Euan Dunn

Early life and education

Dunn was born in Aberdeen into a family with longstanding connections to commercial fishing. His grandfather was a fisherman who worked on the Dogger Bank, while his father became fisheries correspondent and Aberdeen editor of The Scotsman. Dunn studied zoology at the University of Aberdeen before beginning doctoral research at Durham University in 1967 on the feeding ecology of terns on Coquet Island. At Wytham Woods, he used records from the long-running study of breeding tits to investigate reproductive timing and predation. A 1976 paper examined the laying dates of four tit species, while a subsequent study analysed the relationship between least weasel predation, the density of nesting tits and the abundance of rodents.

Marine conservation

Dunn joined the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds as a marine policy officer in 1994 and subsequently became Head of Marine Policy and Principal Marine Adviser. His work included fisheries policy, marine spatial planning, seabird bycatch and the effects of climate change and commercial fishing on marine food webs.

Dunn gave evidence on fisheries and marine environmental policy to committees of both Houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In evidence concerning the Common Fisheries Policy, he addressed the effects of industrial sandeel fishing and changing marine conditions on seabirds, as well as marine protected areas, fisheries subsidies, discarding and ecosystem-based fisheries management.

Dunn became involved in efforts to restrict industrial fishing for sandeels in the North Sea following a fisheries meeting in Norway in 1996. The RSPB subsequently campaigned for restrictions on the fishery because of the importance of sandeels as prey for breeding seabirds. The organisation credited Dunn with playing a significant role in the decisions of the United Kingdom and Scottish governments in 2024 to close industrial sandeel fisheries in English waters of the North Sea and in Scottish waters.

In a 2025 guest article, he argued that the preferred southern route posed risks to the Eversden and Wimpole Woods Special Area of Conservation and its population of barbastelle bats.

Dunn has also worked as a natural-history illustrator, producing illustrations for books about birds and marine mammals.

Honours

Dunn was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in 2007 for services to marine conservation, including his involvement in BirdLife International's Save the Albatross campaign.

In 2024, he received the RSPB Medal, the organisation's principal award, in recognition of his contribution to marine conservation and fisheries policy.

Selected publications

Books

Selected illustrated works

Selected articles