Professor David Macdonald

When I was appointed Fellow in Wildlife Research at LMH in 1986 I was both excited and proud, because not only was this the first university-based research appointment specifically devoted to the emerging science of wildlife conservation in Britain, it was also, so far as we know, the first in the world. That year, I founded the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, now known globally as the WildCRU and metamorphosed from my earlier research group known fondly as The Oxford Foxlot.

The WildCRU’s mission has been to achieve practical solutions to conservation problems through original scientific research. On the WildCRU’s 10th birthday, which included an exhilarating reunion held at LMH, the Unit already numbered sixty people, and was by then the largest, and most internationally-based, university-based conservation research unit in the world – a position, now closer to 200-strong, it has maintained thereafter. In 2004, as another 'Oxford First', and reflecting growing appreciation of the importance of biodiversity conservation, I was appointed the University of Oxford’s first ever Professor of Wildlife Conservation. The WildCRU’s global impact resulted in me being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) in 2008, and appointed a Commander of the Order of British Empire (CBE) in 2010 for Services to Natural Science. I have been fortunate to win some prizes, most recently the Linnean Medal of 2025 for Contributions to Science.

I hold MA, DPhil and DSc degrees from Oxford, and have learnt immeasurably from the more than 150 successful Oxford doctoral students I have supervised, and the 137 Diploma students, from 54, largely less developed, countries, who have attended the course I founded in 2008: the Recanati-Kaplan Centre’s Postgraduate Diploma in International Wildlife Conservation Practice to train aspiring conservationists from less developed countries, which received the Queen’s Award for Higher Education in 2011. All these Diploma students have been members of LMH’s MCR, as has been the majority of my DPhil students, contributing to LMH’s reputation as Oxford’s ‘Conservation College’.

I have been deeply involved in raising public awareness of the importance of biodiversity, popularising biology through films, radio and books, and committed to public service and policy. For example, I was founding Chairman of Natural England’s  Science Advisory Group and of the IUCN’s Canid Specialist Group have been Chairman of the UK’s Darwin Initiative and Earthwatch, and on the Board of quite a few conservation NGOs. Currently, I am proud to be Chairman of two remarkable and blossoming charities, Action for Conservation (which gets conservation into UK schools) and Lion Landscapes (which mobilises community-based lion conservation in East Africa), and also to be a Trustee of Chester Zoo and the Oxfordshire Local Nature Partnership.

My research interests are framed by the WildCRU’s mission (above) and, from roots in behavioural ecology, have become increasingly inter-disciplinary. My current emphasis is finding science-based solutions at the interface of biodiversity conservation and economic development, often using felids and other large mammals as paradigms, and employing a novel computer-based tool, the ConnectingLandscapes (CoLa) Decision Support System (DSS) that WildCRU has developed in collaboration with NASA-funded colleagues (see Jantz et al 2025, below). In 2024-25 we have run workshops using CoLa DSS in Sabah, Brunei, Taiwan, Laos, Thailand, Bhutan, Botswana and Zimbabwe. 

A second current priority, aimed particularly at public understanding of science, is interpreting the behaviour of domestic dogs and cats through the lens of the evolution, behaviour and ecology of wild canids and felids, and vice versa.

Some academic books by David Macdonald:

• Loveridge, A.L., Macdonald, D.W., et al (Eds)(in production) Lions: their ecology and conservation. Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald, D.W. (2023). Biodiversity Conservation: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald, D.W. & Newman, C. (2022). The Badgers of Wytham Woods: a model for ecology, behaviour and evolution. Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald DW, Harrington L & Newman C (Ed). (2017). Biology and Conservation of Musteloids. Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald DW & Feber R (Ed). (2015). Wildlife Conservation on Farmland Volume Volume 2: Conflict in the countryside. Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald DW & Feber R (Ed). (2015). Wildlife Conservation on Farmland Volume 1: Managing for nature on lowland farms. Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald DW & Willis KJ (Ed). (2013). Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2. Wiley-Blackwell.
• Macdonald, D. W., & Loveridge, A. J. (Eds.). (2010). The Biology and Conservation of Wild Felids. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Macdonald DW & Service K (Ed). (2006). Key Topics in Conservation Biology. Wiley-Blackwell.
• Macdonald, D. W., & Sillero-Zubiri, C. (Eds.). (2004). The Biology and Conservation of Wild Canids. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Some recent papers led by David Macdonald:

