SRI NEWS:

Dery Bennett (1930-2009)

In December, Dery passed away. He had been on our Board since 1991, mentoring us as he did so many organizations.
Dery joined the newly-formed American Littoral Society (ALS) in 1968, growing it to be the most effective coastal environmental organization on the eastern seaboard. Tim Dillingham, who took over as executive director of ALS when Dery retired in 2003, has written a wonderful tribute to him, noting his many accomplishments. It is on the ALS website: http://www.littoralsociety.org/

Those of us who knew Dery have our special memories of him too. The way he cajoled money from a huge oil company, then used those funds to sue them (they seemed to constantly be doing stuff that irked him and he loved the symmetry of using their own money to force them to do the right thing.) In all the years that we worked with Dery, he never ever raised his voice; he used his sharp wit and dry sense of humor instead.

His office was a mini-museum. Prominent was his Elvis Presley collection. There were weird and wonderful posters, bumper stickers, cartoons that made him laugh, strange things that the tide deposited on the beach, dollar bills that he won in bets from colleagues pasted on his door, the fish jaws slung atop his desk lamp, overflowing bookcases, fishing gear stacked in the corners, rows of seashells and etc. A lot of etc! Then there were his trucks — he painted horseshoe crabs on one and it was invariably full of bait buckets, fishing gear, and more etc.

Dery was FUN! You enjoyed being with him, no matter what you were doing — it was always work, but with Dery around, work was fun. He made you laugh. He used to say, “You've got to laugh. If you can’t laugh, you're going go nuts."

With Dery, nothing was impossible — it was simply that nobody had done it yet, so “we’d better get going and figure a way to do it,” And so we made a plan and did it. Twenty years ago it was “how do we put a tag on a whale shark so we can track where it goes” (we sure solved that one!) Another time it was writing a book that we wanted to read and discovered that nobody had written it yet (did that too). Dery loved a challenge; he’d take on the toughest projects — with a grin and a twinkle in his eye.

A Celebration of Dery’s life will be held on February 27, 2010 in the Chapel at Sandy Hook A simple reception will follow at Building 18, Hartshorne Drive, Sandy Hook to reminisce, share "tall" tales, and add your favorite moments.

If you plan to attend, please send a blank e-mail with the word Yes and the number of people who will attend in the subject line to eileen@littoralsociety.org.
We hope you can join us.

The Shark Research Institute works to correct misperceptions about sharks and stop the slaughter of 100 million sharks annually. A primary conservation strategy of SRI is creating value for sharks as sustainable natural resources for tourism industries, particularly in developing countries. By so doing, a steady revenue stream is also generated for local fishers that might otherwise slaughter the sharks for immediate gain. Current programs involve visual and satellite tracking, behavioral and DNA studies of sharks, ocean advocacy, publications and public education.
Membership is open to all who share our goals including the scientific community, individuals and organizations concerned about the health of the ocean ecosystem and marine resource users: subsistence fishermen, sport divers, governments, corporations and the tourism industry.