Unique Experiences

Item Description

Lunch or Dinner with Gregor Hodgson, PhD.  — Founder and Executive Director of Reef Check  —in Los Angeles, California

Greg is a coral reef ecologist who received his bachelors in 1979 from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He organized the first global survey of coral reefs in 1997 resulting in the discovery and announcement of the global coral reef crisis. The Reef Check data has showed, in contrast to what most scientists believed at the time, it was not pollution or sedimentation that damaged coral reefs the most, but rather overfishing was destabilizing the reefs by allowing algae to overgrow and kill them

From 1980-1982, Greg volunteered with the US Peace Corps in the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, Cebu City, Philippines,. While in the Peace Corps, he pioneered surfing 20 ft waves on the Mindanao coast in between discovering several new species of reef coral and chasing dynamite fishermen.

Greg earned a PhD in zoology in 1989 from the University of Hawaii. Subsequently, he worked in Hong Kong where he served as the Environmental Sciences Manager for Binnie Black & Veatch, carrying out environmental impact assessments and baseline ecological surveys of coastal and marine areas. He designed and led integrated coastal management projects in China and Vietnam and taught at two Hong Kong universities. From 2000 to 2004, Greg was a visiting professor at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and taught Environmental Science, International Coastal Management and Marine Conservation, and in 2001, Greg founded Reef Check, a nonprofit organization committed to empowering local communities..

Reef Check is now the largest NGO devoted to coral reef conservation with teams in 90 countries and territories worldwide. Reef Check also surveys rocky reefs along the entire 1000 mile long coast of California each year using teams of citizen scientists. This past year Greg has led a scientific team on the first-ever survey of all coral reefs of Haiti and has braved muggings and drug smugglers to find the best areas to set up Marine Protected Areas in the country.

www.reefcheck.org

Item Special Note

Being auctioned is dinner or lunch with one the world’s foremost shark experts or celebrities. It is a unique opportunity to “talk shark” face-to-face, one-on-one, with a real authority on sharks. 

How it works:

1. Bid on a celebrity, shark scientist or conservationist that lives or works in your area, unless you are willing to drive or fly to meet them in their area.

2. The winning bidder pays for the lunch or dinner and may bring as many guests as he or she wishes.

3. We will introduce the winning bidder to the celebrity, scientist or conservationist. The two of you then set a mutually agreeable  date, time and place to meet within one year of the close of the auction.

All winning bids are charitable contributions deductible from US Federal 2013 income taxes.  Funds raised by the auction will be used to support shark research and conservation programs.