As modern-day conservation science is said to have been born from quantitative biology, it is no surprise that it has a strong background in the use of predictive models. However, conservation today also has a prediction problem. Put simply, prediction isn’t used enough, be that in identifying future problems before they arise, working out which of a variety of intervention options might work…

In May of 2015 a Kazakh population of the saiga antelope was hit by an extreme mass mortality event, during which over 200,000 animals died.  Reporting in 2018, an international group of scientists lead by Prof. Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College identified the cause of death as haemorrhagic septicaemia, caused by a specific serotype (B) of the bacterium Pasteurella multocida.

Conservation is challenging and often highly complex. Researchers are increasingly required to understand the motivations and drivers of a growing diversity of damaging behaviours, in order to determine how to most effectively steer the public, governments and businesses towards more sustainable behaviours. In response, conservation researchers are increasingly drawing upon methods from the…

I couldn’t believe my luck: my first job after a conservation MSc involved spending a year tracking 19 radio-collared elephant families in Africa’s oldest game park. What I learnt during that first year and the next 6 months writing it all up, was fascinating. In 1981, after nearly 100 years of absence, the first elephants were reintroduced to the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi region of KwaZulu-Natal,…

The ocean is the world’s largest and arguably most important ecosystem. Oceans cover 71% of the world’s surface, produce half of the oxygen we breath and absorb about 30% of carbon dioxide emissions. It is estimated to be home to over 1 million species, many of which are yet to be discovered and described by science.