click to watch video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqgRHZr0bNQ
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwji8KrNp9TSAhVLGZQKHUjyCbUQFggdMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.allgrizzly.org%2Fdavid-mattson&usg=AFQjCNETlZEcf_0Q8yqHkPEPoIqOquTqSA&sig2=2xtyxQMBTXjaSVKAPuku1Q
If I were to describe myself in one word, it would be "scientist." Most of my professional life (40 years or so) has been spent doing research. More concretely, I've spent a lot of time running around following animals, systematically collecting data, analyzing it, and then publishing the results. I've also focused a lot of my research during the last 25 years on people and the phenomenon of collective and individual decision-making. This human-focused research has been conducted under the rubric of "policy," although the word tends to make most people shudder. And my primary motivation? In a word, curiosity. Combined with an obsessive pursuit of enlightenment. Both of these drives have led me to focus my inquiries on complex systems, primarily because I consider highly-contingent complexity to be the inescapable reality of human or natural phenomena, to the point where I view any given intersection of time and space as a singularlity. Which I've found to be a useful stance if I want to genuinely understand what's unfolding. I consider it foolish and illusory to assume otherwise. Although, ironically enough, it strikes me that most theory-driven scientists assume otherwise in practice.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=4&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwji8KrNp9TSAhVLGZQKHUjyCbUQFggtMAM&url=http%3A%2F%2Fearthjustice.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Ffiles%2FMattson%2520Declaration.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHU13BE3_LHIsd7Q-MlRXcGKjeYlQ&sig2=Y47F0HSvrcVgcR5lvXag8Q
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwji8KrNp9TSAhVLGZQKHUjyCbUQFggdMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.allgrizzly.org%2Fdavid-mattson&usg=AFQjCNETlZEcf_0Q8yqHkPEPoIqOquTqSA&sig2=2xtyxQMBTXjaSVKAPuku1Q
David Mattson
If I were to describe myself in one word, it would be "scientist." Most of my professional life (40 years or so) has been spent doing research. More concretely, I've spent a lot of time running around following animals, systematically collecting data, analyzing it, and then publishing the results. I've also focused a lot of my research during the last 25 years on people and the phenomenon of collective and individual decision-making. This human-focused research has been conducted under the rubric of "policy," although the word tends to make most people shudder. And my primary motivation? In a word, curiosity. Combined with an obsessive pursuit of enlightenment. Both of these drives have led me to focus my inquiries on complex systems, primarily because I consider highly-contingent complexity to be the inescapable reality of human or natural phenomena, to the point where I view any given intersection of time and space as a singularlity. Which I've found to be a useful stance if I want to genuinely understand what's unfolding. I consider it foolish and illusory to assume otherwise. Although, ironically enough, it strikes me that most theory-driven scientists assume otherwise in practice.
mMMMy Phd dissertation was based on research that I did during 1979-1993 focused on the foraging behavior of Yellowstone's grizzly bears. The following link (Mattson 2000) takes you to a pdf of my thesis. And the photo to the right is illustrative of that period when I spent March-October of every year following radio-marked grizzlies (in case you are wondering, I'm looking at the remains of an elk while surveying winter kill in the Firehole area of Yellowstone Park). I also pioneered the use of transects and other non-invasive methods to investigate habitat use by grizzlies--including the oversight and implementation of studies focused on bear use of red squirrel middens (with Dan Reinhart), cutthroat trout spawning streams (with Dan Reinhart again), spring ungulate carrion (with Gerry Green and Jeff Henry), and biscuitroots and other vegetal foods. I'm afraid I don't have photos of me lurking at some strategic distance behind a drugged or otherwise subdued grizzly bear...the classic trophy shot. Unlike most who seem to get involved in grizzly bear research as affirmation of man- (or woman-) hood--i.e., by capturing, immobilizing and otherwise dominating a bear--I never seemed to get the hang of that sort of thing, along with wearing a cowboy hat. My attitude was: If a bear had suffered through the capture and handling process, you should be damned sure to get the maximum amount of information in recompense for the animal's incovenience (and suffering?).
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