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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

David Macdonald and Andrew Loveridge mentioned in an earlier newsflash our gratitude to Cara Delevingne for auctioning her personal Tag Heuer wristwatch (with lion face) to raise funds for our project. Through the enthusiastic generosity of the successful buyer, Rebhi Barqawi, the sale raised over £9000 – we are grateful to Mr Barqawi for pushing […]