Conservationists

Françoise Malby owner and Executive Director of Thula Thula Exclusive Private Game Reserve. Françoise was married to the late Lawrence Anthony, the best-selling author, conservationist, humanitarian & founder of The Lawrence Anthony Earth Organization. After Lawrence’s untimely passing on 02nd March 2012, Françoise is carrying on Lawrence’s legacy at Thula Thula, with the assistance of her dedicated Management and staff.

David Bozas was born and raised in the heart of Zululand. After leaving schools David trained at Moholoholo Wildlife rehabilitation centre in Mpumalanga and then returned to Zululand and worked with Lawrence Anthony in establishing Thula Thula Game Reserve. He later spent several months in the jungles of Borneo observing the Orangutans. He has an in-depth understanding of wildlife and experience in reserve management, as well as a comprehensive knowledge of the African bush and the traditional Zulu Culture. Currently he is Development Manager for the Camperdown Mayibuye Game Reserve project and the Royal Zulu Biosphere.

Karen Trendler is qualified in Conservation and Wildlife Management and has more than 25 years hands on experience with Wildlife response, rehabilitation and crisis management. Karen founded Wildcare Africa and pioneered many of the rehabilitation and rearing techniques used today for everything ranging from tiny hedgehogs to hippo. Karen is committed to training and special projects on a local and international basis. These have included a number of elephant projects, wildlife welfare, policy development, consultant and expert witness in various wildlife legal issues and research and investigation into elephant training and handling, rescue and rehabilitation; rhino poaching and dehorning, illegal wildlife trade and canned hunting. She was also spent time in India working on the one horned rhino and Asian elephant calves; and acted as a wildlife specialist for the NSPCA.

Michelle Henley has worked on topics involving elephant ecology, behaviour & reproductive physiology for some 20 years. She completed her PhD on the sex- and age-related feeding distinctions in the African elephant.  In 2003 Michelle co-founded the Transboundary Elephant Research Program as the South African branch of Save the Elephants, now known as Elephants Alive. For the past 12 years she has monitored elephant movements and their social interactions through an identification study and looked at habitat selection throughout the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, straddling South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. She has published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, popular publications and has contributed towards various books. She has written and illustrated children’s books on elephant conservation, a subject which lies close to her heart. In 2009 she received her Post Graduate Certificate in Education (with distinction) in order to be equipped to teach Intermediate and Senior Phase School children about the Environment.

Roxy Danckwerts founded the Wild is Life Trust in 2010 after identifying the need for the Sanctuary to be assisted and monitored by an experienced team. Guided by a formidable team of Trustees, The Trust is responsible for the welfare, development of facilities and the high standards of care that is offered to the resident Animals.

Dr. Anna Songhurst is Field and Program Director for Ecoexist. She is a conservation biologist who conducted her Ph.D. study on the “Competition between people and elephants in the Okavango Panhandle, Botswana” between 2008-2012 through Imperial College London. Anna has been working and conducting elephant and human-elephant conflict research in Botswana for the past eleven years and has a good understanding of Botswana’s policy and legislative environment and institutional framework. She has been living and working with the communities in the eastern panhandle, specifically investigating community perception towards elephants and HEC, recording data on elephant distribution and habitat use, and collecting independent primary data on spatial and temporal patterns of elephant crop-raiding. Through her current research and past experience she has a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of elephant ecology, human-wildlife conflict issues and CBNRM programs both internationally and locally in Botswana.

Dr. Amanda Strongman is Research Director for Ecoexist and an Associate Professor at Texas A&M University. She is a cultural anthropologist with a background in Latin American Studies and International Affairs. She co-founded the NSF-IGERT Applied Biodiversity Science Doctoral Program at Texas A&M and directs the Amazon Field School in Tambopata, Peru. For two decades, she has led research on community-based conservation, ecotourism, and sustainable development. Her work is published in a variety of journals, including Human Organization, Society and Natural Resources, Biological Conservation, Environmental Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, and Human Dimensions of Wildlife. She recently won the Praxis Award in Anthropology for translating anthropological knowledge into concrete action to support community conservation and development.

Dr. Graham McCulloch is Policy Director for Ecoexist and an ecologist who has spent the past 20 years in Botswana working in the wildlife conservation, tourism and environmental consultancy sectors. He has a great deal of experience in conducting ecological monitoring and scientific research as well as communitybased natural resource monitoring and management planning. After working ss a professional safari guide for 5 years, Graham embarked on a PhD project aimed at understanding the wetland ecology of the Makgadikgadi salt pans. In 2005, he co-founded a new community owned nature reserve outside Francistown; Tachila Nature Reserve, which he project managed for the first three years. Since his departure from the reserves management position, Graham has gained considerable experience working on various community area and wetland management and development plans, and biodiversity assessments.

Raabia Hawa – Kenyan Wildlife Service Honorary Warden. Raabia Hawa is a Kenyan born in 1982, in the wake of the most disastrous levels of elephant poaching in Kenya. Her love for the wildlife was harnessed through books, travel to places and interaction with people over her childhood years in Africa, as she dreamt of being a part of the conservation solution for elephants and all wildlife animals as well. Raabia introduced “The Walk with the Rangers” initiative with the slogan, “Change…One step at a time” in 2013.

