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George Parsons is the Director of Aquarium Collections (formerly Curator of
Fishes) at the John G. Shedd Aquarium. He has always been interested in aquatic
ecosystems. From family vacations to the coasts, to his refusal to get out of
the bath tub within the usual amount of time, he knew that some day he would
be a Marine Biologist.
George has been a hobbyist for more than 30 years. He has gone through the
usual gamut of guppies to groupers and Condylactis to Caulastrea. George started
at the Shedd in 1982 as a volunteer diver and tour guide. His passion for the
aquatic world was evident as he earned over 1500 hours of volunteer work within
5 years. He was hired as an aquarist in 1988 after he received his degree in
biology from UIC.
George found an affinity with the invertebrate collection at the aquarium and
worked with the cold water gallery and then transferred to the anemone exhibit
and endangered snail program in a quest to learn about as many inverts as he
could. Later, he with Mark Schick instigated the coral propagation area and
improvements in the invert collection at the aquarium. Recently George was the
husbandry lead developer for the Wild reef exhibit which took him to the Invertebrate
Mecca, The Philippines.
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| George Parsons is
the Director of Aquarium Collections at the John G. Shedd Aquarium, where he is
responsible for the living collections of the aquarium. |
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Last year he became the Director of Aquarium Collections where he is responsible
for the living collections of the aquarium. This is his dream position because
second to George's passion for our spineless world, is his quest to show this
beautiful world to others. He has taught classes on topics including coral reef
ecology, aquarium keeping and invertebrate biology. George has done survey work
on coral reefs in Belize, the Philippines and Bahamas. He has given talks on
a wide diversity of topics from water quality to alternative foods for obligate
coral feeders.
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