12/14/1993

Auburn's Wayne Shell Retiring in January

AUBURN, Ala. - The man who is greatly responsible for the productivity of today's catfish industry will soon have more time for some recreational fishing.

E.W. (Wayne) Shell, professor and head of the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures at Auburn University, will retire Jan. 31 after 35 years of service to fisheries and aquaculture in Alabama and the Southeast.

"I grew up on a poultry farm in Butler County, Alabama, and it didn't take much thinking to decide that raising White Leghorn chickens for a living was not for me," he recalled. "We lived near the W.T. Smith Lumber Company, and my wildest dream was to somehow get through college and get a job in forestry."

"I had always been an avid fisherman and hunter," Shell said. "I always thought that fishing and hunting would be my hobbies, and I'd somehow make a living working with trees, or if I got lucky, maybe working with a railroad."

He began college as a forestry major, but during his first year in college at Auburn, Shell noticed a listing in the class catalogue for a course in fish management. Without knowing anything about fisheries, he swapped majors. Shell went on to earn bachelor's and master's degrees in fisheries from Auburn and the Ph.D in fish nutrition and physiology from Cornell University. He returned to Auburn in 1959 as an assistant professor of fisheries, which was then a part of the Department of Zoology-Entomology.

In 1970, the fisheries program at Auburn became a department. Homer Swingle, who was head of the department, was on foreign assignment at that time and Shell was given the task of establishing the department.

In 1973, Swingle retired and Shell became head of the Department of Fisheries and Allied Aquacultures. He also has served as director of the International Center for Aquaculture, a fledgling international research program which has grown under Shell's leadership to one of the most respected in the world.

Through these positions, he has administered a far-reaching fish, aquaculture and water resource management research program through the Alabama Agricultural Experiment Station; the departmental undergraduate and graduate teaching program; and was instrumental in developing the Fisheries Research Unit, the largest freshwater fisheries research facility in the world. In addition, he has found time to write books, develop an in-state extension outreach program for catfish producers and farm pond owners and travel to most of the countries in which international programs are conducted by Auburn fisheries personnel.

His impact is perhaps most obvious to Alabamians in the catfish industry. Prior to the mid-1960s, the only catfish eaten in restaurants were those caught from rivers and creeks. In a span of about 20 years, the commercial catfish industry in the Southeast has gone from zero to a multi-billion dollar enterprise. In Alabama, production climbed about 10 percent per year for the first 20 years of the industry's existence.

Shell was a key player in the development of the commercial catfish industry. As an administrator, one of the first moves he made was to assign researchers to develop genetically improved catfish. This research led to the much-acclaimed "super cat," which is the predominant channel catfish grown by commercial growers today. Shell's drive to develop more efficient catfish has led the program into genetic altering of fish, which has brought with it international attention to Auburn's fish breeding and genetics program.

Recently, Auburn became the first institution of its kind in the United States to place genetically altered fish into outside ponds. These fish, which are common carp, have had one growth hormone-producing gene from a rainbow trout implanted in their genetic makeup. This model research is expected to provide the basis for developing an improved commercial catfish that will grow to market size in less time, be more adaptable to a wide range of environmental conditions, and be able to tolerate certain diseases.

Shell also was instrumental in securing funding, via a Mellon Foundation grant, to build a Fish Genetics Research Center, further expanding what was already the world's largest freshwater fisheries research facility.

Though the genetics program has received most of the attention in recent years, under Shell's leadership in the 1970s Auburn built one of the most widely respected fish nutrition, disease, and virology programs in the country. It is a tribute to Shell's management skills that these programs have flourished, despite an ongoing struggle to stay one problem ahead of the catfish industry. It is a bigger tribute to his personal skills that the three faculty members who started these programs are still in place, and now have nearly 70 years of experience among them.

While Auburn's catfish research, teaching and extension programs are well known in the Southeast, development of fisheries and aquaculture offshore is has also been a priority for Shell. Auburn's international fisheries program also is so renowned that, in 1984, a worldwide communication network called Aquacultural Information Network (AIN) was established at Auburn and immediately recognized during a press conference at the United Nations Building in New York.

AIN consists of a network of Auburn graduates located around the globe. Keep in mind, Auburn has trained scientists from six continents and well over 100 countries. By calling the AIN access number, fisheries personnel anywhere in the world can get almost instantaneous production information from Auburn-trained personnel around the world. As director of the International Center for Aquaculture at Auburn, establishment of AIN was a crowning achievement for Shell.

The International Center for Aquaculture (ICA) is a multifaceted research and training program that was established at Auburn in 1970. It has grown and prospered to one of the largest of its kind. Long-term research and training projects in Brazil, Panama, Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, in which Auburn faculty spent several years on-site, have dramatically increased fish production in these countries. Both long-term and short-term assignments have been carried out by Auburn faculty in more than 80 foreign countries. The direct benefit, in terms of improved sources of protein from fish culturing alone, to these countries is incalculable. Direct economic benefits in the past 20 years are well into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Another of Shell's strengths is an unwavering allegiance to rural landowners in the state. Under his guidance, the Department has provided a continual source of information concerning pond building, pond management, stocking and harvesting of farm ponds.

During Shell's tenure at Auburn, fishing, especially bass fishing, has gone from cane pole and crickets to a multi-billion dollar industry. Throughout this growth, Auburn researchers, under Shell's guidance, have provided vital information on stocking, management and harvesting of streams and large human-made impoundments.

As if Shell didn't have enough programs to juggle, in recent years the Department has embarked on an aggressive extension outreach program. Initially managed by a single Auburn-trained scientist, the program now includes specialists in catfish production, sport fishing, nutrition, and water quality. Evidence of the success of this program came last August, when more than 350 people attended the first ever Fisheries Research Fair on campus.

Establishment of AUMERC, the Auburn University Marine Extension and Research Center in Mobile, on Alabama's Gulf Coast, provided yet another outlet for Shell's energies. Included on the AUMERC staff is an extension marine foods specialist, in addition to marine biologists.

Despite the success and dramatic growth of fisheries research, teaching, and extension programs during the Wayne Shell's tenure, the man and the program remain mission and service oriented. The fact that one individual could play such an omnipresent role in the development of such a diverse program, over such a long period of time is truly one of American academia's paramount achievements.

On a plaque in Shell's modest office on the Auburn campus is the Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he can eat for a lifetime." Truly, words that E. Wayne Shell lives by.

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Contact Jamie Creamer, 334-844-2783 or jcreamer@auburn.edu
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12/14/93