Dr. David Mattson was a renowned ecologist, wildlife biologist and environmental activist who studied grizzly bears in Greater Yellowstone and beyond for more than 35 years. He died in February at 71. Photo courtesy Grizzly Times
by Robert Chaney
A quote from David Mattson hangs over Dave Stalling’s desk: “Grizzly bears show tremendous restraint in the face of human stupidity.”
Mattson spoke from experience. As a novice field biologist with a U.S. Biological Survey team, he spent the summers of 1984 and 1985 officially doing what Yellowstone Park rangers tell folks never to do: “Approach grizzlies in the backcountry until either we elicited a response, or our nerve failed.” Other National Park Service colleagues called them the “Suicide Squad.”
Over a 37-year career studying grizzly bears and mountain lions, Mattson said he never carried a gun. But he got in plenty of conflicts, mostly with fellow humans, first as a member of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team and later as a critic of federal attempts to delist grizzlies from the Endangered Species Act. Mattson sought to use science as a way to extend tolerance for an apex predator swathed in historical and political controversy.
“His biggest frustration was how to get through to other people that grizzlies are not as dangerous and unpredictable as people think,” said Stalling, an outdoors writer, activist and longtime friend of Mattson’s. “He wanted to cut through that public fear that is driving the policies that want to dominate them and kill them.”
Mattson died of leukemia on February 2 at his home in Livingston. He was 71. From his time as a graduate student trailing grizzlies in Yellowstone National Park to his blogging advocacy with wife Louisa Willcox on websites such asGrizzly Times andMostly Natural Grizzlies, he pushed for human humility in the presence of wild predators.
Mattson sought to use science as a way to extend tolerance for an apex predator swathed in historical and political controversy.
“Forty years ago, few could imagine that grizzlies would have to do the heavy lifting for protecting wildlands and wildlife in the Northern Rockies,” Willcox wrote in her memorial to Mattson. “Among others, David and I hoped that this would not be necessary, and that common sense and the converging science on the needs of elk, trout and ecosystems would prompt managers to exercise more restraint and Congress to act. Since this did not happen, the burden has fallen heavily on the backs of bears and their advocates. For decades, David helped lawyers make sense of complex science, and the often tortuous and wrong-headed arguments of government officials, to craft winning cases that saved hundreds of thousands of acres of habitat.”
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The grizzly bear was the eighth mammal to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. When it was declared a threatened species in 1975, around 600 grizzlies were believed to remain in the Lower 48 states.
Mattson studied grizzly bears and challenged grizzly management strategies for decades. Photo courtesy allgrizzly.org
“Not all arenas are beset as much as the grizzly bear arena because it is so politicized,” Mattson said during discovery testimony in a lawsuit challenging Montana’s wolf-trapping laws in 2024. “Any time you get this polarized, contested environment as you get with management of endangered and threatened species, lynx, grizzly bears, you create an opportunity that’s ripe for corruption of the scientific process.”
Mattson started studying Yellowstone Park grizzly bears as a federal grizzly researcher in 1982, cataloging their food sources, habitat use and behavior. He was credited with discovering the bears’ attraction to army cutworm moths. And he began establishing a reputation for clashing with scientific authority.
“Every park service backcountry cabin has a journal, and he’d write about rangers things that weren’t necessarily flattering,” recalled Mike Bader, an independent wildlife researcher who was a ranger with NPS when he first met Mattson. “The chief ranger didn’t think it was funny. He told me to tell my friend Dave he can sleep out in the rain with the bears if he keeps that up. I had to fight to keep a straight face.”
Mattson served on the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team under its first leader, Dick Knight. As work progressed toward what became the 1993 Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan, Mattson raised concerns about Knight’s formulas used to calculate bear population growth trends. In personal writings and court testimony, Mattson said this led to increasing tension with Knight and eventually U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Grizzly Recovery Coordinator Chris Servheen.
“Any time you get this polarized, contested environment as you get with management of endangered and threatened species, lynx, grizzly bears, you create an opportunity that’s ripe for corruption of the scientific process.” – Dr. David Mattson, ecologist, wildlife biologist, grizzly bear advocate
Mattson said professional relations collapsed one day in 1993 after tense meetings with U.S. Forest Service officials regarding his conclusions about logging impacts on grizzlies.
“I came into my office the next day and all my data had been erased — my hard drive had been erased and all the data taken from my office and travel prohibited, and mail read,” Mattson recounted in his 2024 court testimony. “Dick took me in the coffee room and said ‘you know, I’m going to destroy you’ basically because I’d become such a problem to him.”