• Macdonald, D.W. Mitigating Human Impacts on Wild Animal Welfare. Animals (2023), 13, 2906. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13182906
• D.W. Macdonald, P.J. Johnson, D. Burnham, A. Dickman, A. Hinks, C. Sillero-Zubiri, E.A. Macdonald (2022) Understanding nuanced preferences for carnivore conservation: To know them is not always to love them, Global Ecology and Conservation, Vol 37, e02150.
• Macdonald, D.W., Harrington, L.A., Moorhouse, T.P., D'Cruze, N.  (2021) Trading Animal Lives: Ten Tricky Issues on the Road to Protecting Commodified Wild Animals, BioScience, Volume 71, Issue 8, Pages 846–60, https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biab035
• Macdonald, D.W., Chiaverini, L., et al (2020). Identifying biodiversity richness facing the tide of humanity: climate, inaccessibility or protection as salvation? Biodiversity and Conservation 29:4035–4057.
• Macdonald, D. W., et al (2019). Multi-scale habitat modeling identifies spatial conservation priorities for mainland clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa). Diversity and Distributions, 25(10), 1639-1654.
• Macdonald, D. W. (2019). Mammal Conservation: Old Problems, New Perspectives, Transdisciplinarity, and the Coming of Age of Conservation Geopolitics. Ann. Review of Environment and Resources, 44(1), 61-88.
• Macdonald, D. W., Johnson, D. D. P., & Whitehouse, H. (2019). Towards a More Natural Governance of Earth’s Biodiversity and Resources. Conservation and Society, 17(1), 108-113.
• Macdonald, D. W., Campbell, L. A. D., et al., (2019). Monogamy: Cause, Consequence, or Corollary of Success in Wild Canids. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 7(341). doi:10.3389/fevo.2019.00341
• Macdonald, D. W. et al. (2018). Multi-scale habitat selection modeling identifies threats and conservation opportunities for the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi). Biological Conservation, 227, 92-103.
• Macdonald, D. W., A. J. Loveridge, A. Dickman, et al. (2017). Lions, trophy hunting and beyond: knowledge gaps and why they matter. Mammal Review 47(4): 247-253.
• Macdonald, D. W., K. S. Jacobsen, et al., (2016). Cecil: a moment or a movement? Analysis of media coverage of the death of a lion, Panthera leo. Animals 6(5): 26.
• Macdonald, D. W., P. J. Johnson, A. J. Loveridge, D. Burnham and A. J. Dickman (2016). Conservation or the Moral High Ground: Siding with Bentham or Kant. Conservation Letters 9(4): 307-308.
• Macdonald, D. W. (2016). Animal behaviour and its role in carnivore conservation: examples of seven deadly threats. Animal Behaviour 120: 197-209.

• Macdonald, D. W. and D. D. P. Johnson (2015). Patchwork planet: the resource dispersion hypothesis, society, and the ecology of life. Journal of Zoology 295(2): 75-107.

Some other recent publications:

