Simon Pooley
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Overview
Overview
Biography
I am currently the Lambert Lecturer in Environment (Applied Herpetology), a bequest lectureship created by Dr Michael Lambert, a Fellow of Birkbeck College. Lambert’s work viewed "human and natural species as mutually constitutive rather than distinct or antagonistic," and was regarded as "a template for new kinds of collaboration between biologists, ecologists, pharmacologists, even ethnographers and cultural historians." I couldn't have asked for a better description of my research aspirations.
Since 2016, I have worked hard to realise this vision for the role, doing research and outreach work in southern Africa and India (including posters, bibliographies, pamphlets and workshops), participating in international conservation networks and publishing and presenting my work on human-crocodilian interactions in international fora. I have worked with colleagues in Central and South America and the Caribbean on human-crocodilian interactions, and have successfully motivated to have snakes included in our IUCN Task Force resources on human-wildlife conflicts.
My recent work focuses on human-wildlife coexistence, and I also continue my studies on wildfires and bioinvasions, and interdisciplinarity. All my research informs my teaching on environmental topics in the Geography Department at Birkbeck, where I am Programme Director of the MSc in Environment and Sustainability. This postgraduate course provides an advanced-level grounding in sustainable responses to a broad range of environmental issues, exploring the relationship between policy, practice and the ecological environment, and the development of effective strategies for addressing the threats and opportunities posed by environmental issues.
I grew up in nature reserves in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where my parents were conservationists whose research focused on crocodilians and the indigenous flora. I have degrees from the universities of KwaZulu-Natal, Cape Town, Birkbeck and University of Oxford. Before taking up the Lambert Lectureship, I was a lecturer and course director in conservation science at Imperial College London. I completed my D.Phil in environmental history (University of Oxford) in 2010, going on to Junior Research Fellowships at St Antony’s College, Oxford (2010-2012) and Imperial College London (2012-2015).
Highlights
I gave the opening talk "Croc attacks and conflicts" of the Living with Crocodilians sessions at the IUCN SSC Crocodile Specialist Group working group meeting in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia on Wednesday 17 April 2024.
Our IUCN SSC Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence Specialist Group launched our international Guidelines at our conference in Oxford in March 2023. I co-authored several chapters, on history and HWC, culture and HWC, human and animal behaviour, lethal control and social science methods - and the introduction.
I commissioned and guest edited a special issue on Coexisting with Reptiles for the illustrated, open access, plain English journal Current Conservation, available online from January 2024 at https://www.currentconservation.org/issues/17-4/
Office hours
Simon Pooley is on sabbatical in Autumn 2022
Qualifications
- D.Phil, University of Oxford
Web profiles
Administrative responsibilities
- Program Director: MSc Environment and Sustainability
Visiting posts
- Honourary Researcher , in the School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa,
Professional activities
Member, IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group
Steering Group Member, IUCN SSC Specialist Group on Human-Wildlife Conflict and Coexistence
Associate Editor, Human-Wildlife Dynamics, Frontiers in Conservation Science
Professional memberships
Senior Research Associate, Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex
Member, Society for Conservation Biology
ORCID
0000-0002-0260-6159 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- human-wildlife conflict and coexistence
- wildfires
- bioinvasions
- environmental history
- Crocodilians
- Indigenous knowledge
- conservation policy
Research overview
In my research, teaching and conservation practice I focus on the conservation of biodiversity and human wellbeing and cultural diversity. I apply my research to real world challenges.
My research is interdisciplinary, ranging across the fields of animal geography, historical geography, environmental humanities (history in particular), ethnozoology and conservation science.
A current focus is human-wildlife encounters, conflicts and coexistence, and in particular the crocodilians worldwide, with fieldwork in southern Africa and India. This includes cultural, ecological and historical dimensions of such encounters.
My other research interests include the challenges of interdisciplinarity, the history of wildlife conservation, environmental histories of wildfire research, policy and management, and biological invasions in Mediterranean-type regions.New work includes investigating the production of scientific natural history knowledge and how this draws on while excluding indigenous knowledge, with a view to improving future practices.
Research Centres and Institutes
Research clusters and groups
- Environment, Landscapes and Climate Change Cluster
- member, Birkbeck Research Centre for Environment and Sustainability
Research projects
Human-hippo and human-crocodile interactions in African Wetlands
Western Science, Indigenous Knowledge and the "discovery" of the Okapi
ZSL Hidden Histories
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
I am interested in supervising postgraduate research on human-predator relations; on collecting, analysing, visualising and communicating data on human-predator interactions; ethnozoology; conceptions on Nature in the Anthropocene; the history of wildlife conservation and conservation science; the uses and abuses of history and historical data in ecology and conservation science; critical thinking on biological invasions and restoration ecology; and wildfire.
I have supervised MSc and BSc theses at Imperial College London and at Birkbeck, and examined PhD students at the universities of Oxford and Edinburgh.
I am currently co-supervising PhD theses as follows:
Antonia Scarr: Is ecology considered in the management of English estuaries? Co-supervisor: Prof. Mike Elliott, at Hull University.
Apoorva Kulkarni: Untangling human-wildlife interactions in transitional forest-fringes of South India. Co-supervisor: Prof. E.J. Milner-Gulland, University of Oxford.
Josh Taylor: Co-existence with predators and motivations for adapting conflict mitigation strategies in North-west Patagonia, Argentina. Co-supervisor: Dr Valeria Fernandez-Arhex, at the National University of Cordoba, Argentina.
Current doctoral researchers
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ANTONIA SCARR
Teaching
I teach environmental science for environmental management and policy to MSc and undergraduate students at Birkbeck, including convening the module Managing Environments and guest lecturing on the modules Environmental Science for Environmental Management and Introducing Natural Environments.
I greatly enjoy teaching my module Global Nature Conservation to final-year UG, and MSc students.
I have previously tutored and lectured on a wide variety of subjects from Conservation Science (Imperial College London); through Global and Imperial History, South African history, and African environments (at Oxford and Sussex universities).
I became a Fellow of The Higher Education Academy in July 2016.
Teaching modules
- Introducing Natural Environments (GGPH055S4)
- Humans and the Environment (GGPH072S4)
- Environmental Science for Environmental Management (SSGE025S7)
- Managing Environments (SSGE084S5)
- Global Nature Conservation Level 6 (SSGE095S6)
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Pooley, Simon (2024) Research and management of the Nile crocodile (Crocodylus niloticus) in Ndumo Game Reserve. African Journal of Wildlife Research ISSN 2410-7220. (In Press)
- Pooley, Simon (2024) Historical context of research in Maputaland, South Africa, and research in Ndumo Game Reserve to c.1988. African Journal of Wildlife Research ISSN 2410-7220. (In Press)
- Pooley, Simon (2023) Introduction to special issue: Coexistence with Reptiles. Current Conservation 17 (4), pp. 3-7. ISSN 0974-0953.
- Taylor, J. and Nunez, P. and Gaspero, P. and Pooley, Simon and Fernandez-Ahrez, V. (2023) Comparing narratives on carnivore management in a dryland ecosystem: a case study of state-backed lethal control. The Rangeland Journal ISSN 1036-9872.
- Ashepet, M.-G. and Dahdouh-Guebas, F. and Redpath, S. and Pooley, Simon and Huge, J. (2023) The state and perceptions of human-crocodile interactions around Murchison falls conservation area, Uganda. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 29 (2), pp. 194-209. ISSN 1087-1209.
- Pooley, Simon (2022) The challenge of compassion in predator conservation. Frontiers in Psychology 13, ISSN 1664-1078.
- Pooley, Simon (2022) Historical perspective on fire research in East and Southern African grasslands and savannas. African Journal of Range & Forage Science 39 (1), pp. 1-15. ISSN 1022-0119.
- Pooley, Simon (2021) Fire in African landscapes. The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History
- Pooley, Simon (2021) Coexistence for whom?. Frontiers in Conservation Science 2, ISSN 2673-611X.
