Morten Bakken (1954 - 2011)

BJARNE O. BRAASTAD, INGER LISE ANDERSEN, ODD VANGEN

It is with great sadness we received the message that Professor Morten Bakken died on 5th June. He suffered from cancer during the last years.

Despite several medical treatments for his lung and brain tumors he kept on his work as well as he could manage, until just a few weeks ago.

Morten had a MSc in Zoology (specialty Ethology) from University of Trondheim in 1981. In his master thesis he showed that the black breast stripe of great tits (Parus major) correlated with the social status of the bird, a work that was published in Animal Behaviour in 1984. Morten started working at Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Dept. of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences, in 1987, on a project on maternal behaviour of silver foxes, which resulted in his PhD thesis in 1994. Morten became associate professor of ethology and animal welfare in 1997, and full professor in 2002. He was prorector of science at our university for a few years.



Morten’s major contribution to applied ethology science was an uncompromising attitude that basic biology and behavioural ecology were essential background for applied research. In his PhD work he studied maternal infanticide among silver fox vixens and concluded that this might not be pathological, but rather an adaptive trait to manipulate offspring to becoming helpers in future reproduction under the difficult farming conditions.

Afterwards he initiated research on prenatal stress in foxes in the mid 1990’s, and later in chickens and salmon. This early work stimulated a lot of research work on prenatal experience also in other species, and still in 2011 we start a new project on this topic in goats.

Morten worked hard for improving housing, handling and breeding of fur animals based on his scientific results. Most of the welfare improvements in this production during the last 10-12 years are based on Morten’s ideas.



Morten cooperated extensively with other scientists in genetics, breeding, physiology and veterinary science, and contributed with great skill to cross-scientific work in a number of species. During his 25 years of scientific work Morten has published more than 80 scientific papers. He was a well-respected teacher and a popular supervisor for a large number of master and doctoral students. He also served as a mentor for other scientists, who really loved discussing theoretical problems and scientific visions with Morten.



Morten’s favorite species was undoubtedly the domestic dog. He was the most competent dog ethologist in Norway and struggled to convince dog breeding organizations and dog owners to learn dog ethology and implement this knowledge both into the selection work and into handling and raising of puppies to improve the dogs and to make the future dog owners happier.



Morten was a good friend of many ethologists. He has produced a number of high quality research results and stimulated students to achieve what they never thought they were able to. Now our thoughts go to his dear wife Karna who lived with and was a great support to Morten for more than 30 years.



Updated: 21.06.11
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