Real world article
(written from a production point of view)
In a deleted scene from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Joe was an assistant at the Cetacean Institute on the planet Earth during the late 20th century.
In the scene, when Bob Briggs arranged the return of two humpback whales to the ocean in 1986, because the Institute couldn't afford to keep them anymore, Joe told him that Gillian Taylor would probably go "berserk" when she found out. Briggs assured him that it was for Taylor's own good.
Joe was played by Richard Harder, who received credit for the role despite the scene having been cut.