Still can't believe we got onto the cover of Science! . Across 11 reserves and 7 years, we found that dehorning rhinos achieved large reductions in poaching. But it's not a magic bullet (read why). Full article: Popular version:

Check out my invited talk on tackling rhino poaching on YouTube here. Thnx @NITheCS @StellenboschUni for hosting me!. Based on our recent paper in Science: (DM me for )

🦏 This was a follow on from our recent paper on rhino dehorning published d in Science last week:

FINAL POINTS. 🦏 This work was MANAGER-LED. People on the ground came up with the idea and are using the results. Special thanks to Iain Olivier and Julie Olivier for their collaboration onthis (it was their idea).

✅ Solutions based on these behavioral insights include early response to space–time clusters of poaching, spatially targeted implementation of rhino dehorning, and bolstering ranger resilience to the corrupting influence of criminal syndicates.

✅ Results suggest poachers strategically leverage space–time variation in opportunity and risk.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN AND WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?. ✅ Understanding human behaviour is key to biodiversity conservation. Human behavior shapes both our impact on nature and the success of solutions to safeguard it.

*️⃣Poachers also avoided tourist activity and minimized time on the reserve.

*️⃣Poachers repeatedly targeted specific reserve regions for set periods before shifting, mirroring the “near-repeat” behavior observed for other crimes. Crime science helped us understand the underlying drivers of the patterns we found.

*️⃣NOTE: Only a minority of rangers are corrupt and are more likely to become so when they are poorly treated. Let's not forget the vast majority of rangers who are incredibly committed, passionate, and hard working.

*️⃣The probability of poaching activity was higher near ranger camps. Together with supplementary evidence from internal investigations, this suggests that criminal syndicates collude with some rangers to facilitate poaching (read our results and discussion for the full picture).

New paper - what can we learn about rhino, ranger, and poacher behavior by looking at where/when poaching happens? We analysed data on >500 poaching incidents to find out. A story of corruption, maximizing opportunities, and minimizing risks (1/n):. Read:

Do you work with rangers? Our review article on Ranger-Based Monitoring is now out in Conservation Letters @Society4ConBio . Thanks so much to a wonderful team of authors! Full article:

It was a privilege to be a small part of this excellent work. *The 2024 State of the Ranger report is now live*:

Went away on a short work trip and when I got back I found my wife had snuck into my office to decorate it! Bought plants, put up pictures. Books. Even a jar of mints and a box of tissues! For my students? My heart sang with love for my Danica.

Yay - our paper on mapping human-carnivore conflict has been taken up among other researchers. We used Zimbabwean data from cattle GPS collars and locations at which cattle were killed by carnivores (lions, hyenas, etc.) to map risk. Full paper:

Teaching Stats and R to BSc Hons students here.@MandelaUniGC. Amazed at their R coding after just 2 weeks. Below script from assignment 2. Most have done almost no stats and zero R. They sat for 5 hrs in working at their assignments, though they were free to leave after 2h

Teaching Stats & R to students here @MandelaUni in SA. My emotions are just as mixed as theirs. See anonymous live survey results below - sound familiar? I am so thankful for how hard my class is working. They have never used R before and we are already on pipe operators :)

RT @christrisos: Funding for Climate Change Research Teams!. Please Share & Apply📷 Supporting teams of researchers,….

Help please! @CREEM_cake @ICCS_updates @SEEC_UCT @andrewbdavies @ali__johnston @patch_cervan @ResAltwegg @chrissuthy