WWW.WAS.ORG • WORLD AQUACULTURE • JUNE 2015 5 Harry Cook was indeed a gentle giant of aquaculture. Bob Rosenberry conducted an excellent telephone interview with Harry Cook in 2007 and published it in Shrimp News International. The interview has a lot of personal details about Harry’s career. I was fortunate to have worked with Harry in Texas until 1988 and all who knew him profited from Harry’s experience and knowledge. TAMU had stocked P. setiferus from Chris Howell’s hatchery in Panama City, FL into a 136-acre brackishwater lake at Ben Nelson’s farm on Smith’s Point, near Galveston. Some interesting results were obtained. Since Chris Howell’s hatchery was the main PL source in the US at the time, Harry stocked P. setiferus in 1985. At one point Harry Cook’s Ocean Ventures group worked with P. stylirostris, but IHHN limited the production, so P. vannamei was selected as the species of choice. Oysters were also grown in the shrimp ponds, suspended in plastic bread trays. Harry was always trying something different to improve production on the farm. Harry treated everyone with respect and was always cordial and friendly. When Harry returned from Asia he built a number of 1-ha rectangular ponds that worked like raceways. He placed a 2-hp paddlewheel on one end and forced the water to flow through two plastic barriers and return along the sides. Harry worked on the Ocean Venture’s Wolf Point shrimp farm, the 120-acre King Ranch shrimp farm and the 1,100-acre Southern Star Shrimp Farm. Harry lived and worked on the farm with his family. It was indeed heart-breaking to see the farm hit by NHP in 1988. We didn’t have a clue what it was and it wasn’t described until sometime later. Harry developed a shrimp harvesting technique using specialized framed nets that were hoisted to the pond bank after they gravity-flow filled with shrimp. The flow could be turned off when the boxes were changed. Harry was always trying something different on the farm and this harvest technique was one that he designed trying to make the harvest easier and more efficient. In 2005, Harry very graciously donated his personal library to the mariculture program at TAMU-Corpus Christi. After Bob Rosenberry’s published interview with Harry in 2007, it really struck home with me that he was a truly an honorable and great man. Harry was awarded an Honorary Lifetime Membership by WAS in 2008 but was unable to attend the conference to receive the award because he was having trouble walking at that time. Harry Cook was indeed a gentle giant of Aquaculture and will be missed by the aquaculture community. — Granvil Treece Although I was already familiar with many of Harry’s seminal publications in shrimp farming, including an FAO Shrimp Farming Manual from 1978 that served as my early “bible” of shrimp farming, my first formal introduction to Harry Cook was in 1990 when he joined Tropical Mariculture Technology (TMT), the shrimp farming consulting company I co-founded with Harvey Persyn in 1981. Harry’s first assignments were in Colombia, where he assisted us in modernizing eight semi-intensive shrimp farms located on the Pacific and Atlantic (Gulf) coasts of Colombia. Borrowing from his earlier developmental work on one of the first shrimp farm management software programs, Harry was instrumental in introducing modern-day data management into the daily operating protocols of shrimp farms in the Americas. Thanks to his many years of previous experience, Harry was an astute problem solver, which was a necessary skill for any pioneering shrimp farmer. At each shrimp farm where Harry worked, he left a lasting and favorable impression among the local producers. Harry was an exceptional ambassador, carrying American knowhow and goodwill overseas to many shrimp farming nations grateful to receive technical assistance from such a recognized and respected expert. And he welcomed an opportunity to live in remote, exotic corners of the globe, with nary a complaint about a lack of modern amenities. In 1992 Harry Cook and I formed a new consulting company (C & C Aquaculture Services), based on existing technical management contracts that each of us had obtained in Nicaragua and Venezuela. Our success in those countries led to additional projects in Brazil and Mexico, including Maritech and Super Shrimp, which at the time was the world’s largest supplier of disease-free SPF post-larval shrimp. At Super Shrimp, Harry played an integral role in the firm’s technical support team, which provided valuable technical assistance to more than 100 shrimp farms throughout Mexico. But it was physically demanding work, sometimes requiring walking many miles on 2000+ acre shrimp farms to access ponds, arduous work that eventually took its toll on Harry, and in 1999 he reluctantly retired to the US for medical reasons. During this period (1997-1999), Harry and I co-authored a regular column in Aquaculture Magazine on shrimp farm management, which provided practical, technical advice to shrimp farmers around the world. One of Harry’s last contributions to the aquaculture community was as an expert witness (for the defense) in the Ecuadorian shrimp industry’s ultimately unsuccessful lawsuit against Dupont. Perhaps even more impressive than Harry’s many career achievements was his modest, self-effacing reluctance to celebrate his many notable accomplishments. In contrast to many of today’s self-anointed “pioneers” who glorify their relatively modest contributions to aquaculture, Harry Cook was a man who truly accomplished noteworthy success in a global arena while intentionally understating his achievements. It was a refreshing rarity to encounter such a humble, soft-spoken personality in a man who had indeed realized remarkable feats but who was loathe to boast about them. In his presence, one would never realize the greatness that resides in this gentle giant of a man. — Henry Clifford It was a refreshing rarity to encounter such a humble, soft-spoken personality in a man who had indeed realized remarkable feats but who was loathe to boast about them. In his presence, one would never realize the greatness that resides in this gentle giant of a man.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjExNDY=