John McDonald, Ph.D., teaches in the Environmental Science Department, and he has attained prestige in the wildlife field. As the 2014 recipient of the John Pearce Memorial Award from the Northeast Section of the Wildlife Society, Dr. McDonald was recognized for exhibiting outstanding professional accomplishments in wildlife conservation in the Northeast.
“I was surprised and really honored,” Dr. McDonald says, noting the award is only given out in years that the Wildlife Society feels there is a deserving nominee. “I’ve served on award committees before and nominated people for awards and appreciate the time it takes to put together a nomination. I was really gratified to imagine someone thought that highly of me.”
Established in 1951, the Award is named in honor of Pearce, former regional director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The criteria for judging the professional accomplishments of nominees is a contribution of knowledge and leadership over a period of several years in any areas of wildlife work, including research, management, administration or education.
According to Department Chair Michael Vorwerk, Ph.D., the award is well deserved.
“John McDonald is one of the preeminent wildlife biologists in the Northeast,” Dr. Vorwerk says. “He is a gifted educator who infuses his classes with his passion for wildlife, and we are very fortunate to have him in the Environmental Science Department, sharing his experience and knowledge. Several students have told me that John is their favorite faculty member at Westfield State.”
Since joining the faculty in 2012, Dr. McDonald has created three new field-based classes: Natural History and Field Techniques, Natural Resources Conservation and Management, and Wildlife Conservation and Management.
He says after working in the field for two decades, he wanted to pass his knowledge along to students, and Westfield State offered the ideal opportunity to do so.
“I wanted to be in a position to influence students and share what I have learned in the course of working with practicing natural resource managers over the past 20 years,” Dr. McDonald says. “Our location and ability to access a wide variety of field sites in just a short drive or walk from campus allow me to do a lot of hands-on, or boots-on, labs with my courses.”
Previously, Dr. McDonald worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for nine years, where he worked in the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program, administering over $30 million in grants each year to state fish and wildlife agencies and serving as acting division chief. He was a Bullard Fellow in forest conservation at Harvard Forest, worked for the Massachusetts Department of Environment Protection, was a wildlife ecologist and adjunct professor at Southern Illinois University and worked as the deer and moose project leader for the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
Dr. McDonald is currently the Northeast section representative to The Wildlife Society’s governing council. He founded and coordinates the Northeast Section’s two-week field course, conducted in cooperation with the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife and Castleton State College in Vermont.
When asked who his role models in the field were, Dr. McDonald says he admires William “Bill” Healy, Ph.D., a retired biologist from the U.S. Forest Service, whom he worked with at the University of Massachusetts, for his teaching methods.
“Bill’s approach to working with students and his dedication to our profession is a model I try to use,” Dr. McDonald says.
Dr. McDonald says he’s most proud of the field work on deer management that he conducted in Massachusetts, where he developed a research program to answer questions to make changes to the deer management system. He also developed and worked within the agency and with its regulatory board to implement the regulations.