- Pooley, Simon and Bhatia, S. and Vasava, A. (2021) Rethinking the study of human-wildlife coexistence. Conservation Biology 35 (3), pp. 784-793. ISSN 0888-8892.
- Pooley, Simon (2021) Rethinking coexistence with wildlife in the wetlands of gujarat. Current Conservation 15 (1), pp. 23-28. ISSN 0974-0953.
- Pooley, Simon and Siroski, P. and Fernandez, L. and Sideleau, B. and Ponce-Campos, P. (2021) Human-Crocodilian interactions in Latin America and the Caribbean region. Conservation Science and Practice 3 (5), pp. e351. ISSN 2578-4854.
- Powell, G. and Versluys, T.M.M. and Williams, J. and Tiedt, S. and Pooley, Simon (2020) Using environmental niche modelling to investigate the importance of ambient temperature in human-crocodilian attack occurrence for two species of crocodilian. Oryx 54 (5), pp. 639-647. ISSN 0030-6053.
- Von Essen, M. and Leung, W. and Bosch, J. and Pooley, Simon and Ayres, C. and Price, S. (2020) High pathogen prevalence in an amphibian and reptile assemblage at a site with risk factors for dispersal in Galicia, Spain. PLoS One ISSN 1932-6203.
- Booth, H. and Pooley, Simon and Clements, T. and Putra, M.I.H. and Lestari, P. and Lewis, S. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2020) Assessing the impact of regulations on the use and trade of wildlife: an operational framework, with a case study on manta rays. Global Ecology and Conservation 22, pp. e00953. ISSN 2351-9894.
- Pooley, Simon and Botha, H. and Combrink, X. and Powell, G. (2019) Synthesizing Nile crocodile Crocodylus niloticus attack data and historical context to inform mitigation efforts in South Africa and eSwatini (Swaziland). Oryx 54 (5), pp. 629-638. ISSN 0030-6053.
- Pooley, Simon (2019) Bioinvasions and the idea of the Mediterranean. Geography 104 (2), pp. 106-108. ISSN 0016-7487.
- Pooley, Simon (2018) Descent with modification: critical use of historical evidence for conservation. Conservation Letters 11 (4), pp. e12437. ISSN 1755-263X.
- Pooley, Simon (2018) Fire, smoke, and expertise in South Africa’s grasslands. Environmental History 23 (1), pp. 28-55. ISSN 1084-5453.
- Redpath, S.M. and Linnell, J.D.C. and Festa-Bianchet, M. and Boitani, L. and Bunnefeld, N. and Dickman, A. and Gutierrez, R.J. and Irvine, R.J. and Johansson, M. and Majic, A. and McMahon, B. and Pooley, Simon and Sandstrom, C. and Sjolander-Lindqvist, A. and Skogen, K. and Swenson, J.E. and Trouwborst, A. and Young, J. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2017) Don’t forget to look down - collaborative approaches to predator conservation. Biological Reviews 92 (4), pp. 2157- 2163. ISSN 1464-7931.
- Pooley, Simon and Barua, M. and Beinart, W. and Dickman, A. and Holmes, G. and Lorimer, J. and Loveridge, A. and Macdonald, D. and Marvin, G. and Redpath, S. and Sillero, C. and Zimmermann, A. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2017) An interdisciplinary review of current and future approaches to improving human-predator relations. Conservation Biology 31 (3), pp. 513-523. ISSN 0888-8892.
- Pooley, Simon (2016) A cultural herpetology of Nile crocodiles in Africa. Conservation and Society 14 (4), pp. 391-405. ISSN 0972-4923.
- Pooley, Simon (2016) The entangled relations of humans and Nile crocodiles in Africa, c.1840-1992. Environment & History 33 (2), pp. 421-454. ISSN 0967-3407.
- Pooley, Simon (2016) Endangered. Environmental Humanities 7 (1), pp. 259-263. ISSN 2201-1919.
- Pooley, Simon (2015) Using predator attack data to save lives, human and crocodilian. Oryx 49 (4), pp. 581-583. ISSN 0030-6053.
