Who We Are
Board of Directors
Science Advisory Board
Partners and Field team
Board of Directors
Tina M. Ramme, President
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Tina M. Ramme has 11 years experience working with lion, leopard, and cheetah projects in East Africa and Southern Africa, including the Serengeti Lion Project in Tanzania. She has conducted biological research and conservation work in Africa, the Amazon basin, the Galapagos, Central America, the Pacific Islands, Australia and New Zealand. Tina worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey Biological Division for over 10 years on ecosystem impacts of invasive species, grey wolf biology and large mammal population analysis in northern Wisconsin and Michigan, and research on evolutionary biology at the U.S.G.S. Great Lakes Center genetics lab in Ann Arbor Michigan. She was one of 10 U.S. delegates to Russia for a Joint Commission on Great Lakes of the World with the U.S.G.S. and the Russian Academy of Science for collaborative research the North American Laurentian Great Lakes and Lake Baikal, Siberia and co-founded the New England Seacoast Institute and Harvard Marine Science Review. Tina worked as a bioloigical research intern at the Cedar Creek Natural History Area, a National Science Foundation Long Term Ecological Research Site (LTER), under the direction of Dr. David Tillman, to conduct established and independent research projects to better understand ecological phenomena over long temporal and large spatial scales. The projects examined disturbances influence, the impact of loss of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning; spatial and temporal impacts from site interventions due to multiple perturbations, and feedbacks that control the rate, pattern, and direction of succession. The project investigated the mechanisms controlling diversity, community assembly and ecosystem functioning as well as the impacts and recovery from agricultural disturbance in order to assess the role of trophic interactions in regulating species composition and diversity. Long-term productivity patterns were also assessed.
Tina was the Field Biology Program Coordinator at the University of Minnesota Itasca Biological Research Station and has been an instructor and education director for numerous universities and programs. Until recently, she administrated a science research fellowship program at Harvard University, Dean of Science office, and previously worked in the Mammal Department of Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology and Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Today, Tina is an an Adjunct Professor of Biology at Cambridge College and is the director of the Center for Lion Conservation and Research in Kenya.
E.O. Wilson
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“The Lion Conservation Fund is an excellent conception, combining as it does science, education, engagement of local people and, not least, a spectacularly charismatic species for the ecosystem it still inhabits.” |
Edward O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Research Professor, Emeritus, at Harvard University, is one of the most highly respected scientists in the world today. Hailed as one of “America’s 25 Most Influential People” by TIME Magazine, he has twice received the Pulitzer Prize, for The Ants and On Human Nature
Wilson’s book The Diversity of Life, which brought together knowledge of the magnitude of biodiversity and the threats to it, had a major public impact. Today he continues entomological and environmental research at the Museum of Comparative Zoology. Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge draws together the sciences, humanities, and the arts into a broad study of human knowledge, and his The Future of Life offers a plan for saving Earth’s biological heritage. In his new book, The Creation: An Appeal to Save Life on Earth, Wilson sounds the alarm that the earth is in danger and its destruction threatens us all. The fate of the planet rests in our hands, he writes, and the only way the earth can be saved is if science and religion join forces.
In 1967, Wilson and R.H. MacArthur collaborated to develop The Theory of Island Biogeography (1967), an important foundation of modern conservation biology and ecology. His theories are widely used today by conservation professionals to estimate habitat fragmentation impacts and to develop effective conservation management plans. Habitat fragmentation often creates “islands” that have can result significant loss of biodiversity.
Wilson has been increasingly concerned with the human impact on the environment and loss of biodiversity on Earth and has educated and inspired others in the public, scientific community, and government officials about becoming more aware of these issues and to take necessary action. In 1984. he edited the book Biodiversity . This was the first introduction to the term “biodiversity“, bringing widespread attention to this concept and consequently leading many to consider him the ”Father of Biodiversity.”
Wilson has received 75 awards in international recognition for his contributions to science and humanity, including the U.S. National Medal of Science, Japan’s International Prize for Biology, the Crafoord Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Germany’s Terrestrial Ecology Prize, and the Franklin Medal of the American Philosophical Society. For his conservation work he has received the Audubon Medal of the National Audubon Society and the Gold Medal of the World Wide Fund for Nature. He is also the recipient of 27 honorary doctoral degrees from North America and Europe. Nova filmed a documentary biography of his life in 2008, called Lord of the Ants.
