Speakers

The Speakers

(from Wilderness Travel's pre-departure information)

DAVID BYGOTT, Ph..D.

David Bygott received his Ph.D from the subdepartment of Animal Behavior at Cambridge University, and began his wildlife research with the chimpanzees in Gombe National Park. He and his wife, Jeannette Hanby (who will be our guest at the symposium), spent several years studying the behavior and ecology of lions in the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, and founded the Serengeti Lion Project. The popular book, The Lion's Pride, was the result of their research. He now divides his time between grass roots conservation and education projects and creative endeavors as an artist and writer.

Jeannette Hanby, Ph.D. She spoke at the last symposium. Both of them authored a number of books, which can be found at the hotel giftshop. She even wrote a book, which David illustrated, on the 101 ways to tie the cloth/dress that she was wearing--my memory failed me at this time on what it's called. Please send me a mail.

SARAH CLEAVELAND, Ph.D.

Sarah Cleaveland is a veterinary surgeon with a degree in zoology from Cambridge University; she divides her time between the United Kingdom and Tanzania. Her Ph.D. project was a study of the epidemiology of rabies and canine distemper virus in the Serengeti region. In 1996 she was awarded a Wellcome Fellowship in Tropical Medicine to conduct the research involved in her current work--Project Life Lion--a program that aims to control rabies and canine distemper, which has significantly affected the Serengeti population of wild dog, hyenas, bat-eared foxes, and lions.

SARAH DURANT, Ph.D.

Sarah Durant received her Ph.D. from Cambridge University, where she studied the effects of various social systems on the chances of extinction of small populations, particularly of roan antelope, mountain gorillas, and Mediterranean monk seals. She took over the Serengeti Cheetah Project in 1991, and has been researching the relationships between cheetahs, lions, and hyenas, and how the presence of the larger predators affects cheetah distribution in the park. She is also collecting data on survival rates of woodlands versus plains cheetahs to try to identify optimal cheetah habitat.

RICHARD ESTES, Ph.D.

Dr. Richard Estes is a well-known researcher, conservationist and writer who has been doing field work in Africa since 1963. His current work is a study of ungulates (hoofed animals) in the Ngorongoro Crater funded by the National Geographic Society. Dr. Estes is co-chairman of the IUCN's Antelope Specialist Group, a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution, and an Associate of the Harvard Museum of Cultural and Natural History. He has published numerous articles in such magazines as Natural History, Frontiers, Smithsonian and National Geographic and his books include the Behavior Guide to African Mammals, the recent Audubon Society Field Guide to African Wildlife (co-author), and the Safari Companion.

JANE GOODALL, Ph.D.

Jane Goodall is a renowned British animal behaviorist best known for her long-term research on chimpanzees in the wild. She has spent more than 35 years in face-to-face observation of man's closest relative, and her work has led to an appreciation of individual differences among nonhuman primates and the discovery of tool-use and cannibalism among chimpanzees. Goodall's work with Gombe's Kasakela and Mitumba chimp communities--through three chimp generations--ranks as the longest field study of animals in the wild. She is associated with both the Gombe Stream Research Center in Tanzania and Stanford University. Books she has written include Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe, and the classic Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior.

Click to find out more about Jane.

ESMOND BRADLEY  MARTIN, Ph.D.

Dr. Esmond Bradley Martin is a consultant to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), and one of the world's foremost authorities on smuggling of elephant tusk and rhinoceros horn. He has worked with the New York Zoological Society and World Wildlife Fund in the effort to preserve these animals and was personally involved in getting the government of Yemen to sign the CITES agreement in 1991. He has been involved in many documentaries on the elephant and rhino, and his books and articles include On A Knife's Edge: The Rhinoceros Horn Trade in Yemen, Run Rhino Run and The Japanese Ivory Industry.

CYNTHIA MOSS, Ph.D.

The subject of several television and film documentaries, Cynthia Moss is the well-known director of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project, which she founded in 1912· Since the project's inception, she and her staff have identified and recorded more than 1,400 elephants, and they continually traverse the park monitoring elephant family groups and independent males and working to protect the elephant population from poachers. She has written several books, including Portraits in the Wild: Animal Behavior in East Africa and Echo of the Elephants: Thee Story of an Elephant Family.