Renowned Marine Biologist Dr. Gary Schmelz Speaks to Shell Club

On Friday, March 1, 2024, Dr. Gary Schmelz was a guest lecturer for the Marco Shell Club on Strange Marine Creatures of the Bahamas. It focused on the unusual creatures of the Bahamas with background information on the different forms, including their natural habitat and feeding behavior. According to Dr. Schmelz, he has been to the Bahamas over 50 times, and in those times, he has discovered a lot of unusual marine life. Dr. Schmelz has a Ph.D. in Marine Biology and is the former president of the Bailey-Matthews National Shell Museum.

He was a former Director of the Big Cypress Nature Center and Director of Education for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida. While working there, he developed environmental science classes for Collier's third, fourth, and seventh-grade children, a national education training program for teachers, established a wild animal rehabilitation center, and supervised the Conservancy’s sea turtle nesting program. For his accomplishments in the field of environmental education, he received the Elsie M. B. Naumburg Award as the leading environmental educator in the United States in 1985. In 2007, he received the Howard Converse Award for his outstanding contributions to Florida Paleontology.

Dr. Schmelz’s main interests are in paleomalacology. To date, he has described thirty-five new species of fossil marine mollusks. He has co-authored a booklet on Mollusca of the Florida Shoal River Formation and wrote a book on Florida Fossil Shells. He was a former professor at Florida Southwestern State College, where he taught marine biology, oceanography, ecology, and biology. 

Many of the attendees at the Shell Club lecture have gone out with Dr. Schmelz on “fossil hunting” expeditions to a fossil pit in Charlotte County and he also used to lead tours to fossil pits in northeastern Naples, but those are long gone. The fossil pits would lead to finds of shell fossils as old as 1.2 million years old. Shell Club member Karen Caster brought along a handful of fossils for Dr. Schmelz to date – a spiny jewel shell was dated to be 500,000 years old!

Dr. Schmelz also shared that he used to work with the Deltona Corporation as a biologist in the early 1970s, and “things have changed a lot and one of those is the traffic.”

More recently, at the 60th Anniversary Year for the Conservancy of Southwest Florida, Dr. Schmelz was one of three recipients of the 2024 Eagle Award. On January 11, 2024, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida recognized three individuals who have, over the decades made a significant impact on the foundation of the mission work: Gary Schmelz, David Addison, and Dr. Bernie Yokel.

According to Conservancy’s CEO, Rob Moher, Dr. Schmelz was the original Director of the Big Cypress Nature Center, which merged with the Conservancy of Collier County in 1973. Dr. Schmelz started the internship program and the wildlife rehabilitation efforts at the Conservancy and still educates residents regarding our environment today.

Save the date: March 8th and 9th - Spring Expo and Sale at the New Life Community Church. The Expo will feature exhibits from current members in both the artistic and scientific categories.