberships and donations from the community.\u00a0It makes me proud that we won the Environmental Law\u00a0Institute’s 2014 National Wetlands Award for outreach and\u00a0education, and last year were recognized by National Geographic\u2019s\u00a0Wall of Heroes in Washington, D.C. We have won\u00a0many honors before that. I only wish that my wife Anne, who\u00a0helped build it all, were here to share it. And it all started in a\u00a0little shack in the rural, hidden community of Panacea, Fla.,\u00a0which has been a \u201ccure all\u201d for us all.<\/p>\n

Jack Rudloe is a writer, naturalist,\u00a0environmental activist\u00a0and co-founder of the Gulf\u00a0Specimen Marine Laboratory\u00a0and Aquarium in Panacea,Fla.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Jack Rudloe When I started Gulf Specimen Marine Lab in 1965 in\u00a0a shack in Panacea, Fla., I had no idea that fifty years later\u00a0we would become one of the Florida panhandle\u2019s major\u00a0environmental education and tourism centers. My dream,\u00a0which started shortly after I\u00a0graduated from Leon High\u00a0School, was to start a marine\u00a0biological supply company\u00a0that would sell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":786,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[38,202],"tags":[216,217,213,215,214,219,218],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-outdoors","tag-biology","tag-coast","tag-gulf","tag-marine","tag-specimen","tag-tank","tag-touch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":790,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions\/790"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tallahasseefamilymagazine.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}