Luiz Vieira Caldas Saldanha (16 December 1937 – 16 November 1997) was a Portuguese marine biologist, oceanographer and university professor at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. He was noted for research on marine fauna of the Atlantic Northeast and for his participation in international oceanographic campaigns and institutions, as well as for his role in developing and coordinating marine science and technology in Portugal. Saldanha took part in oceanographic campaigns and expeditions across multiple ocean basins and regions worldwide, and worked for extended periods with research institutions in countries including France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Monaco. From 1969, he also conducted deep-sea research using crewed submersibles such as the French Archimède and Nautile and the American Alvin, playing a decisive role in the discovery of the first hydrothermal vents and seamounts of the Azores. In Portugal, Saldanha helped establish university-level teaching in several areas of marine biology, including ichthyology and biological oceanography, and trained numerous marine biologists who later became researchers and lecturers in Portugal and abroad. He played a central role in strengthening marine-science infrastructure and coordination, notably through the revitalisation and direction of the Guia Marine Laboratory in Cascais (1974–1997). He also held senior institutional posts, including president of the National Institute for Fisheries Research (INIP), and served in leadership roles within Portuguese and international scientific organisations.
Biography
Early life and education Saldanha was born on 16 December 1937 in Lisbon (São Sebastião da Pedreira). He attended the Lycée français Charles Lepierre in Lisbon, where he completed primary and secondary education. In those years he took part in a Scout group connected to the Church of Saint Louis of the Frenchmen (Lisbon), fostering an interest in nature exploration. He was a nephew of the archaeologist Eduardo da Cunha Serrão and accompanied him on excavations and other archaeological work from an early age, which contributed to his scientific curiosity. According to family testimony, his later interest in animal life and biology was primarily self-motivated.
Diving and early oceanographic work As a young man, Saldanha became one of the pioneers of scuba diving in Portugal. In 1956, aged 18 and already a university student, he made his first dive off Sesimbra using borrowed equipment and without a wetsuit. A few months later, invited by Mário Ruivo of the Instituto de Biologia Marinha (Institute of Marine Biology), he joined his first oceanographic campaign aboard the naval vessel Faial, where he met visiting foreign researchers and began corresponding with them.
Academic career, military service and museums In 1961, Saldanha graduated in Biological Sciences from the Faculty of Sciences (University of Lisbon), completing his final courses while performing extended military service as an army officer. In 1962, already married, he was posted to Angola during the Portuguese Colonial War and remained there for two years and three months (1962–1965), in the Northern Intervention Zone (ZIN). Alongside military duties, he carried out scientific collecting and improved his taxidermy techniques, later depositing specimens at the Museu Bocage (now part of the National Museum of Natural History and Science, Lisbon). After completing military service in 1965, he began his professional career (aged 27) as a naturalist at the Museu Bocage. He remained there until 1970, when he moved to the Zoological and Anthropological Museum and Laboratory of the Faculty of Sciences as a researcher. In 1974 he completed a PhD in Sciences (Animal Ecology) at the Faculty of Sciences, graduating with distinction, and began a long teaching career at the same faculty: assistant professor (1975), extraordinary professor (1978) and full professor (1979).
Guia Marine Laboratory In 1974, the same year he earned his doctorate, Saldanha led the recovery of the Fort of Nossa Senhora da Guia in Cascais, where he reactivated and developed the Guia Marine Laboratory (Portuguese: Laboratório Marítimo da Guia). He requested the fort's classification as a Property of Public Interest in April 1974, approved in 1977, and supervised research and undergraduate field projects there in marine biology and biological oceanography. He directed the laboratory from 1974 until his death in 1997.
Research and science communication Saldanha's research and oceanographic campaigns were not limited to Portuguese waters. He worked for extended periods in laboratories in France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Monaco, and participated in expeditions in the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean and Antarctica. The breadth of these voyages led some Portuguese media to refer to him as the “man of the seven seas”. From 1969, he regularly dived using the French submersibles Archimède and Nautile and the American Alvin to study deep-sea biology and hydrothermal fauna. In 1992, aboard Alvin, he was responsible for identifying the first of the hydrothermal vents and seamounts of the Azores, the Lucky Strike hydrothermal field. Beyond marine work, he also carried out terrestrial expeditions in desert regions, often travelling with traditional caravans, and paid attention to the human and ethnographic aspects of the communities he encountered. In March 1978, a fire at the Faculty of Sciences building (then at the former Lisbon Polytechnic School) destroyed Saldanha's laboratory and much of his equipment, manuscripts, notes, books and reprints, as well as most of the zoological collection he had assembled in Angola, causing significant delays to ongoing scientific work. Saldanha placed strong emphasis on science communication. He delivered numerous lectures in Portugal and abroad, served on editorial and review boards of scientific journals, and authored documentary series for RTP, the Portuguese public service broadcaster, including Missão Açores (1984) and O Mar e a Terra (1985, 1987).
Nature conservation
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