Perry Webster Gilbert

Perry Webster Gilbert (December 1, 1912 – October 15, 2000) was a professor at Cornell University, shark scientist, and former Director of Mote Marine Laboratory. He pioneered the capture and study of live sharks and for several decades was considered one of the world's foremost experts on shark anatomy and behavior. Over the course of his life, Gilbert published two books and approximately 150 scientific papers. As a recipient of both Carnegie and Guggenheim Fellowships and chair of the American Institute of Biological Sciences' Shark Research Panel, Gilbert travelled the world to better learn and understand shark behavior.

Early life and education Gilbert was born December 1, 1912, to Scott and Hester Gilbert in North Branford, Connecticut. He also had a sister, two years younger, named Eleanor. When Gilbert was a child, the family would frequently spend time on the seashore, developing in him an early appreciation for marine life that would be reignited in his academic career. His father Scott, a carpenter and homebuilder, would take Gilbert fishing, treading for clams, and tonging for oysters.

As a child, Gilbert started his schooling in a one-room schoolhouse in his hometown of North Branford, but his mother ultimately proved to be dissatisfied with the quality of the education that the school provided. She sent him to a school of 600 students in New Haven, Connecticut, about 10 miles away by trolley. While he was initially labeled as a "hick" by his classmates, Gilbert would often invite classmates to his family's farm and by his last year in school he had become the class president. The couple began their married life in Ithaca on Linden Avenue in Collegetown, later moved to a farm on Coddington Road, and eventually settled on the Parkway. Here his interest in shark biology appears to have begun. Gilbert's first published paper on sharks was focused specifically on the male urogenital system of the frilled shark, published in Copeia in 1941. He supplemented this first article two years later with an additional paper on the male frilled shark anatomy, published in the Journal of Morphology in 1943. The result of this symposium was the edited volume "Sharks, Skates, and Rays," published in 1967, which included papers on shark anatomy, physiology, taxonomy, and life history.

According to Robert Hueter, "practically every thread of contemporary research on the biology and behavior of sharks since 1960 can be traced back to the ONR program guided by the scholarly leadership of Perry Gilbert".

Directorship of Mote Marine Laboratory

In 1955, the Vanderbilt family established the Cape Haze Marine Laboratory in Placida, Florida and placed it under the direction of Eugenie Clark. Clark oversaw the movement of the laboratory from Placida to Siesta Key in 1960. By 1965, however, Clark decided to resign her directorship for personal reasons and the position was open to fill. After two interim directors and a generous contribution from William R. Mote to keep the laboratory afloat, Gilbert was approached by the search committee to be the new director of what would become Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium. During the early-to-mid 1960s, Gilbert had carried on much of his research here as a visiting fellow, and was well known by the deciding board. When offered the position in 1967, Gilbert only agreed to work as an interim director. He ultimately maintained his professorship at Cornell by returning to Ithaca for some weeks each year to give lectures and consult with students and colleagues; in return, Cornell gained from policies that allowed students and faculty to access Mote Laboratory's equipment and research facilities. His position as director of Mote was soon changed from Interim Director to Permanent Director

Under Gilbert's leadership, the laboratory became known as a center of excellence in a variety of marine research disciplines, not least of which related to shark research. Funding from ONR allowed for the construction of a large, elaborate shark-holding facility, which provided new opportunities for the observation and study of life sharks in safe and controlled conditions for the first time. Meanwhile, Gilbert continued his own research and published many papers with the help of collaborators, stimulating others to follow suit.

Gilbert also expanded the scope of Mote's research to include biomedicine, microbiology, neurobiology and behavior, ecology, and environmental health by inviting specialists in these fields to work as visiting investigators at Mote. He used contacts that he had cultivated over his 30-year career to help boost the reputation and breadth of research in the facility, often soliciting experts from other universities, museums, and the National Institutes of Health.

In the mid-1970s, it became clear that the laboratory would need to be moved once again due to various problems, including coastal erosion of the Siesta Key. Gilbert took on the planning, design, local politicking, and fundraising for the move, and oversaw the creation of Mote's current facility on City Island in Sarasota, Florida. The new facility was much larger, with further growth in mind. Following this move, Gilbert retired as Director in 1978.

Retirement and death Upon his retirement as Director of Mote Marine Laboratory in 1978, Gilbert continued to work as Mote Senior Scientist and member of the board of trustees. A new education building was named in his honor, and the endowed "Perry W. Gilbert Chair in Shark Research" was established. When he retired from Cornell, he was honored with a symposium of distinguished speakers, a banquet, and the establishment of an endowed "Perry Gilbert Lectureship in Comparative Anatomy and Behavior".

Perry Gilbert died on October 15, 2000, at his home in Sarasota, FL.