Michael R. Pelton
Professor
Michael R. Pelton is Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Science in the Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, University of Tennessee. He held a joint appointment in research and teaching where his major interests were ecology and management of wild mammals. He held additional faculty appointments at UTK in the Graduate Programs of Ecology and Ethology, and adjunct appointments at the Universities of Arkansas, Clemson, and Mississippi State. Dr. Pelton is currently retired and employed part-time while completing some research projects. He is no longer accepting new graduate students.
Dr. Pelton was born in Georgia and lived in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana before settling in East Tennessee. He received his B.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1962. During his tenure as an undergraduate he taught conservation courses for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in summer camps and was a field research assistant for the Departments of Botany at UTK and Brooklyn College. He attended graduate school at the University of Georgia where he completed an M.S. in Wildlife Management in 1965 and a Ph.D. in Wildlife Biology in 1968. He was appointed to the faculty at UTK in July, 1968.
Dr. Pelton supervised the programs of 93 graduate students, 55 of whom conducted research on black bears on 16 study areas in 8 southeastern states. His 32-year study in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the longest continuous study of any bear species in the world. The study is continuing under the direction of Dr. Frank vanManen, USGS biologist associated with the department. Professor Pelton was also involved with studies on brown bears in Spain, Norway, and Russia; Asiatic black bears in Japan, and cooperative efforts on giant pandas in China. Also, a series of 12 graduate students conducted research on raccoons in East Tennessee from 1973 to 1997 (25 consecutive years). To undertake his research program Dr. Pelton received over $3 million in grants and contracts. He and his students have published over 100 peer-reviewed technical papers and he has authored 10 book chapters and coauthored 1 book.
Dr. Pelton taught a variety of courses during his tenure; his primary courses were Ecology and Management of Wild Mammals and a graduate course, Predator Ecology. He continues to teach in the UT Noncredit Program, Smoky Mountain Field School.
Dr. Pelton is a founder and past president of the International Association for Bear Research and Management (IBA), a group dedicated to professional management and conservation of bears of the world. From 1976 until 2000, he coordinated a multi-agency organization, the Southern Appalachian Black Bear Study Group, which manages bears and bear habitat in this region. Dr. Pelton served on many national committees for The Wildlife Society, including the Grizzly Bear Conservation Review Team, and the Advisory Committee on Wildlife Management in U.S. National Parks. He served as Associate Editor for the Journal of Wildlife Management. Locally, he is a member of the Great Smoky Mountains Conservation Association and is currently on the Board of Directors of the Valley Conservation Council (VCC) in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
Mike and his wife Tamra now reside on their mountain farm in western Virginia where he enjoys a wide variety of activities in the out-of-doors including hiking, gardening, fishing, hunting, and canoeing. He has 4 grown sons. Tamra has a Ph.D in elementary science education and is currently on the faculty of Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia.
