Dr Amy Dickman features at annual Tusk lecture
Last week, WildCRU’s Dr Amy Dickman gave an inspirational talk to over 400 people at the annual Tusk American Express Conservation Lecture. The talk was held at the Royal Geographical Society in...
View ArticleLions in trouble: a collaboration between WildCRU and some of the world’s...
David Macdonald explains how a WildCRU team led by Hans Bauer and including Craig Packer and himself, joined with experts from Panthera, IUCN and the Grimso research station to study trends in lion...
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David Macdonald writes from Zimbabwe, where Andy Loveridge and he are...
We have had a lot of enquiries recently about the well-being of Cecil’s pride and their cubs. They’ve proved a bit elusive recently, but a few days ago the team tracked them down and, as the attached...
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Great News from Cecil’s pride
David Macdonald reports that after a few days concern that Jericho had not been seen for a while (the same old needle-in-a-haystack problem) and hadn’t been moving, on the morning of the 3rd November...
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All that glisters is not gold, and David Macdonald explains that only a...
For well over a decade we have wrestled with the problem of how to diagnose a genuine Scottish wildcat and to distinguish them from the wild-living feral cats and hybrids – indeed, hybridisation with...
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David Macdonald explains how WildCRU research is revealing the rich social...
Everybody knows that many mammals, even some quite big ones, take sanctuary in underground burrows, and anybody whose childhood was enriched by the stories of Beatrix Potter can imagine Mr Badger and...
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A Call to World’s Creative Minds – Can you think for tigers?
Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU) and World Animal Protection have launched “Think for Tigers”, an online competition today to find an innovative idea, product or solution that will help...
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David Macdonald features on Natural Histories season finale
The Radio 4 series entitled ‘Natural Histories’ recorded the last show of the season in a live outside broadcast at the Natural History Museum on last Friday night. In front of a studio audience of...
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A star attraction: David Macdonald describes the illegal trade in India’s...
Patterned with star-like figures on their shells, Indian star tortoises can be found in private homes across Asia, where they are commonly kept as pets. One can also see them in religious temples,...
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Are Cecil’s grand offspring on the way? David Macdonald reports that a 4 and...
Last week Xanda was seen mating repeatedly with lionesses from the so-called Backpans Pride – pregnancy in lions lasts about 110 days, so all being well Cecil’s grand offspring should be around in...
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Rescuing Mbuzini (for those not speaking N’dbele: Goat): David Macdonald...
Lovemore, as you will have read in earlier News Items, is the member of our lion team who specialises in working with villages to understand the human dimension of depredation by lions on domestic...
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How wild is wilderness? David Macdonald reports on a new WildCRU paper that...
There is much about conservation in South Africa which is successful but also provocative, and one such thing is the proliferation there of relatively small fenced reserves, raising tricky questions...
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Cecil’s pride – NoBhuhle (Beautiful)
As the Christmas holidays approach, David Macdonald has more good news from Cecil’s pride Followers of our lion study in Hwange will realise that the WildCRU team is striving to monitor the private...
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Carnivore hunting policy does not always align with science: a new paper...
David Macdonald comments on one example ‘Current policies for wolf hunting in the Northern Rockies do not specify a target population size, a maximum number killed or a desired rate of population...
View ArticleNew research led by Sandra Baker assesses welfare impacts in wildlife management
Human-wildlife conflict is a global issue and, where people try to manage this conflict, any impacts on animal welfare should be minimised where possible. However opinions on impacts vary widely so...
View ArticleBubye Valley Conservancy
We have been asked whether WildCRU is involved in a proposal by the Bubye Valley Conservancy and Martin Nel Safaris to raffle a lion either to be hunted as a trophy or to be radio-collared by their...
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Cheering news from Cecil’s pride – David Macdonald reports that Jericho has cubs
These are frantically busy days for us in Oxford as Andy Loveridge and I plan the future of our Hwange-Okavango lion project at a time when so much is changing for lion conservation – much of it...
View ArticleNew African Wildlife Foundation app highlights conservation work
One of WildCRU’s partners, the African Wildlife Foundation, has teamed up with Steller to showcase conservation stories in a new app, which combines photos, video and text. The result is an engaging...
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