George Mackenzie Dunnet CBE

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

FIN FRSA (19 April 1928 – 11 September 1995) was a Scottish ornithologist and ecologist. He acted as an official advisor to the British government on ecological issues relating to the North Sea oil industry, salmon farming and the link (if any) between badgers and bovine tuberculosis. The latter resulted in a government report generally called the Dunnet Report. He was the first Director of the Culterty Field Station (studying a variety of ecological issues) at Aberdeen University.

Life

He was born at

Dunnet Dunnet is a village in Caithness, in the Highland (council area), Highland area of Scotland. It is within the Parish of Dunnet. Village The village centres on the A836 road, A836–B855 road junction. The A836 leads towards John o' Groats ...

Caithness Caithness ( gd, Gallaibh ; sco, Caitnes; non, Katanes) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. Caithness has a land boundary with the historic county of Sutherland to the west and is otherwise bounded by ...

on 19 April 1928 the son of John George Dunnet. He was raised in

Stuartfield Stuartfield is a small inland village in the Buchan area of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, situated south of Old Deer. It was formerly known as New Crichie, and the name is still used by locals as illustrated by the village association website bei ...

and attended

Peterhead Academy Peterhead Academy is a six-year Comprehensive Community School in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is operated by Aberdeenshire Council. History The original building of Peterhead Academy was built in 1846 and was originally a boys only sc ...

. He then went to Aberdeen University graduating BSc in 1949. He worked briefly at the Bureau of Animal Populations in Oxford before undertaking a five-year study research trip to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

as part of the Wildlife Survey Section of CSIRO, mainly concentrating on flea types on various species. He identified over 40 new species and subspecies during this period. He was then invited to head the new Culterty Research Station at Aberdeen University under Prof Vero Wynne-Edwards in 1957. He then succeeded Wynne-Edwards as Regius Professor of Natural History in 1974, continuing this role until 1992. He later served as Dean of the Faculty of Science for the university. In 1970 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

. His proposers were Vero Wynne-Edwards, John N Black, Julius Eggeling, and

Charles Gimingham Charles Henry Gimingham (28 April 1923 – 19 June 2018) was a British botanist at the University of Aberdeen, patron of the Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management, former president of the British Ecological Society, and one o ...

. He won the Society's Neill Prize for the period 1987–89. He famously resigned from his role as principal (and sole) scientific advisor to Scottish Natural Heritage due to ongoing dissatisfaction with the SNH's lack of scientific input to their decision-making. He was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1994 New Year's Honours List. He died of a stroke whilst attending a conference in Copenhagen in Denmark on 11 September 1995. The conference was debating the ecological effects of the proposed Øresund Bridge.

Positions of Note

*Chairman of the Salmon Advisory Committee 1986-1995 *Member of the Advisory Committee on Science to the Nature Conservancy Council *Chairman of the Shetland Oil Terminal Environmental Advisory Group (SOTEAG) *Chairman of the Review Team on Badgers and Bovine Tuberculosis

Publications

*''Fleas of British Mammals'' (1948)

Family

He married Margaret ("Mom") Thomson in 1953. They had one son and two daughters (one of whom died).

References

External links

*R.E. Lewis
Flea News 51: Obituaries
Department of Entomology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, December 1995 {{DEFAULTSORT:Dunnet, George Mackenzie 1928 births 1995 deaths People educated at Peterhead Academy Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Scottish ornithologists Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Aberdeen 20th-century British zoologists People from Caithness People from Stuartfield