Joel Walker Hedgpeth was a marine biologist, environmentalist and author. He was an expert on the marine arthropods known as sea spiders, and on the seashore plant and animal life of southern California. He was a spokesperson for care for the floral and faunal diversity of the California coastline.
Early life
Hedgpeth was born on September 29, 1911 in Oakland, California. He married Florence Warrens in 1944, and the couple would have two children. He obtained his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952. While at Berkeley, he studied under two of the most important marine biologists of the era, S.F. Light and Ralph I. Smith.
Career
Hedgpeth met and corresponded with Edward F. Ricketts, a charismatic researcher of West Coast marine biology and the real-life model for the character "Doc" in John Steinbeck's novel, Cannery Row. Hedgpeth himself may have been the model for the character, "Old Jay" in Steinbeck's novel, Sweet Thursday . Hedgpeth later was the editor of several editions of Ricketts' "Between Pacific Tides," a classic in marine biology, describing marine life along the coasts of California, Oregon and Washington. Hedgpeth edited more of Ricketts' writings in two volumes of "The Outer Shores." His publications included the massive Volume 1 of the "Treatise on Maine Ecology & Paleoecology" ; and Introduction to Seashore Life of the San Francisco Bay Region. His teaching posts included the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego. He was also director of the Pacific Marine Station, a University of the Pacific research facility at Dillon Beach, California, from 1957 to 1965. He was director of the Yaquina Biological Laboratories of the Marine Science Center, Oregon State University, Newport, Oregon, from 1965 to 1973. He retired as Professor of Oceanography in September, 1973. He and his wife moved to Santa Rosa, California during retirement. He died July 28, 2006 in Hillsboro, Oregon. His archives are housed at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. The nudibranchPolycera hedgpethi was named in his honor by Ernst Marcus, a marine biologist who taught at the University of São Paulo in Brazil. Hedgpeth was an iconoclast and an early environmentalist. He spoke Latin, German, Welsh, and Russian. He founded the "Society for the Prevention of Progress" and was its sole member, under a pseudonym, Jerome Tichenor. Under the same pseudonym, he published "Poems in Contempt of Progress" and vocally opposed a nuclear power plant once proposed at Bodega Head, California. He was influential in the developing West Coast environmental movement in the 1970s. His influence was instrumental in getting the California freshwater shrimp, Syncaris pacifica, listed as an endangered species.
Publications
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. Introduction to seashore life of the San Francisco Bay region and the coast of northern California. Illustrated by the author and Lynn Rudy. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1962. 136 p. illus. 19 cm.
The Outer shores / edited by Joel W. Hedgpeth. Eureka, Calif. : Mad River Press, c1978- v. : ill. ; 22 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. Animal diversity: organisms Joel W. Hedgpeth. McGraw-Hill 31 p. illus. 28 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. Animal structure and function Joel W. Hedgpeth. McGraw-Hill 32 p. illus. 28 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. Common seashore life of southern California. Illustrated by Sam Hinton. Edited by Vinson Brown. Healdsburg, Calif., Naturegraph Co., c1961. 64 p. illus. map. 22 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. On the evolutionary significance of the Pycnogonida. Washington, Smithsonian Institution, 1947. 53 p. plate. 25 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. The Pycnogonida of the western North Atlantic and the Caribbean. Washington. p. 157-342. illus., maps 24 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. Report of the Pycnogonida collected by the Albatross in Japanese waters in 1900 and 1906. Washington. p. 233-321. illus., maps 24 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. Twice to the mark : translations from the Greek / Joel W. Hedgpeth. Oakland, Calif. : J.W. Hedgpeth, p. ; 15 cm.
Hedgpeth, Joel W., 1911-2006. Willapa Bay : a historical perspective and a rationale for research / by Joel W. Hedgpeth and Steven Obrebski. Washington, D.C. : Coastal Ecosystems Project, Office of Biological Services, Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1981. viii, 52 p. : ill., maps ; 28 cm.
National Research Council. Committee on a Treatise on Marine Ecology and Paleoecology. Treatise on marine ecology and paleoecology. Joel W. Hedgpeth, editor. 1957. 2 v. illus., ports., maps charts, diagrs., profiles, tables. 26 cm.
Ricketts, Edward Flanders, 1897-1948. Between Pacific tides : an account of the habits and habitats of some five hundred of the common, conspicuous seashore invertebrates of the Pacific Coast between Sitka, Alaska, and northern Mexico / Edward F. Ricketts and Jack Calvin ; foreword by John Steinbeck ; line drawings by Ritchie Lovejoy. 3rd ed., rev. / revisions by Joel W. Hedgpeth. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1962. xiii, 516 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Ricketts, Edward Flanders, 1897-1948. Between Pacific tides / Edward F. Ricketts, Jack Calvin, and Joel W. Hedgpeth. 5th ed. / revised by David W. Phillips. Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University Press, 1985. xxvi, 652 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.,
Tichenor, Jerome, 1911-2006. Poems in contempt of progress. Edited by Joel W. Hedgpeth. Pacific Grove, Calif., Boxwood Press viii, 70 p. 22 cm.