He challenged Knight’s actions to then-Yellowstone Superintendent Bob Barbee, who Mattson said took his side, restored his materials and allowed him to transfer to a different wildlife doctoral program at the University of Idaho.
Even after shifting offices, Mattson continued to challenge official management strategies in the Greater Yellowstone, such as a Grand Targhee National Forest opinion claiming clearcut logging benefited grizzly habitat. And he also publicly accused Servheen of trying to push him out of grizzly research.
Servheen disputes that, saying he was not involved in the relationship between Mattson and Knight except as a spectator.
“Dave spent a lot of political capital trying to help bears out,” Servheen told Mountain Journal. “I totally respected him and admired his energy and dedication to bears. He was a really good scientist, very detailed, with a good track record. I never had a personal thing about Dave. I knew he didn’t trust the state or state management of grizzlies.”
That distrust came out in two FWS attempts to delist Greater Yellowstone grizzlies in 2007 and 2017. Mattson’s research on grizzly food sources and population trends featured in both cases. The government lost both times.
The grizzly bear was the eighth mammal to receive protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973. When it was declared a threatened species in 1975, around 600 grizzlies were believed to remain in the Lower 48 states. Photo by Ben Bluhm
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The 1993 recovery plan remains the foundation of grizzly management, even though three decades of climate change, human development and political power have shifted around the grizzly bear. The all-Republican congressional delegations of Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have united in calling for the grizzly’s delisting, with the repeated accusation that “the goal posts have shifted” from the ’93 plan’s criteria for lifting ESA protections.
“Those workshops were set to some extent because of Dave’s concerns. They weren’t to prove him wrong. His contribution to grizzly bear science and grizzly bears in general was huge.” – Chris Servheen, former Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator, FWS
As the FWS official overseeing both previous delisting attempts, Servheen said at the time he believed states like Montana and Wyoming could effectively keep grizzlies from slipping back to threatened or endangered status.
“My opinion has changed now,” Servheen said. “In 2007, we didn’t have political interference in management like we did today. [Mattson’s] objections were based on his belief that grizzly bears shouldn’t be turned over to the state. I agree that states are not the best managers at this point.”
Servheen added Mattson’s criticism of federal research made life better for bears.
“It’s to Dave’s credit he was always asking, ‘Are you sure?’” Servheen said. “With those questions came the effort to try and be sure. Those workshops were set to some extent because of Dave’s concerns. They weren’t to prove him wrong. His contribution to grizzly bear science and grizzly bears in general was huge.”
So was his contribution to other scientists and residents of grizzly country. The conservation group Blackfoot Challenge formed in part to help ranchers adapt to growing grizzly presence on the edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex.
“He was curious, kind and friendly, and he’s the guy willing to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes. And then he’d back it up with experience and science.” – Dave Stalling, outdoors writer, activist
Executive Director Seth Wilson said Mattson’s mentoring and experience have led directly to improved landowner/bear relations in one of Montana’s most grizzly-dense regions.
“Dave really helped me see the importance of helping people on private lands coexist with grizzly bears,” Wilson told Mountain Journal. “He showed how in spatial statistical analysis, you can prioritize conflict hot spots. You can justify a particular place in the landscape to focus where you might put an electric fence or remove carcasses. Because you can’t bear-proof an entire landscape. You have to make decisions, and Dave was helpful in understanding the science of how to prioritize using precious conservation dollars.”
Many of Mattson’s friends gathered near the Blackfoot River on May 17 for a campfire remembrance of their friend and colleague. Dave Stalling was one, recalling Mattson’s willingness throughout his career to speak out even at the risk of losing support or a job.
“That’s what I admired most about Dave,” Stalling said. “He was curious, kind and friendly, and he’s the guy willing to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes. And then he’d back it up with experience and science.”
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About Robert Chaney
Robert Chaney grew up in western Montana and has spent most of his journalism career writing about the Rocky Mountain West, its people, and their environment. His book The Grizzly in the Driveway earned a 2021 Society of Environmental Journalists Rachel Carson Award. In Montana, Chaney has written, photographed, edited and managed for the Hungry Horse News, Bozeman Daily Chronicle, Missoulian and Montana Free Press. He studied political science at Macalester College and has won numerous awards for his writing and photography, including fellowships at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and the National Evolutionary Science Center at Duke University.
