Cecil W. Reid

Cecil Reid served as the chief marine biologist at the Game and Fish Commission’s Rockport Marine Laboratories during the 1950s. He then went on to be the leader and chief lobbyist of the Sportsmen’s Clubs of Texas, the Texas state affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation, through the late 1970s. Reid transformed his early biological surveys of fossil reef loss in Aransas, Galveston, and San Antonio Bays into a potent political weapon, uniting hunters and anglers against the destructive mudshell dredging industry. His advocacy anchored two major regulatory shifts: the 1969 Attorney General Opinion M-368, which asserted state authority over bay resources, and the 1981 Texas Parks and Wildlife rules, laid out in Management Data Series 44. These final rules effectively ended the “Shell Wars” by imposing strict geographic limits, shoreline buffers, a “zero-trace” siltation ban, and prohibitive royalty hikes.