Posted on: 22 May, 2025
From conservation project managers who work to inspire and train wildlife warriors of the future, to those working on in-country projects around the globe, our fantastic team at Bristol Zoo Project, and you, our members, supporters, and visitors play a vital role in protecting this wonderful planet we inhabit. The conservation of wildlife and their habitats is crucial in maintaining the optimum balance of our ecosystem, and we’re excited to share the stories of our conservation community.
As a conservation charity, we work in nine countries, across four continents, and direct 20 field conservation projects with 30 local partner organisations to conserve and protect some of the world’s most threatened species. Since 2014, we have been working with local communities in the Philippines to reduce illegal hunting and protect the remaining forests of Panay and Negros Islands. These forests are the last home of our flagship species, the Critically Endangered Negros bleeding-heart dove and Critically Endangered Visayan warty pig, as well as other threatened species.
Our team members who work on this project come from a huge range of backgrounds and entered the field of conservation through different means, but all share the same passion. Here, we get to know some of Bristol Zoological Society’s Conservation Heroes.
I got into conservation through studying Zoology at university. At the time, I was mostly interested in animal behaviour, but upon graduating, I was very lucky to secure an internship with Save the Elephants in Kenya, where I helped to monitor elephant behaviour. This is where I got my first taste of conservation through learning about the threats to elephants and the challenges for people living alongside them, which inspired me to take my first steps into conservation.
In my current role at Bristol Zoological Society, I am the programme lead for the Philippines Conservation Programme, which means I oversee all of the work we do out in the field in the Philippines. We are currently wrapping up a large project that aimed to understand illegal hunting of the Visayan warty pig, a Critically Endangered species, which is only found on two islands in the Philippines. This community-based project was an opportunity for us to understand the reasons why people choose to hunt and develop community-led strategies to reduce the need for hunting.
For the future of this project, we would like to expand our collaborations to include Indigenous Peoples who live in the area, as they are some of the key users of the forest who could share a great deal of knowledge about local biodiversity. We’d also like to investigate other issues that we have found to be a problem with human-wildlife coexistence in this area, including Visayan warty pig crop foraging.
For the future of conservation, I hope that we can continue to improve how we integrate conservation with sustainable development and amplify the voices of local communities around the world who are protectors of our biodiversity.
Conservation is not just about understanding animals; it’s about working with a diverse range of different people to find ways that wildlife and people can coexist.
(responsible for managing the Darwin livelihood projects)
I started my career by mountaineering and scuba diving, which led to a deep appreciation of the outdoors. This passion inspired me to begin volunteering with non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and I have since worked on projects addressing both marine and terrestrial issues, including conducting surveys, advocating for restoration, and shaping policy.
My current role focuses on community development, understanding local practices that affect the environment, translating scientific data into accessible knowledge for the communities, and assisting them in improving their well-being while empowering them as stewards of the natural world.
For the future of conservation, I hope that more communities will embrace environmental stewardship, and governments will provide stronger support.
My research background in wildlife ecology and biodiversity monitoring led me to work at Bristol Zoological Society as a Conservationist and Lecturer in Conservation Science.
We have diverse job roles at the Society, and part of my role is to supervise and teach students how to become conservationists. This includes how to conduct conservation work, as well as demonstrating how their research can be applied to real world conservation issues. I also manage the Philippines biodiversity monitoring project, where we look to conserve wildlife species that can’t be found anywhere else in the world.
As part of our current project, we are monitoring the population of the Endangered Visayan warty pig in the Northwest Peninsula Panay National Park (NPPNP), Philippines. We are investigating the reasons why they are endangered and researching their population distributions so we can enact conservation policies to better protect the species.
From this project, we hope to reduce the threats that the pigs face. This includes reducing hunting pressures by having rangers patrol the areas and remove snares but also working with local communities to change attitudes towards hunting. Our aim for this project is to see the population of Visayan warty pigs in this area not only stabilise but thrive. Our long-term goal is to restore the ecosystem of the park and reintroduce species that have been previously lost to the NPPNP, for example, the Philippine spotted deer.
As part of the future of conservation, I’d like for us to be in a situation where species don’t just survive but populations start to increase, and we begin to see wildlife recolonise in spaces where it has previously been lost. If we can address the drivers and threats that led to those losses, such as hunting, we can begin reintroducing animals to their native wild habitats and witness them prosper.
Having worked and volunteered for Bristol Zoological Society in several different roles since 2014, I joined the Animal Department in 2017. Since then, I have looked after a variety of small and large mammals, from tamarins all the way up to fur seals and gorillas. Since I was a child, I have always wanted to work with animals, so working for Bristol Zoological Society as an Animal Keeper means I can work directly with threatened species, whilst also contributing to the conservation work carried out by the charity, both in the field and at the zoo.
