In Paris, France, and Johannesburg, South Africa.
What subjects did you like best at school?
The ones I was best at, which were Latin, history and mathematics.
What did you want to be?
When I was growing up, I wanted to be an explorer. I also thought about becoming a game ranger, but then I took the more pragmatic option of becoming a veterinarian. After working for a while in private practice, I specialised in wildlife management. That route meant that during my life I have explored many of the game parks in the world, so I have ended up doing exactly what I wanted to do.
What subjects did you study at University?
I studied veterinary surgery and medicine at Cambridge University, England, and Wildlife Management at Pretoria University.
What do you like most about your job?
I like the prospect of helping black rhino in a significant way. If we are successful with what we are working towards, then we will really make a difference to a species of which I am fond and would be sad to see disappear.
I meet a lot of people who own excellent black rhino habitat, and I enjoy motivating them to work with us, for example by dropping internal fences on neighbouring properties. This project provides a good opportunity to increase the area of land under conservation and rationalise existing areas by consolidating smaller pieces into more ecologically viable blocks. Black rhino are the flagship, but a lot of other species will also benefit.
What do you dislike about the job?I don't enjoy writing complicated reports which take up a lot of time. I also miss the more direct veterinary work in the field. Before, I might have spent a day tracking an injured black rhino through the bush in order to dart and treat it. Now, I spend more time in front of my computer, wrestling with budgets. It can be frustrating, but I know that it's important.
How would you describe yourself?
Committed. Honest. Fun-loving. I like working in wild places. And I have always been mission-driven which is why I have tried to make a difference through my work. In my current position, I'm not as hands-on as I used to be, but I'm perhaps helping wildlife in a more significant way.
What are your ambitions for the future?
I'd like to see the project become successful so that new populations of black rhino are growing in much of their former range in southern Africa. Then my career will have spanned some of the darkest days for black rhino through until the time when the worst dangers are over and things are looking really hopeful for the species again.
Rhino are a primitive sort of design: big lumbering beasts with horns of the sort that went out with dinosaurs. Perhaps all the Perissodactyls (which include horses) are reaching the end of the evolutionary line in a sense. They're much less efficient feed converters than ruminants, say, and maybe in a few million years they would die out naturally. But I would hate it to happen through human greed and ignorance.
How did you end up working for WWF?
During my career I have worked extensively with rhinos. I would estimate that I've personally handled more than 2,500 rhinos so far. I was involved with the Natal Parks Board (now Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife) white rhino translocation programme which was responsible for the down-listing of white rhino from "critically endangered" to "vulnerable".
At Chitwan National Park in Nepal I was also involved in rhino translocation programmes. So when I returned to South Africa from Nepal and saw the opportunity to have a far-reaching impact on black rhino conservation through the WWF/ Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife Black Rhino Range Expansion Project, I took it.
What advice would you give to someone who wanted to do what you do?
I arrived in this position via quite a long career in conservation. For people who would like to work in conservation, my advice would be to get as high a degree as they can in a related field, and then do the work that they love. Once they have experience, then they can pick and choose as particular positions arise.