WildCRU celebrate 20 years of lion research in Hwange National Park

In October 1999, twenty years ago this month, Andrew Loveridge and David Macdonald started the Hwange Lion Research Project, it has become one of the longest running conservation research projects in Africa. Situated in Zimbabwe’s vast Hwange National Park, the project has contributed to an understanding of lion population management, predator prey dynamics, lion conflicts […]

Danai Gurira, actress and playwright, visits WildCRU’s Hwange Lion Research Project

Danai Gurira, a wildlife conservation ambassador, recently visited the Hwange Lion Research Project, part of the Trans Kalahari Predator Programme, in Zimbabwe. Danai (who played Okoye in the 2018 movie Black Panther) was met and hosted by Lovemore Sibanda, and spent the greater part of the visit tracking and learning about lions in Hwange National […]

The 2013–2014 vegetation structure map of Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, produced using free satellite images and software

Arraut, E. M., Loveridge, A. J., Chamaillé-Jammes, S., Valls-Fox, H., and Macdonald, D. W. 2018 Koedoe; Vol 60, No 1 (2018). 10.4102/koedoe.v60i1.1497

David Macdonald explains how the WildCRU’s long-term study of lions and the people living alongside them in Hwange NP, and the team led by Andrew Loveridge, has revealed how predator ecology and animal husbandry combine to explain patterns of livestock losses

What determines where, when and how lions, or other large carnivores, attack domestic livestock? WildCRU’s newest study in Zimbabwe reveals that cattle with bells fitted were more vulnerable to being attacked than those without (bells help a herd to stick together and herdsman to locate the herd, but it seems they also help the lion, […]

Wonderful photos from WildCRU’s Hwange Lion Project on display at New York’s prestigious Anastasia Gallery: take a look on-line, writes David Macdonald

Followers of the Cecil episode and, more broadly, WildCRU’s 16 years of work on the lions of Hwange National Park and the adjoining KAZA landscape have come to know about our team, led by Dr Andy Loveridge and myself, and will have been thrilled by photos depicting our lions, many taken on the project by […]

Gene flow and immigration: Genetic diversity and population structure of lions (Panthera leo) in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe

Morandin, C. , Haglund, J. , Segelbacher, G. , Loveridge, A. , Elliot, N. , Macdonald, D. W. , 2014

Rescuing Mbuzini (for those not speaking N’dbele: Goat): David Macdonald reports on the interface between conservation and animal welfare and the activities of Lovemore Sibanda in the village communities around Hwange

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 stock. On the 7th December Lovemore investigated a conflict report of a young male lion that had killed a bull in […]

David Macdonald and Andrew Loveridge explain their landscape for lions work surrounding Hwange National Park – Nature and natural processes are all joined up:

We have explained to countless journalists that our study of the lion Cecil and his companions is set in a much wider context that spans several countries, but because media reports are so skimpy they seldom paint adequately this larger picture. So, here is a brief introduction (and this is the framework for the lion […]