Alongside my current duties as an Animal Keeper, for the past three years, I have been supporting our partners CENTROP, the Center for Tropical Conservation Studies, in the Philippines. The Philippines is home to many unique species that can’t be found anywhere else in the world, and a lot of these are highly threatened. CENTROP is a captive breeding centre that is working hard to establish healthy and genetically diverse populations of three of these key species, Visayan warty pig, Philippine spotted deer and the Negros bleeding-heart dove.
The Visayan warty pig is particularly close to my heart because I cared for our family group at Bristol Zoo Gardens for several years and fell in love with them, from their charisma to their intelligence.
I work closely with CENTROP managers and keepers, offering help and husbandry advice where needed to ensure high levels of welfare for the animals in their care. We do this through habitat refurbishment, dietary improvements, enrichment programmes, and behavioural monitoring.
Currently, I am working with CENTROP to digitalise their historic records and their daily data collection so the information stored can be viewed by zoologists all over the world via ZIMS, the Zoological Information Management System. The data coming from CENTROP could inform best practice guidelines for these species, and researchers can use them when conducting surveys on wild populations. Further along the line, we’d like to partner with other breeding centres in the Philippines so we can exchange animals for conservation breeding programmes that will enhance the genetic diversity of these populations and make them more robust. The overall aim at CENTROP is to reintroduce their animals back into their native habitat, but unfortunately, this isn’t viable yet due to extremely active threats to their survival, including hunting and habitat degradation.
Ultimately, I hope that we can collectively halt the destruction of these vital ecosystems around the world and find a more sustainable way to live as a species. It would be incredible if we could get to a point where we can protect the habitats alongside local communities to the point where we can help bolster wild populations by releasing captive-bred animals back into their native ranges. It may seem like a long way off, but it is the reason why we care for our insurance populations of these endangered species.
(and the first person to breed Negros bleeding-heart doves in captivity!)
I started working at CENTROP in March 1999, when one of my closest friends, who later became my partner in feeding animals, convinced me to work for the maintenance department. I worked in maintenance for three years, however, after my first year in the job our previous director convinced me to feed the Philippine spotted deer to build experience, learn, and observe how the species behaves. After my second year in the job, this same director convinced me to start feeding some of the birds who were being cared for in CENTROP as part of the rescue centre. In 2005, a male Negros bleeding-heart dove arrived after being confiscated in Calinawan, Sibulan, which was the beginning of our conservation work here at CENTROP.
A year after, the male Negros bleeding-heart dove arrived at the centre, two females were rescued by the government and left in our care. A year after they had settled in, we decided to mix them with the male for breeding purposes, and in 2007, we were successful in the breeding of the species with two hatchings. Our mission is to ensure that this Critically Endangered species has the best possible habitat and care for breeding purposes, so they continue to reproduce and multiply.
Currently, we have 48 Negros bleeding-heart doves in our care here at CENTROP. Thanks to our collaboration with Bristol Zoological Society, we’ve been learning how best to care for the species and have nearly completed work on creating larger habitats at our two centres to ensure the species have more space to roam, as well as extra enrichment, to better resemble their natural habitat in the wild.
With help from our partners, I hope that we can finally release some of the animals that we have into the wild, including the Philippine spotted deer, the Visayan warty pig, and especially the Negros bleeding-heart dove, which can no longer be seen or spotted here in Negros island.
Originally from Lisbon, Portugal, I have been in the UK for 13 years and at Bristol Zoological Society for two. Growing up, I used to visit my local zoo, and as a teenager, I began to volunteer there, where I learned all about the different wildlife living there and the threats they faced. It was during this time that I realised the role zoos can have in conservation, which inspired me to work in conservation and with zoos specifically.
I manage one of the projects in our Philippines conservation programme where we support two breeding centres in the Philippines to help them improve breeding practices. These centres are home to threatened native species including, Visayan warty pig and Negros bleeding-heart dove who we hope will be included in our reintroduction projects to restore these populations in the wild.
The next step of this project will be to integrate what we’re doing with the breeding centres, our partners at CENTROP, with the other projects we run in the country, which include community work and habitat protection. We are also looking to reintroduce species in the wild to help the biodiversity of the landscape, which will help all the other animals that live there too.
For the future of conservation, I hope for more collaboration. In order for us to achieve meaningful, impactful conservation we have to work together! Different organisations, different people with different expertise, different communities must come together to be involved in the process because that’s the most effective way to protect wildlife and biodiversity.
At Bristol Zoological Society, we love sharing conservation stories and the journeys of not only those who work for the Society, but also those who partner with us, study with us, support, and visit us.
Watch the video on our YouTube channel.
Find out more about our conservation projects in the Philippines below.
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