Neil D’Cruze

Dr Neil D’Cruze is a wildlife biologist interested in a wide range of conservation and wild animal welfare issues.

Since 2007, he has been involved in tackling a wide range of complex issues including wildlife trade and human-wildlife conflict. His efforts have helped to improve the welfare and conservation status of a wide range of different species including Sloth bears in India, African elephants in Tanzania, Brown bears in Turkey, Asian palm civets in Indonesia and Green sea turtles in the Caribbean.

Since 2004, he has also personally led biodiversity field research projects throughout Africa, Asia, Europe and Central America for a variety of national and international NGOs. The majority of his field studies have been dedicated to generating baseline ecological data for previously unexplored areas and have focused on a range of different taxa.

A trained taxonomist, with a particular passion for herpetology, he has discovered and described six new species previously unknown to science. In 2012 he was also the first scientist to gain wild photographic evidence of the endangered Visayan spotted deer and Warty pig via remote camera trapping in the Philippines.

Currently he is Head of Wildlife Policy and Research at http://www.worldanimalprotection.org/, UK and joined WildCRU at the University of Oxford as visiting academic in 2014.