Forrest Wood

Distinguished Alumnus Forrest G. Wood,  Class of 1936

After graduating from Morton, “Woody” attended Earlham College, graduating in 1940.  He joined the Army Air Corps in 1941, serving during World War II  in the intelligence and photographic-interpretation section of the Fortieth Bomb Group. He served in Central America, India, China, and the Marianas.

Wood obtained his MS degree at Yale University in marine biology in 1950 and served one year as the first resident marine biologist with the American Museum of Natural History in the marine laboratory on Bimini Island in the British West Indies.

He then became curator of the first marine park in Florida, later named Marineland.  In 1963 he moved to Point Mugu, California, and became the head of the Marine Sciences Division of the United States Naval Missile Center.

His work with the navy gave him intimate knowledge of marine mammal behavior which allowed him to author many research papers and books about captive breeding of dolphins, toothed whale echolocations, the range of the basking shark, and methods of anesthetizing large sea mammals.

In 1969 he joined the staff at the Naval Undersea Center in San Diego, and in 1977 he became senior scientist in the biosciences department of what is today the Naval Ocean Systems Center.

In 1984 Wood was on the scientific advisory committee of the Marine Mammal Commission, reviewing applications for the capture and maintenance of all marine animals under United States jurisdiction.  In the spring of 1998, the Society of Marine Mammology awarded the first Forrest Glenn Wood scholarship at their international meeting in Monaco.

He died May 21, 1992, in San Diego, California. Wood was selected as a Distinguished Alumnus in 1999.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  380 Hub Etchison Parkway, Richmond, IN 47374

 (765) 973-3338