Photo of Luke  Hunter Luke Hunter
Big Cats Program, Wildlife Conservation Society, 2300 Southern Blvd
10460 Bronx NY, USA
lhunter(at)wcs.org

member since 1996
I have worked for over 25 years in global wildlife conservation, and I am considered one of the world’s leading experts on the conservation of endangered wild carnivores and their habitats. I help to coordinate the strategies and activities of WCS’s conservation efforts on big cats in more than 25 countries. I am one of the founding members of the NGO Panthera and its former President & Chief Conservation Officer leading the planning and execution of the organization's field conservation programs. I am dedicated to communicating the message of conservation to professional and non-professional audiences. In addition to delivering many dozens of public lectures and media interviews, I have written extensively about carnivore biology and conservation. I have authored/co-authored over 180 articles in scientific journals and popular media including for BioScience, National Geographic, New Scientist and Slate. I have written eight books including Cats of Africa: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation (2006), Wild Cats of the World (2015) and Carnivores of the World (2018). I am deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of conservation leaders, and have supervised graduate students working on carnivores around the world, including in Borneo, Brazil, Gabon, Iran, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.