Idyll, C.P. 1916-2007 (Clarence Idyll, Clarence P. Idyll, Clarence Purvis Idyll)

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born February 10, 1916, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; died of pneumonia, June 3, 2007, in Rockville, MD. Fisheries biologist, marine scientist, government official, educator, and writer. Idyll began his career with an interest in Pacific sockeye salmon and ended it as an official of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). He worked as a biologist for the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission in the state of Washington in the 1940s. When the University of Miami established a marine science institute in Coral Gables, Florida, in 1948, he became one of the first faculty members in the new discipline. Idyll taught at the university from 1948 to 1971, becoming the chair of the Division of Fisheries and Estuarine Ecology in 1964. In the early 1970s he advised the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, drawing on his own experiences with researchers and scientists in Nigeria, the Caribbean, Central and South America, China, South Asia, and elsewhere. One of his primary objectives was to train other scientists to foster and expand fish farming and other seafood management programs in the Third World, especially programs compelled to work with little funding or political support and few sophisticated tools. In 1974 Idyll joined the NOAA, where he studied ocean policy for some ten years and chaired the Division of International Fisheries Development and Services until retiring in 1984. He had also been a longtime chair of the Gulf Caribbean Fisheries Institute. Idyll wrote many articles on fish and crustaceans and on fish farming and management for popular magazines such as National Geographic, Harper's, and Scientific American. He also produced books for a general readership, including Ambergris: Neptune's Treasure (1960), Abyss: The Deep Sea and the Creatures That Live in It (1970), and The Sea against Hunger: Harvesting the Oceans to Feed a Hungry World (1970). He edited Exploring the Ocean World: A History of Oceanography (1970).

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PERIODICALS

Washington Post, June 13, 2007, Patricia Sullivan, p. B6.