When Andy Loveridge and I explained about our studies of lions moving between Zimbabwe and Botswana in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (see newsflash August 21, 2015), we mentioned the importance of corridors of protected habitat through which the lions could travel and disperse. In Botswana, two of WildCRU‘s team, Kristina Kesch and Dominik […]

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 explains how WildCRU’s research in the Hwange Lion Project runs hand-in-hand with an education programme for village children: around the borders of Hwange National Park, where Dr Andrew Loveridge and I set up wildCRU’s lion project in 1999, there are numerous villages. Historically, many villagers have viewed lions, and other large predators, with […]

David Macdonald, WildCRU’s Director explains the journey from Cecil to centipedes, and the principles that unite WildCRU’s wider working: Those of you who have been following these newsflashes, and especially if you have delved deeper into our website, will have realised that the WildCRU’s approach to conserving lions, and indeed everything else, is highly interdisciplinary […]

When Andrew Loveridge and I started the Hwange Lion Project, having been exhorted to do so by our friend the late Lionel Reynolds while we were sipping with him from a thermos of coffee amongst elephants at a moonlit waterhole in the late 1990s, we started from scratch, with zero budget. In the flood of […]

“We have some wonderful news – a vastly talented animator, famous for his work on Disney’s The Lion King David Macdonald, Aaron Blaise, has produced a superb animation dedicated to Cecil. He will be selling prints, and donating the profits to WildCRU. Also, and it is truly wonderful, you can see the creation of the […]

A newsflash from David Macdonald who, together with Andy Loveridge, continues to explain the practical successes of WildCRU’s work with a focus on: Lions and local people Rural Africans living on the boundaries of protected areas are a frequently ignored component of the lion conservation equation. Subsistence farmers in on the boundary of Hwange National […]

David Macdonald writes about how WildCRU has made a difference: I am fond of remarking that, in my experience, it is very difficult to be interesting, but very much more difficult to be useful. At the WildCRU we are hard taskmasters because we try to judge ourselves on whether we make a difference – our […]