Dr Ximena Velez-Liendo, the Bolivian powerhouse embodiment of the Chester Zoo/WildCRU partnership, and this year’s winner of the Whitley Award, is yet again breaking down barriers, as David Macdonald reports on her remarkable achievements at the highest levels of government in Bolivia

September 11, 2017

Dr Ximena Velez-Liendo has just  presented the case for a new law to a MPs commission, which was approved (9 in favour, 1 against). Ximena’s law, as we might call it, will formally be called Ajayu’s law: the Andean bear is now part of Bolivian National Natural Heritage. It is named "Ajayu" (Spirit in Quechua), in honour of ... Read full story

Amongst the clouds

September 11, 2017

For over five years now, we’ve been undertaking the biggest ever camera-trapping study of the guild of wild felids that live alongside clouded leopards throughout SE Asia, writes David Macdonald, as WildCRU celebrates the first paper to be published on both clouded leopards and marbled cats in continental Asia. The research, led by WildCRU’s Priya Singh ... Read full story

Driverless cars could see humankind sprawl ever further into the countryside

August 29, 2017

WildCRU's Dr Timothy Hodgetts, Research Fellow in the Geopolitics of Wildlife Conservation, has recently published an article in The Conversation. Read the full article here.

New WildCRU collaboration paper on Sri Lankan leopards

September 11, 2017

WildCRU is studying leopards, and the guilds of which they are working parts, in an arc stretching up through Africa, through the Middle East, onwards through SE Asia to Java, and nowhere are they more interesting than in Sri Lanka, where a subspecies, Panthera pardus kotiya, is endangered and endemic, writes David Macdonald in celebration ... Read full story

Dr Amy Dickman talks at this year’s TED Global meeting

September 4, 2017

This year’s TED Global meeting was held in Arusha, Tanzania, and Dr Amy Dickman, who runs our Ruaha Carnivore Project, was fortunate enough to give a short talk. She gave a brief overview of the work we are doing improving human-carnivore coexistence in southern Tanzania’s Ruaha landscape, and sought collaborations amongst other TED attendees. We ... Read full story

Mongabay reports on the threat to Clouded Leopards posed by palm oil

August 23, 2017

Mongabay reports on how palm oil threatens the Clouded Leopard. They spoke to WildCRU's Andrew Hearn, and Ewan Macdonald for comment. “Oil palm plantation habitats, particularly recently cleared areas…tend to resist the movements of these cats, whereas forest habitats facilitated their movements.”  https://news.mongabay.com/2017/08/a-clouded-future-asias-enigmatic-clouded-leopard-threatened-by-palm-oil/