Ms Marine Drouilly

Email: drouillymarine [at] yahoo [dot] fr
MSc (by dissertation only) Thesis: Comparison of the spatial and behavioural ecology of Caracals and Leopards in the Cederberg Mountains

Marine was born in France in 1986 in the region of Champagne. She went to the University Pierre and Marie Curie in Paris where she studied Biology. She graduated in 2009 with a master’s degree in Ecology–Biodiversity–Evolution, with a specialisation in Conservation Biology. For the research project of her MSc, she studied the ecophysiology of Przewalski horses in Uzbekistan, and also of plains zebras in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, with the CNRS of Chizé and the CNRS of Lyon University.

After completing her MSc, Marine worked on several research projects in France and abroad. She was a research field assistant on two brown bear conservation projects, one in Canada and one on Kodiak Island, Alaska. She worked for the French organisations ONCFS and ONF on bighorn sheep, roe deer and genets. In South Africa, she was a field assistant for a PhD student from the University of California Berkeley on a sociable weaver project in the Northern Cape. Last year, Marine was involved with the Primate and Predator Project of the University of Durham, working mainly on predators including leopards in the Soutpansberg Mountains.

She is starting a new MSc project (because it's the perfect opportunity to study wild cats and to take up a challenge) in 2012 about the spatial and behavioural ecology of caracals and leopards in the Cederberg Mountains. Marine's research is based at the Cape Leopard Trust, which is the main funding organisation. She is thrilled to be part of a project studying elusive felines. The project is supervised by Les Underhill (Animal Demography Unit), Justin O'Riain (Behavioural Ecology Group), and Quinton Martins (Cape Leopard Trust).

Marine is maintaining a research blog at www.cederbergcaracalproject.wordpress.com.