Vegans Love Carnivores

Repost from my BBC Earth article. In April 2016, there was a rare piece of good news about tigers. For the first time in over a century, the number of tigers went up . The latest global census counted 3,890 tigers, compared to just 3,200 tigers in 2010. There are lots of reasons for this increase. But one key factor is that, in some places, people are finding ways to live alongside tigers. India is home to around half of the world's tigers, and in several parts of the country, some local tribes co-exist fairly happily with tigers. That may sound surprising. After all, tigers sometimes kill people , so they might seem like the worst kind of neighbours. But people are living with them regardless. What's more, these tribal communities might be helping the tigers. Survival International, a charity aiming to protect the rights of indigenous peoples, says "tribal peoples are the best conservationists and guardians of the natural world". That is a big claim, but the...

Reposted from the Animals in Society blog. When I was eight years old, my mother took me to a medieval re-enactment theme park. I was not very interested in learning about village life during medieval Britain, except for the fact that people at that time appeared to have a much closer relationship with other animals. As an animal lover, I remember being fascinated with the idea that every home at that point had their own barnyard menagerie, which helped to feed families for their entire lives. In one of the model villages at the theme park, some chicks had just hatched from their eggs. The hen was doing her motherly duties of guarding and warming her little balls of fluff. Along I came, totally in awe at these beautiful and cute chicks; all I wanted to do was pick one up. Absolutely besotted with a tiny yellow one, I gathered it up in my small hands and trotted off to show it to my mum. In horror, my mother gasped at the sight of this poor little chirping bird, as the realisation...

Reposted from my article on the BBC As the cold early spring sun began to shine between the trees, the only sound heard for miles around was the gentle rustling of leaves in the bone-chilling breeze. But faintly, in the distance, the galloping of footsteps began to thunder through the forest. The wolf pack darted between the conifers on the trail of a deer. Suddenly, a deafening explosion echoed through the woods, and a wolf at the rear of the pack yelped and dropped to the floor. A poacher had shot it dead. Such illegal killings are thought to be relatively common in the US. However, because poaching is illegal, we do not have a firm grasp on how often this illicit behaviour really goes on. Conservationists have previously thought that poaching subsides if either legal culling by government officials, or  trophy hunting , is allowed. The idea is that these legal forms of killing can make local people more tolerant of the wildlife they live with, reducing their urge to illegally ki...

Last week, I published a journal article on the results of some of my research conducted in Namibia, which looked at what the underlying drivers of human-carnivore conflict were.  This was based on my experience of working and living in Namibia for 2 years, both at a conservation organisation and on livestock farms. I wrote up a summary of some of these results into a popular press piece, which got published on The Conversation .  Whilst I do love The Conversation as I believe it is a magnificent way for academics to share their research with the general public, they (like many other media outlets) do often manipulate the findings to create a clickbait title to increase readership.  The editor made the title of my research "Why Namibia’s lions and leopards prefer prey from racist farms".  I asked to have this changed because it was not accurate so it got changed into "How lions, leopards and livestock are affected by racism on Namibia’s farms", which was vaguely ...

Reposted from my recent article on  The Conversation . Predators like lions and leopards are becoming more populous in Namibia due to the success of recent conservation measures. These wild animals are unfortunately causing increasing problems on livestock farms, as some of them prefer to eat beef steak for dinner rather than gamey venison. This, unsurprisingly, annoys ranchers, who can turn to their guns for a short-term solution. Conservationists have been trying to reduce this “human-wildlife conflict” for decades now. They’ve dabbled with livestock-guarding dogs to scare away predators, put up fences to keep livestock away from wild animals, given compensation to reimburse farmers for killed cows or sheep and even marketed “ predator-friendly ” beef that gives a price-premium to farmers that don’t kill carnivores. But farmers in Namibia are still reporting increased conflict. Why is this? Previous research has looked into the environmental factors that affect ...

Question: What do Rolexes & diamonds have in common with bear bile?   Answer: They are all expensive, luxury status symbols bought by those who have the wealth and power to show off.   But that's not where their similarities end: they all have cheap imitations too. Wander round any downtown market and you'll likely find fake designer watches, imitation precious stones and rip-off Chanel handbags.  What you won't find here are the rich people that are looking to buy the real thing.  These "fallen off the back of a lorry" goods are not designed for the rich and famous to save a few pennies for their next Porsche purchase.  They are targeted towards people who are at the opposite end of the economic scale - those who dream to be the Kim Kardashians but with disposable incomes of Oliver Twist. So what does this have to do with bear bile? Bear bile is a traditional Chinese medicine commonly used by its consumers as a tonic to liver disease.  Howe...

On this Valentine's Day, I thought I would share my love of carnivores with you. I spent the last 3 years studying carnivore conservation in Namibia and specifically the factors that affected tolerance towards these species by livestock farmers. My thesis is finally available online, so if you're mad enough to want to have a read, here's the link! More than happy to receive comments, questions, criticisms, hate mail, cookies etc. on it - please fire away!