• Jantz, P., Macdonald DW, Gonzalez I, Hearn AJ, Kaszta Z, Langduth EL, Burnham D, Goetz SJ, Zeller KA, Loveridge AJ & Cushman S (2025) Connecting landscapes: a decision support system to facilitate conservation led development. Environmental Modelling and Software (Env Modelling & Software, Vol 25, 106576)
• Burns, P., Kaszta, Z., Cushman, S. A., Brodie, J. F., Hakkenberg, C. R., Jantz, P., Deith, M., Luskin, M. S., Ball, J. G. C., Mohd-Azlan, J., Burslem, D. F. R. P., Cheyne, S. M., Haidir, I., Hearn, A. J., Slade, E., Williams, P. J., Macdonald, D. W., & Goetz, S. J. (2025). The utility of dynamic forest structure from GEDI lidar fusion in tropical mammal species distribution models Frontiers in Remote Sensing, Volume 6 - 2025. https://doi.org/10.3389/frsen.2025.1563430
• Bright Ross, J.G.; Markham, A.; Noonan, M.J.; Buesching, C.D.; Connolly, E.; Pallett, D.W.; Malhi, Y.; Macdonald, D.W.; Newman, C. Individual Mechanical Energy Expenditure Regimens Vary Seasonally with Weather, Sex, Age and Body Condition in a Generalist Carnivore Population: Support for Inter-Individual Tactical Diversity. Animals 2025, 15, 1560. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15111560
• Macdonald, EA, Cushman, SA, Malhi, Y & Macdonald DW (2024) Comparing expedient and proactive approaches to the planning of protected area networks on Borneo. Npj Biodivers 3, 20. https://doi.org/10.1038/s44185-024-00052-8
• Atzeni L, A Ilany, Geffen E, Cushman S, Kaszta Z, Macdonald DW, (2024) Reviving the Arabian leopard: Harnessing historical data to map habitat and pave the way for reintroduction. Biological Conservation 291, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110440.
• Hinsley, A, Challender, DWS, Masters S, Macdonald DW et al. Early warning of trends in commercial wildlife trade through novel machine-learning analysis of patent filing. Nat Commun 15, 6379 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49688-x
• Mayhew DS, Hearn AJ, Devineau O, Linnell JDC, Macdonald DW (2024) Loss of Sunda clouded leopards and forest integrity drive potential impacts of mesopredator release on vulnerable avifauna, Heliyon, Vol 10, Issue 12, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e32801.
• Cushman SA, Kilshaw K, Kaszta Z, Campbell RD, Gaywood M, Macdonald DW, (2024) Exploring nonstationary limiting factors in species habitat relationships, Ecological Modelling, Vol 490, 110663, ISSN 0304-3800, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2024.110663.
• Cushman SA, Kilshaw K, Campbell RD, Kaszta Z, Gaywood M, Macdonald DW (2024) Comparing the performance of global, geographically weighted and ecologically weighted species distribution models for Scottish wildcats using GLM and Random Forest predictive modeling, Ecological Modelling, Vol 492, 110691, ISSN 0304-3800
• Kaszta Z, Cushman SC, Hearn A, Sloan S, Laurance WF, Haidir IA, Macdonald DW (2024) Projected development in Borneo and Sumatra will greatly reduce connectivity for an apex carnivore. Science of The Total Environment, Vol 918, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.170256.
• Sartor, CC, Kaszta, Z, Kamler, J, Macdonald DW et al. Identifying remnant biodiversity hotspots in Southern Asia reveals disequilibrium in mammalian communities. Biodivers Conserv (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-024-02902-0
• Rana D, Sartor CC, Chiaverini L, Cushman SA, Kaszta Z, Ramakrishnan U, Macdonald DW (2024) Differentially biased sampling strategies reveal the non-stationarity of species distribution models for Indian small felids, Ecological Modelling 493, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2024.110749.
• Ash, E, Cushman, SA, Redford, T, Macdonald DW, Kaszta Z (2023) Tigers on the edge: mortality and landscape change dominate individual-based spatially-explicit simulations of a small tiger population. Landsc Ecol 37, 3079–3102 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01494-w
• Ash, E, Cushman, S, Kaszta, Ż, Macdonald DW et al (2023) Female-biased introductions produce higher predicted population size and genetic diversity in simulations of a small, isolated tiger (Panthera tigris) population. Sci Rep 13, 11199 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-36849-z
• Rostro-García S, Kamler J, D. W. Macdonald et al (2023). Population dynamics of the last leopard population of eastern Indochina in the context of improved law enforcement. Biological Conservation 283: 110080.
• Pusparini W, Cahyana A, Grantham AH, Maxwell S, Soto-Navarro C and Macdonald DW (2023). A bolder conservation future for Indonesia by prioritising biodiversity, carbon and unique ecosystems in Sulawesi. Scientific Reports 13(1): 842.
• Farhadinia, MS, Johnson PJ, et al, and D. W. Macdonald (2023) Economics of conservation law enforcement by rangers across Asia. Conservation Letters 16(3): e12943.
• Chiaverini L, Macdonald DW, Hearn AJ, Kaszta Z, Ash E, Bothwell HM , et al, (2023) Not seeing the forest for the trees: Generalised linear model out-performs random forest in species distribution modelling for Southeast Asian felids Ecological Informatics, Vol 75,102026, ISSN 1574-9541, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2023.102026.
• Thomas, S., V. van der Merwe, W. D. Carvalho, C. H. Adania, R. Černe, T. Gomerčić, M. Krofel, J. Thompson, R. T. McBride, J. Hernandez-Blanco, A. Yachmennikova, D. W. Macdonald and M. S. Farhadinia (2023) Evaluating the performance of conservation translocations in large carnivores across the world. Biological Conservation 279: 109909.