page_title: L. David Mech
section_title: Career and research
hierarchical_section_title: L. David Mech / Career and research
caption_attribution_description: Wolves holding moose at bay.
context_page_description: Lucyan David Mech, also known as Dave Mech, is an American biologist specializing in the study of wolves. He is a senior research scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey and an adjunct professor at the University of Minnesota. He has researched wolves since 1958 in locations including northern Minnesota, Isle Royale, Alaska, Yellowstone National Park, Ellesmere Island, and Italy.
  Mech is the founder of the International Wolf Center and is the vice-chair of its board of directors. The project to create the facility, which he started in 1985, was a natural outgrowth of his wolf research as well as his ambition to educate people about the nature of wolves that they may come to respect the creature through understanding.
  He has published eleven books and approximately 380 scientific papers and 100 popular articles about wolves and other wildlife, including The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species and Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation which he co-edited with Luigi Boitani. Both books remain in print as of 2017. The 1997 book The Arctic Wolf: Ten Years with the Pack received an Honorable Mention by the National Outdoor Book Award.
context_section_description: From 1958 to 1962 Mech was a graduate student at Purdue University studying the wolves of Isle Royale in Lake Superior.  One of the first publications on the subject of the Wolves on the Island of Isle Royale  was the book "The Wolves of Isle Royale" by Mech which led to the prominence of both the author and the topic.  The book was published in 1966 by the Department of the Interior, having evolved from his doctoral thesis. Mech has been called one of the foremost wildlife biologists in the world.   In 1966 he went to study wolves in the Superior National Forest in Minnesota. As described by Mech:
  My research involves monitoring wolf-deer relations in the Superior National Forest of Minnesota, determining the degree and manner of influence of each population on the other, and exploring the role of other factors, especially snow conditions and canine parvovirus, that influence the system. With the same system and research techniques, I am also attempting to learn as much as possible about basic life history, movements, and social ecology of both species. I have also conducted research in Denali National Park, Alaska; Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada; and in Yellowstone National Park. The Denali work involved examining the interactions between wolves and caribou, moose, and Dall sheep. The Ellesmere research concentrates primarily on observing the interactions of pack members with each other and with pups around a den. Supplementary work in the area includes observing wolf interactions with musk-oxen and arctic hares as well as studying wolf movements throughout the year remotely by GPS radio collars in collaboration with co-workers. The Yellowstone National Park studies concentrate primarily on wolf interactions with prey, including mortality and survival studies of elk.
  "Beginning in 1986, the legendary biologist L. David Mech spent 25 summers observing wolves..." on Ellesmere Island.  Mech said that his research on the wolves at Ellesmere Island was different because it is  one of the few places where the wolves are not afraid of people, making that experience one of the best in his life.  This project  in 1986 when photographer Jim Brandenburg told him of white wolves he had seen on Ellesmere Island during an assignment for National Geographic. Mech recognized the rare  opportunity to study wolves that had never been hunted and had little fear of humans.  Also there were no trees or bushes to hide them from view in the tundra.  In the summer Mech found the den near the military and weather base at Eureka.  They witnessed the interactions within the pack and the wolves hunting musk oxen.  This type of research had not been done before. In an interview Mech said "The kind of stuff I got here was not just the objective behavioral stuff, but the kind of thing you get from living with a pet of some sort. You get an insight into the thing. You get to know the animal." Mech and Brandenburg together produced several articles and a film for National Geographic.
caption: 1966 photo by David Mech Wolves holding moose at bay at Isle Royale
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