Kenneth S. Norris, 74,
By Helen Altonn
headed Oceanic Institute
at Makapuu
Star-BulletinKenneth S. Norris, former director of the Oceanic Institute at Makapuu, a pioneering dolphin researcher and a visionary scientist, died Sunday at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco.
He had turned 74 years old on Aug. 11.
At an International Ethological Conference here three years ago, Norris was hailed as the dean of American cetologists - zoologists who study whales - by Lou Herman, director of the Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory.
Herman yesterday was shocked to learn of the death and said: "Ken Norris was a giant among those studying dolphins. His discoveries ran the whole gamut from dolphin sonar to dolphin societies.
"But Ken was more than a scientist. He was an incredible human being whom everyone respected and loved."
Norris was one of the founders and first president of the Marine Mammal Society, and taught some of today's leading dolphin researchers, Herman said.
"Ken was a role model for me, from the first time I met him at the Oceanic Institute in 1967.... He encouraged me in my own work with dolphins and helped me continue when things were difficult."
Norris directed the Oceanic Institute from 1961-1971 and then went to the University of California at Santa Cruz to establish a marine laboratory. He retired in Santa Cruz.
He had had a triple bypass a few years ago and suffered problems recently with leaking valves, said his son-in-law, Fred Carlson.
Carlson said most family members were with Norris throughout the night Saturday "singing to him as he slipped away. He loved music and taught his children many, many songs."
"He was a wonderful, wonderful man who affected so many people," Carlson added. "It's just amazing how many people were moved by him in deep ways."
Paul Nachtigall, head of the Marine Mammal Research Program at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, said, "He was almost the father of our field.... He was a great man. He touched a lot of our lives."
An ecologist and zoologist, Norris studied dolphins for more than three decades, mostly in Hawaii.
He wrote "Dolphin Days, The Life and Times of the Spinner Dolphin" and had finished a final revision of a new book, "Mountain Time."
A jazz fan, he said in a 1995 interview here that rhythm shapes the lives of the spinner dolphins he studied in the Big Island's Kealakekua Bay. "It's like tuning up an orchestra.... There is a great cluster of whistles as the school moves along."
Among his achievements, Norris helped draft the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 and spurred research to protect porpoises from tuna nets.
He headed a panel of scientists and experts that met on Maui in 1979 and agreed that a whale sanctuary was needed to protect humpback whales. In 1994 he said it was "time to put our passions away" and support a controversial experiment to generate underwater sounds off Kauai and California to provide more information on global warming.
Bill Friedl, director of the Center of Excellence for Research in Ocean Sciences at the Big Island's Natural Energy Laboratory, said one of the greatest tributes to Norris "obviously is going to be the students that he mentored."
"If you looked at the tree that has come out of Ken Norris, it's just filled with luminaries," he said. Friedl said he was a University of Washington undergraduate student when he first met Norris, then teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He spent time with Norris in his lab during the 1964 summer break and was fascinated with his pioneering studies on dolphins' ability to echo-locate and use biological sonar, he said.
"He always considered himself to be a natural historian, not a marine mammalogist," Friedl said. "The thing about him, he knew how to ask the right questions, so his work was always this leading-edge, exciting stuff.... It always went back to his grounding in nature."
One of Norris' last professional projects was to help the University of California establish a reserve system with properties representing different habitats, his son-in-law said.
While in the hospital, Norris learned the university received a substantial grant from the Packard Foundation to help acquire and set aside the land for research and student use, Carlson said. "That was one of the really crowning touches to his life."
Survivors include wife Phylly; daughters Barbara Gaskell, and Susan and Nancy Norris; and son Richard. The family's home address is 1987 Smith Grade, Santa Cruz, CA 95060.
William K. “Wild Bill” Aila,79, of Waianae, who retired from Wahiawa Builders, died July 25 in Kapiolani Hospital at Pali Momi. He was also a former employee at E.E. Black Ltd. Born in Honolulu, he is survived by wife Olinda P.; sons William J., Anthony K. and Melvyn K.; stepson David Kahawai; hanai sons Joseph Kaleikini and Francis Hun; daughters Winona K. Kealoha, Grebell K. Aila and Lurline M. Sotelo; hanai daughters Jane Chung, Sandy Rassmusen and Theresa-Marie Smith; brother Thomas K.; 19 grandchildren; 39 great-grandchildren; and a great-great-grandchild. Prayer services: 7 p.m. Friday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 85-786 Old Government Road in Waianae. Call from 6 to 9 p.m. Cremation to follow. Scattering of ashes in Kona at a later date. Casual attire. No flowers.
