Marine Biologist Wood, Who Worked With Navy, Dies

A scholarship fund will be established in memory of Forrest Glenn Wood, an internationally renowned marine biologist, who died May 17 of skin cancer at his San Diego home. He was 73.

Wood was born in South Bend, Ind., on Sept. 13, 1918. He received a bachelor’s degree from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., in 1940 and a master’s degree from Yale University in 1950.

Wood was curator of the first marine park in the United States, where he worked from 1951 to 1964. He left Marineland of Florida to become a senior scientist for the Navy. He retired from the Naval Ocean Systems Center on Point Loma in 1980.

An expert on the maintenance of porpoises in captivity, Wood also developed a hypothesis on the stranding of whales and porpoises. In 1973, his book, “Marine Mammals and Man,” was published in the United States, the Netherlands and the Soviet Union.

Woods is survived by his wife, Diane, and a sister, Betty Snodgrass of Portland, Ore. He will be cremated, and his ashes will be scattered at sea.

Donations can be made to the Society of Marine Mammalogy, c/o Dr. James Harvey, P.O. Box 450, Moss Landing, Calif., 95039. Donations should be marked for the F.G. Wood Memorial Scholarship Fund.