Dean Cluff

Dean Cluff, M.Sc., is the regional biologist for the North Slave Region, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Government of the Northwest Territories based in Yellowknife. Dean graduated from the University of Guelph, Ontario with a Bachelor of Science degree in Wildlife Biology in 1984. After serving as a research assistant with various agencies and universities, Dean then obtained a Master of Science degree in Zoology in 1992 from the University of Alberta, Edmonton. While a graduate student, Dean assisted Dr. Lu Carbyn with organizing the Second North American Symposium on Wolves held in Edmonton in 1992 and contributed a review chapter on wolf control methods for the book that followed.

After his thesis, Dean worked in the north in 1993 as a polar bear biologist with the territorial government in Yellowknife. In 1995, the regional biologist position for the North Slave was established and Dean saw that as an opportunity to develop his own wildlife research and monitoring programs. As the North Slave Regional Biologist, his duties have involved research and management of caribou, moose, bison, grizzly bears, black bears, and wolves. Dean is the project leader for the NWT Central Arctic Wolf Project and has co-supervised several graduate students on wolf ecology in the central Arctic. Since 2001, Dean has been one of two representatives for Canada on the Wolf Specialist Group of the World Conservation Union (IUCN). He has also accompanied Dr. David Mech to Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic on several occasions to observe and study wolves there. Dean is currently developing a technique to index trends in wolf abundance on the tundra.