Name: Hadas Kushnir
SFS Program: Kenya Spring 2000
Education: PhD Candidate in Conservation Biology, University of Minnesota

Based on her research conducted over the past four years, Hadas Kushnir is preparing recommendations to keep villagers in Tanzania safe from lion attacks. Her work was featured on a recent episode of Wild on the National Geographic Channel. Watch the video and read the interview below to find out more about Hadas.

Reflecting back on your time in the program, what did you gain from your SFS experience?

I learned that conservation went far beyond the boundaries of national parks and that the wildlife, although majestic and beautiful to us, have a major impact on the daily lives of communities in Africa. The program taught me not only about wildlife ecology, but also about the challenges faced by conservation in Africa. It opened my eyes to issues of human-wildlife conflict and community conservation and gave me my first exposure to working with local communities. It also made me fall in love with East Africa.

What is your most profound or lasting memory from your SFS program?

Getting off the plane in Kenya and seeing acacia trees for the first time. I knew I was in a place that was completely different from anything I had ever experienced before.

Seeing a giraffe for the first time and watching its intelligent eyes watching me.

Being taken to a maize field that was raided by elephants the night before. This striking and visual example of what wildlife can do to human livelihoods is what influenced my desire to study human-wildlife conflict.


Tell us about your current research interests.

I work in a part of southern Tanzania that has experienced a high number of lion attacks on people in recent years. I am trying to identify what ecological and human factors lead to this conflict and use this information to develop solutions to the problem. I came to graduate school with an interest in human-wildlife conflict and around the same time, my advisor was involved in a survey of lion attacks in which he discovered that cases of attacks on people are much higher than anyone has ever imagined. The project was a perfect fit and I immediately began working on it.


Tell us about a typical day for you.

There is no such thing as a typical day. As a PhD student, I spend much of my time in my office working on my computer. When I am in Tanzania, however, I am doing anything from waking up early and walking over 10 km a day to map attack sights, sitting outside a villager’s house interviewing them, or conducting meetings with village leaders. Since the areas I work in are remote, I never have a permanent home when I am in the field; we camp in villages, sleep in guesthouses, and move around a lot. Bad roads and long travel distances also means we spend a lot of time fixing the car, which is the less glamorous side of fieldwork.


What have you found out so far?

I have been working in Tanzania for the last four years, mapping lion attack locations and conducting interviews in local communities. So far, we have determined that people in villages with lion attacks see fewer types of lion prey, see bush pigs (a nocturnal crop pest) more frequently, walk longer distances to resources like water and firewood, and live in weaker structures in villages and agricultural fields than do people in villages without attacks. The link to bush pigs is particularly interesting since they not only create the need for people to sleep in their agricultural fields but they also draw lions into human dominated areas, putting them in contact with people.

Although I am still analyzing data on ecological factors like land cover and precipitation, I have already been back to my study villages to present some results and recommendations for what villagers can do to reduce contact with lions. Building safer houses and huts, building fences around homes, cutting tall grass around homes, walking in larger groups, and centralizing village resources are all things people can do to make themselves safer. Come January, I am also initiating a pilot program to test methods to keep bush pigs out of agricultural fields. Keeping people away from lions, reducing their need to sleep in agricultural fields, and decreasing one of the factors that draws lions into human dominated areas will reduce the likelihood that future lions will become man-eaters.


Did your SFS experience contribute to where you ended up?

Undoubtedly, it was SFS that gave me my first exposure to the issues of human-wildlife conflict and community conservation. I would not be doing what I am today if it was not for the experiences I had in Kenya.


What are the two most essential skills that have helped you along the way?

Perseverance and patience, they may not be considered learned skills but they are the most essential things for doing fieldwork and a PhD. Staying focused and forging ahead even when things look impossible and knowing when you need to sit back and trust that things will work out are both important. Sometimes you can’t control what happens in the field -- the car breaks, people don’t show up on time, things are further away then you thought they would be -- you need to know how to relax through those moments, yet keep enough pressure on to get the work done.


What advice do you have for other SFS alumni looking to get into your field? 

Don’t be afraid to contact people and talk to them about your interests. You’ll be surprised how receptive people are to enthusiastic and dedicated individuals.

Also, get as much field experience as you can, even if it is in a totally different location than where you ultimately want to work. Everything you learn in the field is transferable; I spent three years doing small-scale community restoration in New York City. It’s as different as you can get from Africa but still gave me a useful skill set and a great experience.