Rob Davis

a man applauds in front of a sign that says " so proud of you " ALT: a man applauds in front of a sign that says " so proud of you "

TFW your student wins the award for the best MSc talk at the conference!

Go Yasmin!

Cc @robdavis1104.bsky.social

A blog post on our recent Mostela paper looking at the methods' applicability for small carnivore monitoring!

TWS Journals We conducted a follow-up population survey of lions (Panthera leo) in a small, fenced reserve in South Africa, 2 years after the population numbers were significantly reduced by management. Our study....

Happy to share our new paper estimating lion density in Pilanesberg National Park 🇿🇦 and assessing optimal sampling guidelines for improved monitoring efficiency 🦁

wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

#mammals

A Mostela box deployed in the field

A Cape grey mongoose inside a Mostela box

Really happy to share our new paper exploring the Mostela as a monitoring tool for African small carnivores!

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Sample size considerations for species co‐occurrence models Multispecies occupancy models are widely applied to infer interactions in the occurrence of different species, but convergence and estimation issues under realistic sample sizes are common. We conduc...

📝 Are you using multispecies occupancy models to investigate interactions in species occupancy (i.e. co-occurrence)? 🦁🦓

Check out our new paper for advice on the number of sites you need to reliably detect interactions under different scenarios ⬇️

Prof Fat Bear! That's awesome! Congratulations man! 🥳

A spotted hyaena with a snare around its neck. Photo credit: big5photos.com

Predicted snare hotspots in Kruger, with the right side image showing predicted presence/absence of snares with sites of known snare detection

Happy to share our new paper, led by Cornelia Warrer, investigating large carnivore snaring rates & drivers of snare occurrence across Kruger NP!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We found that carnivores were highly susceptible to being caught in snares & predicted snaring hotspots in Kruger

A caracal moving under the bushes

Awful photos but a great sighting (before the photos 😆) of caracal on the way to the office this morning! 🤩 Not a bad "commute"! 😊

#caracal #mammals #SouthAfrica

Well done to Damaris, it was a great defence and excellent research! 🤩🦏

Happy #InternationalLeopardDay! 🐆

I didn't get to see a leopard today, but I'm lucky enough to get to work on projects involving them and got to spend today hiking in Cape leopard country in the Outeniqua Mountains 🤩🐆⛰️🏞️

🐆🐆 TWO M.S. POSITIONS AVAILABLE IN MY LAB!! Focus will be bobcat and coyote dynamics in an ocelot pre-reintroduction landscape. Come join the fun. Deadline is June 1 for an August start 🐆🐆

Position posting is here: tinyurl.com/5y3uhbf3

YouTube video by ZSL Science and Conservation Developing a National Camera Trap Survey for Hedgehog Conservation

Missed the NHMP talk hosted by @zslscience.bsky.social ? 🦔

Catch up & find out how we're tracking hedgehogs across the country: shorturl.at/jP54j

@ptes-org.bsky.social @hedgehogsociety.bsky.social @zslofficial.bsky.social @mammalweb.bsky.social @durham-university.bsky.social & Nottingham Trent Uni

Last call for expressions of interest in a Quantitative Ecology post-doc based mostly in South Africa. If you are interested, drop Lourens and me a line 👇

www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jaxqx...

There are still spots available on both courses. Pre-register before end of April to secure your spot!

Super excited to share this new pub led by @wilsonsherm.bsky.social! We used Nextdoor posts to explore human-carnivore interactions in Los Angeles. Nextdoor offers a useful data source for understanding urban human-wildlife interactions, if human biases are accounted for. Check it out! 🧪🌎

Community Camera Trapping: A Novel Method for Encouraging Human–Big Cat Coexistence on Human‐Dominated Land Human–wildlife conflict poses a major threat to conservation and livelihoods. Here, we outline two innovative approaches: one where local people monitor wildlife on their land using camera-traps and ....

Great to have our paper out on community-camera-trapping: an innovative conservation incentive approach where local communities monitor their wildlife & generate points, which are translated into locally-chosen community benefits onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Applications are open for the African Research Fellowship - a grant of up to $1,750 offered by the American Society of Mammalogists to support African graduate students!

A nice opportunity to get funds for equipment & field costs!

Apply by the 15th April!

👇

www.mammalsociety.org/index.php/co...

A proud supervisor moment yesterday as my MSc student, Marna Visagie, presented her study on carnivore densities from Tswalu Kalahari Reserve at #ecm9 in 🇬🇷

Presenting for the 1st time at an international conference & representing the #WildlifeEcologyLab

Thanks @timhofmeester.bsky.social for the 📸

Excellent free book by the world’s expert on spatially explicit capture-recapture (with lots of examples in R)

Our datapaper "Global Roadkill Data: a dataset on terrestrial vertebrate mortality caused by collision with vehicles" is now online on #ScientificData: nature.com/articles/s41... #RoadEcology @ebdonana.bsky.social

Julien came and taught a shorter version of this workshop last September for our MSc/PhD students - the course was a massive help for them & all our students are now progressing well with their spatial data analysis! 🤩🗺️

Sign up for the full course & also see our beautiful George Campus! 🐾🌿🌲🇿🇦

👇

Consulting Consultant GIF ALT: Consulting Consultant GIF

Looking for your first quantitative ecology post-doc? Then get in touch.

I will be co-supervising a post-doc with Lourens Swanepoel (based in SA: @Univenofficial). You will have access to many awesome data sets and the focus will be on applying hierarchical models.

When dominant predators decline, mid-sized predators often increase, but it’s not that simple.

A new review led by Emily Madsen shows suppression happens across sizes, with canids often studied in subordinate roles.

Read more👉 bit.ly/4iDv18M

@biology.ox.ac.uk

We'll cover:

📸 Practical deployment - incl. field work in a nearby game reserve 🦁🐘🦓
🗺 Survey design
💻 How to collect, manage & process camera trap data
📈 Data analysis (incl. occupancy, activity, density & abundance)
👨‍🏫 The chance to discuss & analyse your own data

We're running our #cameratrap course again! 🇿🇦📸🐆

This time from the #GreaterKruger, the course will give participants a fantastic mix of practical & analytical modules to become a camera trapping pro! 📸💻🐘🦏🐾

More info can be found here:

wildecolabdotcom.wordpress.com/courses

Please share widely! 🤩

🎉 Celebrating 1 Year of Wild Achievements! 🐾

One year ago, FatBear Wildlife Science Solutions set out on a mission to bridge the gap between cutting-edge science and wildlife conservation.

Follow the link for a glimpse of the incredible work we’ve been part of!

www.linkedin.com/posts/fatbea...

We'll cover:

📸 Practical deployment - incl. field work in a nearby game reserve 🦁🐘🦓
🗺 Survey design
💻 How to collect, manage & process camera trap data
📈 Data analysis (incl. occupancy, activity, density & abundance)
👨‍🏫 The chance to discuss & analyse your own data

We're running our #cameratrap course again! 🇿🇦📸🐆

This time from the #GreaterKruger, the course will give participants a fantastic mix of practical & analytical modules to become a camera trapping pro! 📸💻🐘🦏🐾

More info can be found here:

wildecolabdotcom.wordpress.com/courses

Please share widely! 🤩

Congratulations! 🥳 Looks like a really fascinating paper and I look forward to reading it properly! 😊

It's always an amazing & lucky sighting if you see an #aardvark! 🤩

But this night drive in #MountainZebra NP really delivered! Aardvark, 3x aardwolf, brown hyaena, bat-eared fox! Such an undervisited & amazing park! 🇿🇦🦓 Especially if you like the often overlooked species! 😊

#mammals