Early career After graduation, Gunter became a researcher for the
United States Bureau of Fisheries, studying
shrimp and
oysters in Louisiana and
Florida. as one of his first initiatives as director, he established a research library at the laboratory for use by faculty, staff, visiting scientists, and students. The library began as a collection of books and reprints in Gunter's office, and he built its collection almost singlehandedly, purchasing and donating to it many of the early volumes in its collection. In April 1961 he established the publication
Gulf Research Reports – renamed
Gulf and Caribbean Research in 2002 – which he described as "...devoted primarily to publication of the data of the Marine Sciences, chiefly of the Gulf of Mexico and adjacent waters." He also used
Gulf Research Reports as a means of further building the laboratory's library, trading issues of the publication for scientific journals to add to the library's collection, and the library became arguably the premier marine library on the U.S. Gulf Coast. In 1963, a full-time professional staff began working at the library, by 1971 it took up a third of the ground floor of one of the laboratory's buildings, and by May 2010 its collection exceeded 27,000 volumes. After he arrived in 1955, Gunter oversaw a construction program to give the laboratory far more extensive and modern facilities. His tenure saw the construction of the laboratory's
oceanography building, a 40-room
brick dormitory, the
anadromous fisheries building (destroyed by
Hurricane Katrina in 2005), the research building, the Caylor Building, and a maintenance shop, as well as the rebuilding of the Hopkins teaching laboratory (destroyed by
Hurricane Camille in 1969). The
research vessel Gulf Researcher also was constructed for the laboratory while he was the director. Gunter also pursued other goals to build a significant research program at the laboratory, including the recruitment of high-quality personnel, developing a network of affiliated colleges and universities to enhance the summer field program by bringing in students from other universities and other
states, the founding of a museum, and championing the laboratory and its work to state university presidents and the members of the Board of Trustees of the Institutes of Higher Learning of the State of Mississippi, the
Mississippi Legislature, and the
Mississippi Academy of Sciences. Gunter was an early advocate of
aquaculture, and he foresaw an industry involving the
mariculture of shrimp eventually growing along the U.S. Gulf Coast. In 1968, although no advanced technology for the farming of shrimp yet existed, Gunter created and led one of the first research teams – a handpicked staff of physiologists – to look into the development of artificial shrimp feed for use in raising shrimp in commercial aquaculture. His pioneering work helped lead to a burgeoning shrimp-farming industry along the U.S. Gulf Coast by the mid-1980s. In addition to furthering the interests of the laboratory, Gunter found time to conduct his research. Investigating
oyster mortality in the Gulf of Mexico, Gunter conducted research that aided in identifying the
parasitic protist Dermocystidium marinum, later renamed
Perkinsus marinus, the
pathogen causing the disease perkinsosis, also known as dermo, in oysters. Gunter saw an understanding of the effects of the
Mississippi River on the biology of fisheries in the north-central Gulf of Mexico as essential to understanding and managing fisheries resources in the area, and he supported the idea of a large, 20-to-25-year effort by a multidisciplinary team of scientists to discover and assess the river's impact. As the sole expert consultant to the
United States Army Corps of Engineers in Mississippi for several years, he researched the
paleogeography of the Mississippi River and projected the course of the river if the Corps of Engineers did not engage in
flood control and other efforts designed to modify the river's behavior. He concluded that without the work of the Corps of Engineers, the
Atchafalaya River increasingly would capture the waters of the Mississippi, that the two rivers would be of equal size by 2038, and that the Mississippi eventually would cease to flow past
New Orleans, and instead would turn westward to flow down to the Gulf of Mexico down the course of the Atchafalaya, entering the Gulf of Mexico near
Morgan City, Louisiana. Colleagues credited Gunter with being instrumental in urging the Corps of Engineers to require
environmental impact statements. Gunter also saw the laboratory through
Hurricane Camille, which struck during the night of August 17–18, 1969, flooding its grounds with a
storm surge that reached a depth of . Although its research vessels rode out the storm safely, the laboratory suffered the destruction of about half of its buildings – three of brick construction and four wooden ones – and severe damage to its wooden dining hall. Gunter told the students at the laboratory to go home the day after the storm because of the destruction of the facilities necessary to accommodate them, which he described as "one if the sadder duties of my life." Gunter stepped down as director of the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in 1971, but he continued to work at the laboratory as professor of zoology and director
emeritus until 1979 when he retired from active service to the
state government of Mississippi at the age of 70. By the time of his retirement, the laboratory had grown tremendously from what it had been when he arrived in 1955, becoming a major marine research center. In 1971, it had a staff of 100 employees, technicians, and support personnel, including over 20 scientists and other professionals divided into 13 sections (
botany,
chemistry,
data processing,
ecological physiology,
fisheries management, fisheries research and development,
geology, library,
microbiology, museum, noxious animals,
parasitology, and public information), each with technical staff, aides, and a few supervised
graduate students, as well as
custodial workers,
tradesmen, and
groundskeepers to clean and maintain the building and grounds. Its summer field program had grown from an enrollment of 40 students in 1955 to 80 in 1971, and the laboratory's annual budget had increased from $25,000 in 1955 to about $1,000,000 – supplemented by about $500,000 per year in grants and contracts – in 1971, by which time it had become one of the best-known and most respected marine research laboratories on the U.S. Gulf Coast. == Publications ==