Rosie Woodroffe

Career

Affiliations The information in this section comes from Rosie Woodroffe's current webpage at the Institute of Zoology.

Research

Key themes From her doctoral research onwards But almost no wild mammals live away from human contact. Thus a lot of her work has involved research into the impact of humans on wild mammals, and how to conserve endangered mammal species (wildlife conservation). Because wild mammals share natural ecosystems with domestic mammals, Woodroffe has played an important role in defining the scientific basis for ecosystem management where different bodies of interest conflict over the actions to be taken regarding wild mammals both in Africa (African wild dogs since 1994. and the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Key Species

African wild dogs The African wild dog Lycaon pictus has a number of distinct populations across Africa and exists together with humans and other wild and domestic terrestrial mammals. Using GPS collars to track location and a programme of vacination to reduce the spread of rabies in wild dog populations Woodroffe and colleagues have identified how to conserve this species in coexistence with domestic dogs as well as how to maintain wild dog populations along with cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus which occupy a similar range.

Badgers Badgers have attracted attention in Great Britain as a potential wild reservoir population for bovine tuberculosis (Mycobacterium bovis), since this infectious agent can spread easily between different host species, one of which is the badger. This could have significant economic impact because cattle are reared in Britain for dairy products and also for meat.

The British government established a programme of badger culling to reduce the risk of transmission from infected badgers to cattle, which has had unclear results. Because of her research background in badger ecology from her DPhil (funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to study the effects of badger culling and advise on further actions. Because of the failure of this cullling programme to achieve its objectives, the UK government has pledged to end it by 2029.

A project involving collaboration between farmers and scientists is now testing the vaccination of badgers against TB. Because cattle catch bovine TB 15 times more often from other cattle than from badgers it is now proposed to vaccinate cattle with the TB vaccine from 2030 as part of a strategy to eliminate bovine TB while ending badger culling. Woodroffe said of this approach: "Badgers are not driving this epidemic. They're not a reservoir of disease but they're also not irrelevant to TB eradication. So the strategy proposes badger vaccination in priority areas."Quoted in Tinbergen Lecture, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford (2013). Marsh Ecology Award (2014). Marsh Award for Conservation Biology (2021).

Personal life Rosie is the daughter of fantasy artist Patrick Woodroffe.