NORTH, (Wheeler) James 1922-2002

OBITUARY NOTICE—See index for CA sketch: Born January 2, 1922, in San Francisco, CA; died December 20, 2002, in Newport Beach, CA. Scientist, educator, and author. North was a marine biologist whose important research into the kelp beds off the California coast helped restore this vital habitat for marine life. Fascinated by sea life as a child, North, who was in the Army Signal Corps during World War II, earned a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1944 and another B.S. in biology in 1950 from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech); he then went on to complete his Ph.D. at the University of California at San Diego and do post-doctoral work at Cambridge. After working for two years as an electronics engineer for the U.S. Navy Electronics Laboratory, North began his academic career at the University of California at San Diego, where he was an assistant research biologist at the Institute of Marine Resources from 1954 to 1963 and fellow of the Scripps Institute of Oceanography from 1955 to 1956. After a brief stint as a research scientist for the Lockheed California Company, he returned to academia, joining the faculty of the California Institute of Technology in 1963 and becoming professor of environmental sciences in 1968 until lymphoma and an old back injury forced him into retirement in the mid-1990s. North had learned to be a diver while in college and in his early career was among only a few marine biologists who knew how to scuba dive. His hands-on research in the ocean off the southern California coast helped him to understand how kelp beds were being degraded, and during his years at Caltech he managed to restore the beds to better condition than they had been in decades by controlling the sea urchin population and replanting kelp. He also explored how to use kelp as an alternative fuel source and was cofounder of the Marine Forests Society. He was the author of The Golden Guide to Scuba diving (1968) and Underwater California (1976), as well as editor of other books.

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Los Angeles Times, December 23, 2002, p. B9.