Our Staff

Dr. Alan Rabinowitz graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1981 with an M.S. in zoology and a Ph.D. in wildlife ecology. He is currently the President and CEO of Panthera, a nonprofit organization devoted to saving the world’s wild cat species. Prior to Panthera, Rabinowitz served as Executive Director of the Science and Exploration Division for the Wildlife Conservation Society for nearly 30 years. Dr. Rabinowitz has traveled the world on behalf of wildlife conservation and has studied jaguars, clouded leopards, Asiatic leopards, tigers, Sumatran rhinos, bears, leopard cats, raccoons, and civets. His work in Belize resulted in the world's first jaguar sanctuary; his work in Taiwan resulted in the establishment of that country's largest protected area, its last piece of intact lowland forest; his work in Thailand generated the first field research on Indochinese tigers, Asiatic leopards, and leopard cats, in what was to become the region's first World Heritage Site; and his work in Myanmar has led to the creation of five new protected areas there: the country's first marine national park, the country's first and largest Himalayan national park, the country’s largest wildlife sanctuary, and the world’s largest tiger reserve. Dr. Rabinowitz has authored nearly eighty scientific and popular articles and six other books, including Jaguar: One Man’s Struggle to Establish the First Jaguar Preserve (1986/ 2000), Chasing the Dragon’s Tail: The Struggle to Save Thailand’s Wild Cats (1991/ 2002), Beyond the Last Village: A Journey of Discovery in Asia’s Forbidden Wilderness (2001), and, most recently, Life in the Valley of Death: The fight to save tigers in a land of guns, gold, and greed (2008). He has been profiled in The New York Times, Scientific American, Audubon, Men’s Journal, Outside, Explorer, The Jerusalem Report, and National Geographic Adventure Magazine, and is the subject of an acclaimed PBS/National Geographic television special, “In Search of the Jaguar.” Dr. Rabinowitz’s goal in life is to find and survey the world’s last wild places, with the intention of saving as much land in protected areas as he can and securing homes for some of the world’s most endangered large mammals. Dr. Rabinowitz’s most recent projects include creating biological corridors for jaguars and tigers.

Watch Dr. Rabinowitz's interview with Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report to learn how he became interested in wildlife conservation.

Back to staff list

George Schaller is a field biologist with and Vice President of the Panthera Foundation and Senior Conservationist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, both based in New York. He was born in 1933 and did his undergraduate work at the University of Alaska and graduate work at the University of Wisconsin. Spending most of his time in the field in Asia, Africa, and South America, he has studied and helped protect animals as diverse as the mountain gorilla, jaguar, giant panda, tiger, lion, wild sheep and goats of the Himalaya. These have been the basis for his scientific and popular writings including 16 books, among them The Year of the Gorilla, The Serengeti Lion, The Last Panda, and Tibet’s Hidden Wilderness. Dr Schaller has worked for nearly two decades on the Tibetan Plateau in collaboration with Chinese and Tibetan scientists studying the wildlife, such as Tibetan antelope, wild yak, and snow leopard, and working on behalf of its survival. In addition, he has in recent years conducted conservation projects in Laos, Myanmar, Mongolia, Iran, Tajikistan and other countries. His awards include the International Cosmos Prize (Japan), the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement (USA), and the Indianapolis Price (USA).

Back to staff list

Luke Hunter is the Executive Director of Panthera, prior to which he headed the Great Cats Program of the Wildlife Conservation Society, and held positions in universities in Australia and South Africa. Hunter has conducted fieldwork on large cats in Africa since 1992. His doctorate examined the behavior and ecology of reintroduced cheetahs and lions in South Africa, and evaluated the effectiveness of reintroduction as a tool to re-establish populations of large cats. His current projects include assessing the effects of sport hunting and illegal persecution on leopards outside protected areas, developing a conservation strategy for lions across their African range, and the first intensive study of Persian leopards and the last surviving Asiatic cheetahs in Iran. Hunter has contributed to 80 scientific papers and popular articles, and has written five books. He is working on his sixth book, a field guide to all carnivores of the world.

Back to staff list

Howard Quigley is the Director of Western Hemisphere Programs at Panthera, focusing on jaguars and cougars. He obtained his bachelor’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley, his master’s degree from the University of Tennessee, and his doctorate from the University of Idaho. He worked as an assistant professor in the University of Maryland system (Frostburg State) before returning to Idaho to become President of the Hornocker Wildlife Institute at the University of Idaho. After the Hornocker Institute merged with the Wildlife Conservation Society, he directed the WCS Global Carnivore Program until he took his current position in 2002. His work with carnivores has included field studies of cougars in central Idaho, giant pandas in China, jaguars in the Brazilian Pantanal, and Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East. His current cougar field project, the Teton Cougar Project, in the southern Yellowstone ecosystem, focuses on predator-prey interactions, cougar population dynamics, and cougar interactions with other large carnivores. In this latter aspect of the work, he coordinates a combined effort with other scientists to examine the interactions of wolves, grizzly bears, cougars, and black bears. This information will be used to improve our understanding of carnivore “guilds” and to inform and develop long-term conservation and management plans for large carnivores. In his current work with the Panthera Foundation, Howard is also conducting a review and evaluation of cougar science and conservation efforts in the state of California. He is a member of the I.U.C.N. Cat Specialist Group and consults on a variety of carnivore issues, including jaguar recovery in the U.S., cougar-human interactions, and jaguar-rancher conflicts in Latin America. Dr. Quigley serves on graduate committees at five universities and has assisted in the completion of more than twenty graduate students through his graduate committee activities. He is the author of more than thirty scientific publications and popular articles.

Back to staff list

 

Dr. Tom McCarthy, Panthera’s Director of Snow Leopard Programs, began his professional career studying brown bear, black bear, mountain goats and caribou in Alaska in the early 1980s. A strong interest in international conservation led him Mongolia in 1992, where he took over management of a long-term snow leopard research project under the guidance of Dr. George Schaller. The 6-year study was the basis for his Ph.D. (University of Massachusetts-Amherst) and he became the first to use satellite radio-collars on the cats. In addition to snow leopards he conducted ground-breaking studies of wild camels and Gobi brown bears, two of Mongolia’s rarest animals. After a short stint in the Caribbean helping the island nation of Anguilla develop a protected area system, McCarthy became the Science and Conservation Director of the Snow Leopard Trust in 2000 and has since led their extensive science and community-based conservation programs across much of snow leopard range in Asia. He has helped establish projects in Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, and Pakistan. His personal efforts have catalyzed national conservation plans for snow leopards in Mongolia and Pakistan, and he has contributed to similar efforts in Bhutan, India and Uzbekistan. McCarthy also serves as Executive Director of the Snow Leopard Network, a global consortium of more than 200 professionals involved in snow leopard research and conservation. Highlights of his recent work include development of genetic methods for monitoring wild snow leopard populations, and the initiation of a new generation of snow leopard research in Pakistan (2006) using state-of-the-art satellite GPS collars. Recently, McCarthy and Schaller again selected Mongolia as the site for snow leopard research and launched the first ever long-term intensive study of the endangered cats. This program, a collaborative program of Panthera and the Snow Leopard Trust, will provide unprecedented scientific information necessary for effective conservation of snow leopards range wide.

Back to staff list