Simon Thirgood

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Simon Jeremy Thirgood (* 6. December 1962 in Monrovia , Liberia ; † the 30th August 2009 in Ethiopia ) was a British environmentalist and conservationist , who especially through his work on Scottish red grouse and hen harriers as well as the endangered Ethiopian wolves become known is.

Live and act

Thirgood was born the son of a professor of forestry in Monrovia and grew up in Vancouver , Canada and Northumberland . From 1980 he completed a zoology degree at the University of Aberdeen . After graduation, he worked at the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology in Banchory , researching the behavior of mountain hares and red deer . In 1990 he received his doctorate with his thesis Alternative Mating Strategies of Fallow Deer at the University of Southampton for Ph.D. In the following years he studied the mating behavior of the Black Lechwe in Zambia . As an employee at BirdLife International , he was jointly responsible for the Putting Biodiversity on the Map campaign at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 . In 1992 Thirgood returned to Scotland, where he worked for the Game Conservancy Trust. His work has included the contentious issues of conservation in the UK, particularly the conflicts between those involved in the hunt for Scottish red grouse and those involved in the protection of hen harriers. He wrote his best-known book about this project, published in 1997 under the title Birds of Prey and Red Grouse . Until the report was published, the contending parties had disagreed about the real impact of red grouse hunting on the hen harrier population. However, from Thirgood's report and numerous other articles, it was clear that the red grouse population had fallen to a level where hunting was no longer economically viable. While there is still no solution to the conflict, Thirgood's scientific evidence has led both parties to seriously address the issue. In 1996 he married the veterinarian Karen Laurenson. From this marriage two daughters were born. In the same year, he and his wife carried out several research projects in Africa, including studies on rabies and other canine diseases in the Ethiopian wolf. In 2003 he moved to the Serengeti , where he worked for the Frankfurt Zoological Society . He was also responsible for projects in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Zambia. In 2005 he accepted a position as head of the environmental department at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute in Aberdeen . In 2005 his work People and Wildlife, Conflict or Co-existence? , which he published with Alan Rabinowitz . He was also editor-in-chief of the journal of Applied Ecology and wrote over 100 scientific articles.

In early 2009, Thirgood was appointed honorary professor at the University of Glasgow . On August 30, 2009, he was killed in a storm in Ethiopia when a building he was currently in collapsed.

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personal data
SURNAME Thirgood, Simon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thirgood, Simon Jeremy
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British ecologist and conservationist
DATE OF BIRTH December 6, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH Monrovia , Liberia
DATE OF DEATH August 30, 2009
Place of death Ethiopia