NPR introduction decribes his contribution to conservation and biology eloquently: " Every so often a giant emerges on the stage of science, someone who transcends the narrow boundaries of a particular line of research and alters our perspective of the world. E.O. Wilson is such a man. While studying ants, Wilson struggled to comprehend the evolutionary forces that have led workers to forage and soldiers to fight, and in doing so became the architect of a controversial new discipline: sociobiology. His appreciation of the natural world has been a driving force for his worldwide conservation efforts. E.O. Wilson is an icon of our times: a lord of the ants who sought to explain nature on Earth and who now fights for its survival."
Considered by many to be the father of the modern environmental movement, Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson has made enormous contributions to the field of conservation.
Peter Alden
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Peter Alden (Author / Illustrator) is a naturalist, lecturer, tour
guide, and author of more than 15 nature books, including the Peterson
First Guide to Mammals
Peter Alden is a world renowned naturalist, lecturer, ecotourism guide and author of 15 books on North American and African wildlife, including the National Audubon Society’s Regional Field Guide Series. He is considered to be an authority on birds and larger mammals of the world and is often consulted by the media and the ecotourism industry for his expertise. He lives in Concord, Massachusetts and is President of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. He received degrees in geography and anthropology from the University of Arizona and was named Who's Who in America in 2000 and 2002. Peter worked in the Executive Office of Environmental Affairs in Massachusetts and was the Biodiversity Aide to Secretary Robert Durand Sept. 1999-July 2002. Peter’s interests have widened from his original field of ornithology to include all biodiversity, conservation issues, historical changes in the landscape, climate change, and the invasive alien plant and animal crisis affecting us today. In 1998, along with Harvard’s Dr. Edward O. Wilson, “the father of biodiversity,” Peter founded the world’s first true “Biodiversity Day” event at Walden Pond, followed by similar events in 300 towns for the state of Massachusetts which continue today. Modeled after the original event, Biodiversity Days now take place in fifteen countries across the globe. He currently divides his time writing books and articles, lecturing and leading expeditions throughout the world.
John Pickering
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John Pickering, (Ph. D. Biology, Harvard University, Mellon Senior Research Fellow, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute Fellow) a professor at the University of Georgia specializes in understanding the distribution and dispersal of organisms and is working to help document, conserve, and understand changes in the diversity, abundance, distribution, and dispersal of all living things, across scales, from local to global. His field methods include comparative inventories across tropical and temperate sites and long-term monitoring of populations and communities in response to environmental and experimental changes. He established the Insect Diversity Project in 1991 and was instrumental in developing the Great Smokey Mountains National Park’s All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory. He also co- founded The Polistes Foundation, which works to gather knowledge about the natural world in order to improve education, health, agriculture, economic development, and conservation throughout the world.
He established the Discover Life project which, along with the website discoverlife.org, help quantify how climate, biogeography, habitat type, disturbance, land-use and landscape fragmentation affect species abundance, diversity and trophic interactions within ecosystems. He co-founded the International Center for Public Health and Environmental Research (PHER) to help advance research and educational goals. PHER is centered at the University of Georgia and has an international team of over 50 associated scientists employed at other institutions. Georgia ForestWatch, Board of Directors, 2000-2002 All Species Foundation, Advisor, 2000-present.
Kate Cabot
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Kate Cabot has bachelor degrees from Prescott College, Arizona in Wildlife Conservation and in Human Development and Cultural and Regional Studies Social and Ecological Justice with an emphasis in Wildlife Conservation and Indigenous Perspectives. Teaching Assistant for Behavior and Conservation of Mammals. Women of Distinction Award, Soroptimist International. Kate worked for the Maasai Community Partnership Project and MERC (Maasai Environmental Resource Coalition) managing students and staff, coordinating volunteers, designing curriculum, and building coalitions with Members of Parliament, members of local government, and communities. She was the Program Manager of the Yavapai Humane Society and Founder of the SafeHaven Project where she coordinated three separate community agencies into new non-profit services for victims of domestic violence and designed a training manual for volunteer foster families on the care of companion animals from homes of domestic violence. Kate is the Co-Founder of the Maasai Community Partnership, where she established and implements project funding and administrative organization and was is a teaching assistant for the course Kenya: History, Culture, and Current Issues, Maasailand: Study in Community Activism. Kate is pursuing a graduate degree in zoology examining large mammal sociality. She is the LCF Oregon Chapter Project Coordinator, conducts lion research and conservation fieldwork in the Maasai Mara, develops programs to mitigate lion-wildlife conflict within Maasai communities including the Wildlife Warrior program and Project Simba, and coordinates conservation education programs throughout the Maasai Mara ecoregion.
