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On 27 Jun 2002 at 7:53, Francis Reilly wrote:

> OYSTER EXPERT HAROLD HASKIN DIES AT AGE 87
>
> Date: 020626
> From: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/
>
> By Jack Kaskey, Staff Writer, (609) 272-7213
> Press of Atlantic City, June 26, 2002
>
>  Middle Township - Harold H. Haskin, the father of oyster biology and
> an internationally regarded expert on marine mollusks, died at his
> home here Sunday. He was 87.
>
>  Haskin devoted much of his life to studying clams and oysters in the
> Delaware Bay at Rutgers University's research laboratory in Bivalve,
> Cumberland County. In 1991, the lab was renamed Haskin Shellfish
> Research Laboratory in his honor.
>
>  Haskin joined the Rutgers faculty in 1946, and was quickly named
> director of oyster culture. He studied hard clams for Campbell Soup
> and charted the Delaware Bay bottom for the Navy.
>
>  But it was a massive oyster die off in 1957 that changed the future
> of oystering and altered the direction of Haskin's research.
>
>  A parasite, which Haskin later named MSX, killed as much as 85
> percent of oysters in the deep parts of the bay and it later affected
> oysters to a lesser extent all along the Atlantic coast.
>
>  "We'd never seen anything like it anywhere in the world," Haskin
> recalled in a 1987 interview with The Press of Atlantic City.
>
>  Haskin never completely unraveled the mystery of how MSX kills, but
> he used selective breeding to develop oyster strains that are
> resistant to the parasite.
>
>  Those resistant strains are used to this day in aquaculture programs
> from Maine to Virginia, said Susan Ford, a research professor who
> joined the lab in 1966.
>
>  Ford recalled meeting Haskin for the first time. His face was ruddy
> and his hair was wind blown, because he had just stepped off an oyster
> boat, and he was dressed in a loud, red plaid shirt, chinos and heavy
> boots.
>
>  "He didn't look at all like I expected a university professor to look
> like," Ford said.
>
>  He didn't act like a professor, either, talking easily with oystermen
> and regulators alike.
>
>  "He didn't try to make things more high faluting than they are," Ford
> said. "People trusted him."
>
>  Graduate students called him Hurricane Hal, because he would take
> them on daylong field trips, no matter how foul the weather.
>
>  Generations of his students now work around the world in
> universities, governments and private industry, Ford said.
>
>  "He certainly was an excellent teacher," she said.
>
>  Born Harold Haley in Niagara Falls, N.Y., in 1915, Haskin was
> orphaned at age 3 when his parents died during the influenza epidemic
> of 1918. Family acquaintance Frederick J. Haskin adopted the boy and
> moved to Salem to raise him.
>
>  Haskin attended Rutgers, where he studied zoology and spent a summer
> conducting his first oyster research on Delaware Bay.
>
>  "It was like Moses in the bulrushes, a pretty exciting summer, in
> it's own way," he recalled in 1987.
>
>  Studying for his doctorate in marine biology at Harvard, he met
> Peggy, to whom he was married for 60 years.
>
>  Immediately after earning his doctorate in 1942, Haskin was called up
> to serve in the Army during World War II. For five years he trained
> men and guarded the New Jersey shore.
>
>  After his discharge, he studied at Woods Hole, Mass., before
> returning to teach at his alma mater.
>
>  Through the years, his studies included the effects of oil and sewage
> pollution on mollusks and the effects of dredging, damming and
> development on the estuarine environment.
>
>  Haskin is best known, however, for his research on oyster biology.
>
>  "The father of oyster biology is the way he was thought of by us and
> others," Ford said.
>
>  Haskin is survived by his wife, five children and four grandchildren.
> A memorial service will be held in the fall.
>
>
> Francis J. Reilly, Jr.
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