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Tutilo Mudumba, WildCRU Panther alumnus, completes his doctorate

WildCRU congratulates Tutilo Mudumba on the successful completion of his PhD this year (2019). In 2011 Tutilo joined us to undertake the Recanati-Kaplan Centre Postgraduate Diploma in International Wildlife Conservation Practice. Since then he has gone on to join Professor Bob Montgomery of Michegan State University in the RECaP Laboratory where he has undertaken his doctorate entitled ‘The impacts of anthropogenic perturbations on wildlife’.

Of his research, Tutilo says:

“My research examined several topics relevant for wildlife conservation in the 21st century. Particularly, I examined the interconnectedness of human population growth, energy development, human-wildlife coexistence, and wildlife population ecology. My dissertation was motivated by the current global trends including projected human population growth and how it might impact wildlife conservation.  I identified research gaps on effects of oil extraction on wildlife and found a general lack of information about how large mammals are affected by oil extraction. Therefore, decision to extract oil in biodiversity hotspots is likely to be undermined by our lack of information on impacts on wildlife. Additionally, my research was situated in a coupled human and natural system and adds to the growing body of knowledge that promotes human-wildlife co-existence. This is critical because the world is getting more densely populated and urbanized bringing more people in proximity with wildlife. My comparative study estimating African lion population from direct and indirect methods highlights the shortfall of predicting predator densities from their prey biomass. Finally, my survey design for estimating snare density can be applied to conduct longitudinal studies to assess the performance of interventionist strategies within Murchison Falls National Park and in other regions of sub-Saharan Africa.”