George Dunnet, ecologist and academic; born, Caithness, April 19,
1928, died, Copenhagen, September 11, 1995
PROFESSOR George Dunnet leaves behind him a reputation as one of
Scotland's most distinguished ecologists, respected teachers, and
effective committee chairmen.
His friends remember him as a man with a great sense of humour, a
favourite dinner guest and a person who loved Scottish dancing and
croquet.
Students who might have been intimidated by his mighty academic
reputation found him to be a warm, approachable teacher without a hint
of pomposity.
Born in Dunnet, Caithness, on April 19, in 1928, he married Margaret
Thomson in 1953 and is survived by a son and a daughter. A second
daughter predeceased him.
He was generally acknowledged to be a fine negotiator and committee
man, able to apply his deep understanding of ecology to practical and
policy issues. His most enduring achievement was the establishment of
Culterty, the field station of Aberdeen University's zoology department,
as a centre of postgraduate research and training in ecology.
The field station originated in 1957 when the university was given the
house and its extensive grounds set in the village of Newburgh.
In 1958, Professor Vero Wynne-Edwards appointed Dunnet, who had gained
first class honours in zoology at Aberdeen, followed by a doctorate on
the breeding of starlings in relation to their food supply, to take over
its development.
It was while working briefly at the Bureau of Animal Populations in
Oxford that he married Margaret ''Mom'' Thomson, a fellow Aberdeen
graduate. He then took up a five-year appointment with the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Australia.
On his return to an Aberdeen University lectureship based at Culterty,
he established research programmes on birds in the Ythan estuary and on
the fauna of the surrounding farmland.
In the 30 years that Professor Dunnet was responsible for the field
station, nearly 100 postgraduates, half of them from overseas, gained
higher degrees there and went on to play an important role in ecological
science in Britain and elsewhere.
While in Australia, Dunnet had worked principally on the ecology of
mammals, but on his return to Scotland he concentrated on the ecology of
birds. One of his most important projects was the study of fulmars on
the Orkney Island of Eynhallow, work which still continues and is
considered one of the most important studies on lifetime reproductive
success of a bird anywhere in the world.
In 1990, the British Ornithological Union presented Dunnet with the
Godman Salvin Medal, and in the same year, the Royal Society of
Edinburgh, of which he was a fellow for 20 years, awarded him the Neill
Medal.
While still an undergraduate, Dunnet published his first paper on the
fleas of British mammals. He continued that work while in Australia and
was to lay the groundwork for research that eventually added more than
40 species and subspecies to the flea fauna of Australia.
Dunnet succeeded Wynne-Edwards as Regius Professor of Natural History
at Aberdeen in 1974 and later served as dean of science.
Ahead of his time in many areas of the practical application of
environmental knowledge, he became one of the first experts to advise
MPs that fish-farming had the potential to cause environmental problems.
He also established and chaired the Aberdeen University Environmental
Liaison Group which, in 1977, evolved into the Shetland Oil Terminal
Group, which acted as a go-between for the oil industry and
environmentalists.
He was again called upon in 1986 to chair the Review Team on Badgers
and Bovine Tuberculosis and his recommendations are still followed
today.
One of his greatest challenges was the chairmanship of the Salmon
Advisory Committee, set up to advise ministers on the conservation and
development of salmon fisheries, which he chaired from its inception in
1986 until his death.
He also sat on the Advisory Committee on Science of the Nature
Conservancy Council, which he chaired shortly before the NCC was
replaced by country agencies which in turn evolved into Scottish Natural
Heritage, an amalgam of the NCCS and the Countryside Commission for
Scotland.
The changes coincided with his partial retirement from university
work, and he became chairman of the NCCS Science, Research and
Development Board, and then became a member of the main board of SNH and
chairman of its research board.
Dunnet felt he had a special role to perform as the only scientist on
the main board of SNH, but to his great regret, felt obliged to resign
because he felt that the voice of science was not being given sufficient
attention.
At the time of his death -- September 11, 1995, while in Copenhagen --
he was retired but continued to advise colleagues on environmental
issues. He was in Denmark to chair an international panel of experts
examining the environmental impact of the proposed bridge between
Denmark and Sweden. He was also an enthusiastic participant in an
Overseas Development Agency project advising the Azerbaijan Government
on how to protect the Caspian Sea during the projected oil developments.
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