Gus Mills shares wildlife highlights
Gus Mills, a biologist who has been researching Africa's large carnivores for more than 40 years, will give a talk at the Casterbridge Music Development Academy on April 16 about the highs and lows of his experiences.
NELSPRUIT – Gus Mills has spent more than 40 years conducting research with SANParks on Africa’s large carnivores in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and the Kruger National Park (KNP).
He will give a talk at the Casterbridge Music Development Academy on April 16 about the highs and lows of his experiences. “Kalahari to Kruger and Back: Reflections of a Carnivore Biologist” will start at 18:00 for 18:30.
Initially he studied brown and spotted hyena in the Kalahari in the 1970s and ’80s, and then switched to the KNP where he observed lion and wild dog, before returning to Kgalagadi in 2006 for a six-year study of the cheetah. “My research has been aimed at gaining an understanding of the functional relationships between predators and their prey, as well as between one another, but it has also given me the opportunity to experience a myriad wonderful and unique experiences which I will try to share,” Mills said.
His initial work was on brown and spotted hyena culminating in the publication of his book in 1990, Kalahari Hyenas: The Comparative Behavioural Ecology of Two Species. He studied lion and cheetah feeding ecology, ecological relationships between the large carnivores and wild-dog population ecology in the Kruger, which ran for 15 years. He has supervised a number of PhD and MSc theses on aspects of lion, cheetah, wild-dog, brown-hyena, honey-badger and African wild-cat behaviour and ecology in different areas of the country.
Mills also founded the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Carnivore Conservation Group. In 2006 he took up the position of research fellow at the Lewis Foundation, and he and his wife Margie returned to the Kalahari to undertake a cheetah study. He has written five books, including two, Hyena Nights and Kalahari Days and A Natural History Guide to the Arid Kalahari with his wife, authored or co-authored more than
140 scientific papers, as well as delivered more than 80 talks at conferences and symposia worldwide. He is a senior member of several International Union for Conservation of Nature carnivore-specialist groups, including former chair of the hyena-specialist group, and member of the steering committees of the cat- and the canid-specialist group. He has served as a member on several boards of scientific journals and conservation organisations.
With an entrance fee of only R30, this is certainly a talk not to be missed.
Enquiries: judyp@mweb.co.za