JOHN LESEPE
Wildlife conservationist and naturalist, Samburu tribe leader John Lesepe works with the Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy and has assisted in monitoring African wild dogs in a program studying their ecology and conservation in Kenya with Dr. Rosie Woodruffe (University of California-Davis). John coordinates the Centre for Lion Conservation and research in Kenya Lion Warriors Program and trains local scouts and field assistants. He also assist in the conservation education program in communities in Samburu.
DR. RONA NADLER, DVM
Dr. Rona Nadler, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, graduated with Honors, Valedictorian, University of Veterinary Medicine, Kosice, Slovakia. (EU Diploma). Dr. Nadler worked as Veterinary staff with the "Born to the Wild" project at the Israeli Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Center under the Zoological Center of Tel Aviv- Ramat Gan, where she helped care for and rehabilitate wildlife, participated in fundraising, and coordinated education programs. Dr. Nadler was responsible for surgical procedures, wildlife immobilization, medication administration, feeding, diagnostic imagery, and capture and release of approximately 2000 wildlife animals taken to the clinic each year. Dr. Nadler also worked on the veterinary staff team at the Israel Nature and National Parks Protection Authority and in the Tel-Aviv Small Animal Clinic. She volunteered in the Jerusalem Zoo to assist in animal patient care, capture, treatment and zoo conservation projects and was co-founder and partner in the Young Vets” summer camp program. Her work in a South African conservation and relocation project was featured in Israel’s Nature Magazine.
Dr. Nadler specializes in large cats and will be assisting LCF field biologists better understand the health status of African lions in Kenya as they face persecution and environmental pressure. Her first project, The Clinical Significance of Bartonella Infection in African Lions (Panthera Leo) and the Possible Co-Infection with other Pathogens, will help determine if this has become prevalent in Kenya lions. Members of the genus Bartonella are aerobic gram-negative bacteria that have recently been recognized as emerging pathogens in lions (Anderson and Neuman, 1997). The goals of this study are:
- To study the clinical significance of Bartonella infection in African lions (Panthera Leo) and the possible effects of co-infection with other pathogens such as Feline Immunodeficiency Virus In Tsavo National Park, Kenya.
- To detect, isolate and genetically characterize Bartonella spp. In blood obtained fromlions, and from their fleas (Ctenocephalides felis felis and Ctenocephalides felis strongylus) and other possible external parasites.
- To detect other pathogens present in blood obtained from Lions which could co-infect with Bartonella such as Feline Immunodeficiency Virus and Feline Leukemia Virus.
The survey will also supply biological samples needed for dietary, hormonal, histological, and genetic analysis for research already being conducted in Tsavo. She will collect biopsy samples for DNA, histological and hormonal assays to examine lion ecology, genetics, endocrinology, and epidemiology to contribute to lion conservation. These will provide geographic context to on-going studies of social behavior and the population structure which are examining morphological, behavioral, and ecological variations in lions, including manelessness. The Lion Conservation Fund strives develop humane, non-lethal control of wildlife and non-intrusive research techniques and Dr. Nadler will work to develop strategies to contribute towards these efforts.
Maria Rutzmoser
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Maria’s early interest in wildlife and conservation led her to degrees in Biology (B.S. Muhlenberg College) and Zoology (M.S. University of Michigan) and 28 years of service to the scientific community as Curatorial Associate in the Mammal Department of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. Previous to that, Maria was an environmental educator for the National Park Service and a local nature center. She also served in the Peace Corp’s Conservation Program in South America and on a number of committees ranging from the Endangered Species Committee of a local Sierra Club chapter to the Conservation Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists. More recently, she served on the Conservation Commission for the town of Arlington.
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