- Pooley, Simon and Fa, J.E. and Nasi, R. (2015) No conservation silver lining to Ebola. Conservation Biology 29 (3), pp. 965-967. ISSN 0888-8892.
- Pooley, Simon and Mendelsohn, J.A. and Milner-Gulland, E.J. (2014) Hunting down the chimera of multiple disciplinarity in conservation science. Conservation Biology 28 (1), pp. 22-32. ISSN 0888-8892.
- Pooley, Simon (2013) Historians are from Venus, Ecologists are from Mars. Conservation Biology 27 (6), pp. 1481-1483. ISSN 0888-8892.
- Pooley, Simon (2012) Recovering the lost history of fire in South Africa's Fynbos. Environmental History 17 (1), pp. 55-83. ISSN 1084-5453.
- Pooley, Simon (2010) Pressed flowers: notions of indigenous and alien vegetation in South Africa's Western Cape, c. 1902-1945. Journal of Southern African Studies 36 (3), pp. 599-618. ISSN 0305-7070.
- Pooley, Simon (2009) Jan van Riebeeck as pioneering explorer and conservator of natural resources at the Cape of Good Hope (1652-62). Environment & History 15 (1), pp. 3-33. ISSN 0967-3407.
Book
- Quieroz, A.I. and Pooley, Simon, eds. (2018) Histories of bioinvasions in the Mediterranean. Environmental History. 8, Springer. ISSN 2211-9019. ISBN 9783319749853.
- Pooley, Simon (2014) Burning Table Mountain: an environmental history of fire on the Cape Peninsula. Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9781137415431.
- Beinart, W. and Middleton, K. and Pooley, Simon, eds. (2013) Wild things: nature and the social imagination. White Horse Press. ISBN 9781874267751.
Book Review
- Pooley, Simon (2018) National Park Science: a Century of Research in South Africa.
Book Section
- Pooley, Simon and Queiroz, A.I. (2018) Introduction: historical perspectives on bioinvasions in the Mediterranean region. In: Queiroz, A.I. and Pooley, Simon (eds.) Histories of Bioinvasions in the Mediterranean. Environmental History. Springer International Publishing. pp. 1-19. ISBN 9783319749860.
- Pooley, Simon (2018) The long and entangled history of humans and invasive introduced plants on South Africa’s Cape Peninsula. In: Quieroz, A.I. and Pooley, Simon (eds.) Histories of Bioinvasions in the Mediterranean. Environmental History. Springer. pp. 219-251. ISSN 2211-9019. ISBN 9783319749853.
- Pooley, Simon (2014) Invasion of the crocodiles. In: Frawley, J. and McCalman, I. (eds.) Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities. Routledge Environmental Humanities. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. ISBN 9780415716567.
- Pooley, Simon (2013) No tears for the crocodiles: representations of Nile Crocodiles and the extermination furore in Zululand, South Africa, from 1956–8. In: Beinart, W. and Middleton, K. and Pooley, Simon (eds.) Wild Things: Nature and the Social Imagination. White Horse Press. ISBN 9781874267751.
- Pooley, Simon (2011) Fire and loathing in the Fynbos: notions of indigenous and alien vegetation in South Africa's Western Cape, c.1902-1945. In: Rotherham, I.D. and Lambert, R.A. (eds.) Invasive and Introduced Plants and Animals: Human Perceptions, Attitudes and Approaches to Management. Earthscan. ISBN 9781849710718.
- Pooley, Simon (2011) Histories of fire on South Africa’s Cape Peninsula. In: Massard-Guilbaud, G. and Mosley, S. (eds.) Common Ground: Integrating the Social and Environmental in History. Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars. pp. 293-315. ISBN 9781443825498.
Editorial
- Pooley, Simon (2024) Introduction to special issue on coexistence with Reptiles. Current Conservation 17 (4), pp. 3-7. Current Conservation.
