Home » Integrative Problem Solving » Time for an Introduction…

Time for an Introduction…

In a frenzied escape from no-see-ums, I forgot my spray skirt below the high-tide line! When push comes to shove, some improvisation for the last two 14 km crossings was in order.
In a frenzied escape from no-see-ums, I forgot my spray skirt below the high-tide line! When push came to shove, some improvisation for the last two 14 km crossings was in order.

I’ll introduce myself by telling you a bit about how my career as a wildlife ecologist found me, where it took me, and how I would like to take what I have learned to work with others in my community. I’m keen to work with others to resolve complex and challenging problems in natural resource management.

Even though I have always been passionate about outdoor adventures, it wasn’t until I was 27 that I discovered my calling.

In 1990, through a series of random events, I found myself volunteering on a grizzly bear study in the Khutzeymateen. The experience could be summed up as full on bushwhacking, unruly telemetry antennae in hand, to find and read stories left by bears, written in sign (scats, hairs, diggings etc.). Sometimes, we’d even see them. After returning to civilization—defined at the time as a place that I could walk without falling flat on my face every 20 metres or so—but before bruises had faded and devil’s club thorns had worked their way out, I signed up for college. I went on to complete a B.Sc. degree while opportunistically wedging sessions of fieldwork among semesters.

 

Much of the focus in my career has been on carnivore research, management of bear-human interactions, and public education and outreach in my areas of expertise.

Since then I have worked on research, management- and education-related projects focusing on grizzly bears, black bears, wolverines and fishers.  My work took me to a diversity of places in B.C, the Yukon and Alaska—from full on wilderness to intensively developed landscapes. For years, I loved my career and pinched myself regularly. I got paid to do the kinds of stuff that I had grown up reading about in National Geographic and was soon seeing in Imax films. Never mind that I often worked for 10-15 hours per day, for weeks on end, earning less than minimum wage. Enthusiastically, my colleagues and I found answers for many of the questions that attracted me to a career as a biologist and with them more questions emerged.

It's true. Bear experts have a lot of bear scats in their photo collections (and sometimes lots in their backpacks).
It’s true. Bear experts have a lot of bear scats in their photo collections (and sometimes lots in their backpacks).

 

Finding better ways of moving forward.

In the early 2000s, a few initiatives that I was involved in lost funding and other forms of support. Dejected but undeterred, I spent several years working to move them forward. Looking back, in many areas of my career focus long-term prospects appeared to be getting worse not better. In a large part, visions for natural resource management and conservation in Canada, are now challenged by major and rapid changes—ecologically, socially, scientifically, technologically, economically.

In searching to find better ways of moving forward, I found other professionals that were focusing on the bigger picture of problem solving for complex and challenging issues to secure common interests. Perhaps not surprisingly, other bear experts had already made their way to the same place, an experience that motivated Bear Biologist Mike Gibeau to ask: “Are you playing checkers while everybody else is playing chess? The time has come for all biologists to recognize that while science is necessary, it is not sufficient to solve today’s problems.” By shifting focus from bushwhacking with bears to orienting to problem solving processes, I’m keen to work with others to find acceptable solutions that work.

Rowing the mighty Alsek River
That’s me rowing the mighty Alsek River. Not a bad way to build arm muscles.

And so it is that I finally understand that it’s not enough to gather data and report on science. Now my priority is to do more to share science and my knowledge and experiences with a wider audience and to collaborate with others in my community to learn better ways of problem solving for the most stubborn of natural resource management issues.

 

Reference

Gibeau. M.L. 2012. Of bears, chess and checkers. The Wildlife Professional Spring 2012. The Wildlife Society:pp. 239–241.

 

You can find my list of policy sciences resources that I’ll add to over time here.

 

 

 

4 Responses

  1. Scott Klassen
    |

    Hi Deb

    Such a pleasure to ‘hear’ your voice again. I remember our conversations from the ‘plant ecology’ course field trip, back in…1995? Was just doing a bit of googling of people from university days, and have been really enjoying your blog posts – this one resonates, in particular!
    Until our paths cross again 🙂
    Scott

  2. Deb Wellwood
    |

    Wow. Scott, how wonderful to hear from you again. What a great course and class that was. And Dr. Brooke, what an incredible man he was. I see a blog post in that field trip. Wise Dr. Brooke (as I recall getting close to retirement), me (barely thirty something) and the rest of the bus full of whipper snapper (barely twenty somethings), heaps of plant presses, and a list of plant species to collect and learn, several 100s species long. A breath of fresh air…a bunch of studying and we did it!

    Best wishes

    Deb

  3. Joyce
    |

    Hi Deb and Lother: Fri am, and you are likely already on your journey in this great world. Hope you get this message. Safe travelling…Joyce C.

  4. Deb Wellwood
    |
      Hi Joyce, Thanks so much for the wishes. We are in North Carolina now. We’ve made our way south with frost nipping at our heels but I think we’re good to go now that we’re ahead of the snow. So I’ll be back on track for posting stories about adventure soon. Great to meet you with the great east coast storytellers. Happy holidays!