Dr Lochran W Traill

Profile

I grew up in Zimbabwe, and I was drawn to wildlife conservation from a young age. I went to University in South Africa, and I worked and volunteered in the conservation and wildlife management sectors in Zimbabwe in between studies.

I then travelled to Darwin in Australia and worked at the Key Centre for Tropical Wildlife Management (now incorporated into RIEL at Charles Darwin University). In 2005, I was awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award to study for a PhD at the University of Adelaide. My field work was based in Kakadu National Park. 

After my PhD, I travelled the world as a Postdoc. I worked at the University of Queensland, the University of the Witwatersrand and Imperial College London (Marie Curie Incoming International Fellowship). I then worked at Liverpool John Moores University as a Lecturer, before moving to Leeds. 

I teach at undergrad and postgrad level at Leeds, and I supervise research project students at BSc and MSc level. I lead a small research group (three PhD students), with a focus on the spatial ecology of hippo, elephant movement and the mitigation of conflict between people and large herbivores in Africa.

Professionally I am a member IUCN SSC Hippo Specialist Group, the IUCN SSC HWCC (Hippo Group), and the Southern African Wildlife Management Association. I am a reviewer for the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission, and an editor with the African Journal of Wildlife Research.

Responsibilities

• Member of the Student Experience and Opportunities Committee
• Member of the Faculty Research Ethics Committee

Research interests

I am interested in tropical ecology and conservation science, with some focus on Africa. More specifically, I am interested in humans and their effects on natural systems and populations. That is a broad field, but for now I focus on African trophy hunting, human wildlife conflict, and the role of trans-frontier conservation corridors. I work with people whose expertise is very different to mine, including engineers, computer scientists, social scientists and geneticists. Study species are mostly large African herbivores, in particular the common hippo. 

Current projects:

AI-enabled technology to mitigate wildlife conflict.

Mostly funded through Toledo Zoo in the United States, I work with engineers to develop field technology that can pre-empt crop or livestock raiding via early warning systems. Field sites are mostly in Zimbabwe, for now. 

Mapping hippo distribution and conflict.

Working with group PhD students principally, and collaborators across Africa, we are workimng toward a free online database of hippo presence, abundance and areas of coexistence/conflict. 

Press and news:

Links to some news stories from research group can be found below:

Hippo database:
Earth Com news
Cosmos Magazine

Hippo human conflict:
Washington Post
Nature World News

Qualifications

• PhD, University of Adelaide (2009)

Professional memberships

• Southern African Wildlife Management Association
• IUCN SSC Hippo Specialist Group
• IUCN SSC Human Wildlife Conflict & Coexistence (Hippo Subgroup)

Student education

I teach broadly in the fields of applied population biology, ecology, conservation science and conservation technology. I manage two modules, namely ‘Advanced Topics in Conservation Science BLGY3247’ and ‘Population Dynamics BLGY5188’.