Documenting Louisiana's Environment
Burkenroad in the Louisiana marshes near Port Sulphur, marking off a section of marshland and then counting the crustaceans in it. A special mission of the Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) is documenting our state’s environment. Recently, LaRC made available a small collection of correspondence, handwritten notes and maps, and notated photographs of transect locations of Martin Burkenroad’s work for the Freeport Sulphur Company. Burkenroad studied the high mortality rate of oysters in Port Sulphur, La., the Freeport Canal, and other locations. Martin David Burkenroad (1910 March 20 – 1986 January 12) was a marine biologist who specialized in decapod crustaceans and fisheries. Burkenroad was born in New Orleans and attended Tulane University for a short time. While he published several scientific papers at Tulane, he left the University without earning a degree. Afterwards, he worked for the Marine Biological Laboratory in the Dry Tortugas part of the Florida Keys and the Loui