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David Macdonald explains why the customer isn’t always right when it comes to wildlife tourism
October 21, 2015Tom Moorhouse led a small WildCRU team in a study of 48 types of wildlife tourist attraction (representing thousands of individual institutions), ranging from poorly-attended street performances, like snake charming, bear dancing and macaque shows, to large, established attractions such as dolphinaria and tiger interactions, which have tens of thousands of visitors every year. We ... Read full story
David Macdonald introduces new WildCRU collaborator, Arthur Muneza, and the unhealthy story of Giraffe Skin Disease
October 20, 2015Anyone who has felt unnerved by press reports of SARS, or avian flu or, terrifyingly, Ebola is aware of the threat of emerging diseases to people. They can threaten conservation too. Take the imaginatively named Giraffe Skin Disease, first spotted in the 1990s. It’s not a pretty sight: amongst the chilling words used to describe ... Read full story
David Macdonald reports how a leopard, at least in some places, unexpectedly changes its spots
October 19, 2015Followers of the WildCRU's work will know that we have a major project studying clouded leopards, spanning study sites from Nepal to Kalimantan. One very important site is in the jungles of Peninsular Malaysia, in a remote location called Ulu Muda near the Thai border. There, our team is led by the talented and determined ... Read full story
WildCRU gets a new ambassador when Dave Pocock visits the Recanati-Kaplan Centre at Tubney House
October 20, 2015Australian rugby star, Dave Pocock in England for the Rugby World Cup is a devoted conservationist and spent an afternoon with the WildCRU team. Pictured with David Macdonald (left) and Ewan Macdonald (right), and with WildCRU brochure firmly in hand (it is available here for download - 4.5MB PDF).... Read full story
As dull as ditch-water you might think, but David Macdonald explains how the WildCRU team, led by Drs Ros Shaw and Ruth Feber, discovered that ditch-water is not dull at all
October 19, 2015Few people get excited by the small, temporary ditches in agricultural land, sometimes dry and sometimes wet. But these are the vascular system of farmland, the first collection point of water draining from agricultural fields sometimes laden with agro-chemicals. Ditches are conduits for water, preventing fields becoming waterlogged fields, collecting points for pollutants and sediments ... Read full story
The Cecil Beanie: David Macdonald explains how this gorgeous plush toy is helping conservation
October 16, 2015When the Vice President of the Ty Company that makes Beany Babies arrived at WildCRU’s headquarters in Oxfordshire, I did not fully appreciate the fame of these soft, cuddly toys, but within minutes I learnt that almost everybody had delighted in them as children. How wonderful, therefore, to be told that the company’s enthusiasm for ... Read full story
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