Zeke Davidson

Position: Graduate student

DPhil Thesis: The Ecology and Conservation of Lions: A Recovering Population of Wild Lion in Zimbabwe.

Background:
In 1995 I graduated form Rhodes University (RU), Grahamstown South Africa, with an Honours Degree in Marine Biology. My Honours dissertation involved an investigation into open ocean carbon flux and essentially looked at the rate at which microorganisims pumped carbon out of the atmosphere and into the benthic sink. I undertook field work for this project in the Southern Ocean as part of Voyage 77 of the SA Aghalus under The Southern Ocean Research Institute. Following this I worked for the South African Sea Fisheries Research Institute where I managed a project in association with the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science at RU, assessing the suitability of Orange Roughy (Hoplostethus atlantics) for commercial harvest. Based on the results of the survey and recommendations produced by this project, the fishery was never exploited. Staying with the theme of sustainable use I joined Dr. Andrew Loveridge in Zimbabwe in 2002, where I assisted his work on the effects of sport hunting on African Lion (Panthera leo) for two years. I registered for my DPhil in Michaelmas of 2004 at Oxford University and continue to study lions in Zimbabwe.

Research Description:
An investigation into the source characteristics and behavioural ecology of the African Lion (Panthera leo) of Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe.

Hwange National park in Zimbabwe provides a fascinating opportunity to study wildlife in a deep sand Kalahari woodland environment. This arid and dystrophic ecotone represents a diversity of woodland and grassland habitats found throughout the African savannah biome. As a result, large carnivores living here can be expected to evidence a wide range of behavioural ecological and population traits found in lions from more homogenous systems such as the Serengeti and southern Kalahari. Coupled with this is the knowledge that Hwanges lions have been heavily exploited for some thirty years as valuable sport hunting trophies. Recently however, our work on sport hunting has yielded temporary and total suspension of sport hunting for lion. We are now in a position to monitor the population's recovery and document changes in their behavioural ecology that evidence a change in population dynamics.

My project seeks to quantify this change by assessing the population form a demographic perspective, while studying aspects of lion behaviour such as food habits and space use to elucidate the source characteristics of Hwanges "forest lions".

The objectives of this work include providing management recommendations to the Zimbabwean Parks and Wildlife Authority for the sustainable management of lion as a pivotal economic and a crucial ecological species.

This project is supervised by Professor David. W. Macdonald and directed by Dr. Andrew Loveridge. My studentship is supported by the WildCRU and a Dawkins Scholarship.

Useful Links
www.wildcru.org/links/hwangelions/hwange.htm
www.wildcru.org/index.htm
www.carnivoreconservation.org/
www.african-lion.org/
www.catsg.org/
www.cites.org/