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CROCODOPOLIS world of crocodilians TM SCIENCE · CULTURE · INDUSTRY · NEWS · COMMUNICATION · CONSERVATION
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FEATURES profiles
February 8, 2007
Ralf Sommerlad,
Der Krokodilfachmann
Editor/Publisher
It
was in the Spring of 2003 when Ralf Sommerlad had joined scientists
James Perran Ross and Frank Percival of the University of Florida, in
capturing alligators for research. The men journeyed south to Lake
Griffin, Florida’s fourth largest lake, located in the state’s
center less than an hour’s drive North from the Orlando tourism
metropolis. The researchers were at the lake to examine specimens of Alligator mississippiensis. University scientists were performing an ongoing project at Griffin to determine why the lake's alligators were dying inordinately (read the revealing studies: link1; link2; link3; and slideshow). Sommerlad
was far from home here. He hails from Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where
he was born and where he maintains his long-established insurance
brokerage. But the insurance broker is no stranger to giant reptiles,
for insurance sales are his primary income source, not his passion. He
participated in an interview for this profile in Tampa, Florida in
September, answering questions in
between sips of beer and bites of Tex-Mex cuisine,
in his
own brand of language: “My English is, of course, still a mixture of
German accent/American English and sounds sometimes, what I call, adventurous.” He was not
pleased with his drink. Coming from Germany, proud home of the Biergarten
and the world’s second largest national consumer of the brew, he takes
his beer seriously, and not all brews he encounters measure up. He
prefers Radeburger, a brand from his
hometown, which he believes is the finest beer there is.
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CONTENTS: 1. PROLOGUE 2. PEDIGREE. 3. THE MYSTERY. 4. FACETS. 5. ENDLESS JOB.
Sommerlad, in Thailand, April 2006. (Photo: Courtesy of R. Sommerlad.)
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