- Pooley, Simon and Linnell, J. and Munster, U. and van Dooren, T. and Zimmermann, A. (2022) Understanding coexistence with wildlife. Frontiers in Conservation Science 3, Frontiers Media. ISSN 2673-611X.
Letter
- Pooley, Simon and Redpath, S. (2018) Speaking up for collaboration in conservation. Biological Conservation 223, pp. 186-187. Elsevier. ISSN 0006-3207.
- Pooley, Simon and Fa, J.E. and Nasi, R. (2015) Response to Osofsky's “Misrepresentation by Citation". Conservation Biology 29 (4), pp. 1039-1039. Wiley. ISSN 0888-8892.
- Pooley, Simon and Fa, J. and Nasi, R. (2014) Ebola and bushmeat. New Scientist (2989), Elsevier. ISSN 0262-4079.
Other
- Pooley, Simon (2018) Human-crocodile conflict. Crocodile Specialist group.
- Pooley, Simon (2017) How to avoid being eaten by a crocodile. Times Live.
- Pooley, Simon (2016) It is surprisingly rare for an Alligator to kill a person. BBC Earth.
- Pooley, Simon (2016) Don’t get eaten by a crocodile. IUCN Crocodile Specialist Group.
- Pooley, Simon (2015) Importance of fire to fynbos. Cape Times.
- Pooley, Simon (2015) Burning Table Mountain: discussing the history of fire at the Cape, and contemporary fires. Primedia Broadcasting.
- Pooley, Simon (2015) Don’t get eaten by a crocodile: in South Africa or Swaziland. London, UK: Simon Pooley.
Video
- Pooley, Simon (2017) Birkbeck Explains: What is the difference between an alligator and a crocodile?.
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Business and community
Business and community
Media
I am happy to receive enquiries from the media on the following topics:
- human-wildlife conflict and coexistence
- crocodilians
- wildfires
Outreach
Simon was interviewed by ABC Television (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) on 16 April 2024 for the story "Experts warn against expanding crocodile culls," (filmed) and "Charlene's daughter was taken by a crocodile, but she's not in favour of culling" (text), both published online on April 18, 2024.
Simon has participated in numerous online lectures, seminars and panel discussions, including: "Beyond incident response in mitigating human-crocodylian conflicts", in Paulino Ponce's series of talks by experts on human-crocodilian interactions, December 2023; "Disentangling coexistence and conflict in human-wildlife interactions", Zoological Society of London seminar, May 2023; "Lessons in compassion and coexistence with crocodiles", seminar for Coexistence Consortium, April 2023, available on YouTube; a panel discussion on Crocodiles and Coexistence in the Centre for Wildlife Studies' (CWS) Wild Chronicle Webinar series, with Romulus Whitaker and Yoshendu Joshi, 20 April 2023.
Simon participated with Professor Amy Dickman (WildCRU, Oxford) and Professor Adam Hart (University of Gloucestershire) in the panel discussion ‘Living with Dangerous Wildlife’ at the Cheltenham Science Festival, Summer 2022.
2021. I published a note on 'Biodiversity hotspot and Ramsar site under threat,' on Ndumo Game Reserve, in Oryx 55 (6): 811-812. I have been publicising this situation online and worked with investigative journalist Tony Carnie who published a major feature: Ndumo Game Reserve: The complicated balancing act of subsistence farming and nature conservation in KwaZulu-Natal, in Daily Maverick on 6 December 2021. I am co-editing a special issue featuring past research and future prospects for research in Ndumo Game Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Simon gave a seminar for the City of London environmental thinktank Z/Yen Group on 13 September 2022 titled "Climate change and global wildfires". It is available to watch here
In 2021 I published a popular, illustrated version of my research in Gujarat entitled 'Rethinking coexistence with wildlife in the wetlands of Gujarat' in Current Conservation 15 (1): 23-28.
S. Pooley and S. Marchini, 2020. What living alongside crocodiles can teach us about coexisting with wildlife. The Conversation, 26 May 2020.
2019, August: radio interview on the BBC World Service on my crocodile attack research on Science in Action with Roland Pease.