Laurie Marker

Laurie Marker is an American zoologist who founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund in 1991.[1] As executive director of the CCF, she helps rehabilitate cheetahs and reintroduce them to the wild.[2] Before her work with CCF, Marker's career began at the Wildlife Safari in the U.S., where she also worked with captive cheetahs. [2] Marker's work at this time revolved around captive cheetahs learning how to hunt prey.

Life

Marker grew up in Northern California, where she realized she had a love for animals.[1] She eventually ended up working at the Wildlife Safari in Oregon for 16 years. [1] Taking her love for animals into a career path, Marker graduated from Oxford University with a doctorate in zoology.[3] After her trip to Namibia, Africa in 1977, she realized thousands of cheetahs were getting killed by farmers and started collaborating with other scientists to create a safe space for captive cheetahs.[1] She created a program to aid farmers by providing them with dogs to drive away cheetahs; this was an alternative to the farmers killing them off.[1] Marker also took Khayam under her wing, who was a captive-born cheetah who was taught to hunt prey in the wild.[4]

Along with her rescue work, Marker also studies how certain diseases affect cheetahs' populations.[2] She currently has 90 employees working with her in Namibia.[1] Marker and her collaborates uncovered that all cheetahs descended from 10 individual cheetahs that survived the ice age years ago.[4] This resulted in little genetic diversity among all cheetahs today.[4] Marker still is making an impact today by constantly speaking up and taking action against illegal cheetah trafficking.[4]

References
  1. Fimrite, Peter (November 10, 2014). "How a Napa winemaker became one of the world's top cheetah experts". SFGate.
  2. "Dr. Laurie Marker | HuffPost". www.huffpost.com.
  3. "The Legend of the Cheetah and their Savior, Dr. Laurie Marker of Cheetah Conservation Fund". March 19, 2020.
  4. Fimrite, Peter (2014-11-10). "How a Napa winemaker became one of the world's top cheetah experts". SFGate. Retrieved 2020-08-17.
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