Marie "Bobbie" Dennis Poland Fish (1900 – February 2, 1989) was an American
oceanographer
Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology.
It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of top ...
and
marine biologist
Marine biology is the scientific study of the biology of marine life, organisms that inhabit the sea. Given that in biology many phyla, families and genera have some species that live in the sea and others that live on land, marine biology clas ...
known for her
bioacoustics
Bioacoustics is a cross-disciplinary science that combines biology and acoustics. Usually it refers to the investigation of sound production, dispersion and reception in animals (including humans). This involves neurophysiology, neurophysiological ...
research and the finding of eel eggs in the Sargasso Sea. Her research on underwater sound detection allowed the
United States Navy
The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...
to distinguish enemy submarines from wildlife. The United States Navy awarded her its highest civilian award, the Distinguished Service Medal, in 1966 to recognize her contributions during her twenty-two years (1948–1970) leading the "Underwater Sound of Biological Origin" project for the
Office of Naval Research
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...
Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.bobbed
flapper
Flappers were a subculture of young Western women prominent after the First World War and through the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee length was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their ...
haircut. She graduated from
Smith College
Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts, United States. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smit ...
before earning a PhD from the University of Rhode Island. She graduated in 1921, and married Charles Fish in 1923.
Career
Before working for the Office of Naval Research, she worked for the
United States Bureau of Fisheries
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two f ...
,
Buffalo Museum of Science
The Buffalo Museum of Science is a science museum located at Martin Luther King Jr. Park in Buffalo, New York, United States, northeast of the downtown district, near the Kensington Expressway. The historic building was designed by August E ...
,
New York State Conservation Department
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (informally referred to as NYSDEC, DEC, EnCon or NYSENCON) is a department of New York state government. The department guides and regulates the conservation, improvement, and protecti ...
, University of Rhode Island, United States National Museum (now the
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums, Education center, education and Research institute, research centers, created by the Federal government of the United States, U.S. government "for the increase a ...
), Pacific Oceanic Biology Project, and the State of Rhode Island in various roles as scientist, researcher, investigator, instructor, and curator.
In 1925, Marie Poland Fish and her husband Charles John Fish, participated in the first oceanographic expedition of the New York Zoological Society (now the
Wildlife Conservation Society
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is a global 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) non-governmental organization, headquartered at the Bronx Zoo in New York City, with a mission to save "wildlife and wild places across the globe". Founded in ...
William Beebe
Charles William Beebe ( ; July 29, 1877 – June 4, 1962) was an American natural history, naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer, and author. He is remembered for the numerous expeditions he conducted for the New Y ...
. The six-month long expedition left New York on February 11, 1925, and sailed through the Sargasso Sea to the
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands () are an archipelago of volcanic islands in the Eastern Pacific, located around the equator, west of the mainland of South America. They form the Galápagos Province of the Republic of Ecuador, with a population of sli ...
, returning to New York on July 30, 1925. Marie Poland Fish worked on samples from the expedition at least up to 1932. During this expedition she became the first person to identify the eggs of the elusive
American eel
The American eel (''Anguilla rostrata'') is a facultative catadromous eel found on the eastern coast of North America. Anguillidae, Freshwater eels are fish belonging to the Elopomorpha, elopomorph superorder, a group of Phylogenetics, phylogen ...
. which reached the newspapers given the mystery surrounding the origin of eels. In a 1926 article in ''Science'' she first describes the collection of the eggs and their development into what she was able to identify as an American eel. In 1927 she published the full taxonomic description. She concludes her initial description by noting that
Fish's publications include work cataloging sounds from marine animals, including from fish and whales. She went on to determine the biological mechanisms that allow fish to make sounds. She was a prolific author, writing over 200 articles in academic journals and popular magazines, including a newspaper column on popular science that she wrote with her husband from 1936 to 1939, the only time they collaborated professionally.
Commemoration
The Fish family endowed the Charles and Marie Fish Lecture in Oceanography, an annual public lecture on oceanography hosted by the
University of Rhode Island
The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of Rhode Island. The univer ...
's Graduate School of Oceanography that began in 1990.