Dr Lucy King was brought up in Somalia, Lesotho and Kenya. She has been researching the use of honey bees as a natural deterrent for crop-raiding elephants since 2006, and has published her findings in numerous scientific journals. Her DPhil thesis, through Oxford University and in partnership with Save the Elephants and Disney’s Animal Kingdom, was awarded the UNEP/CMS Thesis Award 2011 from the United Nations Environment Program’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species. Between 2000 and 2005, she led numerous conservation projects and adventurous expeditions to Africa and South America in her role as Operations Director for Quest Overseas. She is actively involved in the Kenyan Elephant Forum (KEF) and in 2013 she was invited to join IUCN’s African Elephant Specialist Group. She now lives in Nairobi with her partner and is Head of the Human-Elephant Co-Existence Program for Save the Elephants.

Dr. Paula Kahumbu is the CEO of Kenyan Conservation NGO WildlifeDirect and is leading the hard hitting Hands Off Our Elephants Campaign with Kenya’s First Lady Margaret Kenyatta. Hands Off Our Elephants is a campaign to restore Kenyan leadership in elephant conservation through behaviour change at all levels of society, from rural communities, to business leaders and political decision makers. She is a Kenyan conservationist with a PhD from Princeton University where she studied Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and conducted her field research on elephants in Kenya  In addition to running WildlifeDirect Paula lectures undergraduate community conservation at Princeton during an annual field course in Kenya. She is one of Africa’s best known wildlife conservationists.
Born from one family’s passion for Kenya and its wilderness, the david sheldrick Wildlife Trust is today one of the most successful orphan-elephant rescue and rehabilitation programs in the world and one of the pioneering conservation organisations for wildlife and habitat protection in East Africa. Founded in 1977 by Dr Dame Daphne Sheldrick D.B.E, in honour of the memory of her late husband, famous naturalist and founding Warden of Tsavo East National Park, David Leslie William Sheldrick MBE, the DSWT claims a rich and deeply rooted family history in wildlife and conservation.

Katito Saiyalel attended Ilkisongo Secondary School in Ol Loitokitok, Kenya and joined ATE as a research assistant in 1992. Since then, Katito has served as the field assistant to many PhD students, post-doctoral students and visiting scientists on elephant studies, including social behavior, communication, genetics, leadership, cognition, growth, development and human-elephant conflict. Katito assists in the monitoring of the Amboseli elephants including the regular collection of group sightings data, estrous and musth records, along with censuses of families and independent males, and the collection of identification pictures. She is also in charge of our Camp Management & Livestock Consolation Project

Remke lasance studied behaviour of animals and people in different areas. When she heard about the critical situation in Kasungu NP, she travelled to Malawi to help out as a volunteer. Unfortunately the lodge manager at the time was taken ill and soon Remke was the only one left at a semi abandoned lodge in the Park. She persevered and managed to bring the lodge to a level that they could again host guests and satisfy visitors to the park. After two years the situation had stabilised and it was finally the time for her to concentrate on the elephants in Kasungu National Park. The Government claims said there are about 200 elephants left in the park, Remke is convinced there is only about 50. In March 2015 she set up her own Foundation KEF (Kasungu Elephant Foundation) to continue supporting the protection and growth of the elephants of Malawi

Rachel Mcrobb was born in Zambia in 1975 and has made South Luangwa her home for the past fifteen years. Although initially involved in tourism in Luangwa her deep passion for wildlife conservation led her to become one of the co-founders of the South Luangwa Conservation Society (SLCS) set up in 2003. Over the years SLCS supported scouts removed thousands of deadly snares from the bush, apprehended hundreds of suspects and immobilized and treated hundreds of snared animals that would otherwise have died.

Dr. Hayley Adams has nearly 20 years experience in wildlife veterinary medicine, conservation and issues related to One Health in Africa. She has worked with a variety of d animals and has a particular interest in endangered species conservation and studying disease at the human/domestic animal/wildlife interface. Through her career in Africa, she recognized the lack of sustainable supplies in order for veterinary and conservation operations to be successful. She created Silent Heroes in 2010 as a way of addressing this challenge. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Zoology/Anthropology, and went on to receive her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and PhD from the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine’. Dr. Adams serves as a Board member of the Children’s Education Fund, Kenya, and is a team member of the African Wildlife Trust.

Sarah Maisonneuve is founder and director of Wildlife Connection.  In 2008, Sarah began her PhD dissertation work in the village communities outside Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, studying the drivers of human elephant conflict and investigating potential solutions.  She quickly quickly grew passionate about the importance of creating benefits to people of living with elephants as a means for both protecting elephants, and improving human livelihoods.  She has since devoted herself to establishing and growing Wildlife Connection.  Sarah holds a BSc in Biology and is a PhD Candidate in Ecology at Colorado State University.

Joyce Poole, one of the world’s foremost authorities on elephants, has studied the social behavior and communication of African elephants for over thirty years and has dedicated her life to their conservation and welfare. At the age of 19 she began her life’s work in Amboseli National Park studying under mentor, Cynthia Moss. Dr. Poole is a member of Amboseli Elephant Research Project, the world’s longest study of elephants, which forms an unparalleled body of knowledge. In 2011 she and her husband, Petter Granli, founded an elephant conservation project in the Maasai Mara. Using her in depth knowledge of elephant society, Dr. Poole works consistently for the better treatment and protection of individuals, influencing management policies for wild and captive elephants. As a Director of ElephantVoices,  her mission is to continue to inspire wonder in the intelligence, complexity and voices of elephants and to secure a kinder future for them through research and the sharing of knowledge.