Chris co-founded Wildlife ACT in 2008 alongside Dr Simon Morgan and Johan Maree, building a field-based monitoring model that now spans African Wild Dog, Rhino, Vulture, and Big Cat conservation across KwaZulu-Natal. With over two decades of field experience and national advisory group involvement, he remains one of Wildlife ACT’s most hands-on and respected conservation leaders.
Chris grew up and completed his schooling on the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, where childhood visits to game reserves across South Africa sparked a particular fondness for the wildlife and landscapes of Zululand. He completed a National Diploma in Nature Conservation at Saasveld in the Western Cape, followed by a practical placement monitoring turtles and crocodiles along Zululand’s coastline within the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park.
This led him into game capture, where he managed chemical and passive capture operations for a private company, before moving into post-release monitoring of Black Rhinoceros as part of a major rhino range expansion partnership from 2004, alongside a stint as a field researcher on a Black Rhino research project in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Game Reserve.
He then served as Priority Species Monitoring Manager at uMkhuze Game Reserve for a provincial conservation authority, consolidating the management-oriented monitoring experience that would later shape Wildlife ACT.
Having worked across a number of reserves in South Africa, Chris recognised the need for properly managed, professionally funded monitoring programmes for priority species, and in 2008 co-founded Wildlife ACT in Zululand alongside Dr Simon Morgan and Johan Maree.
He sits on national and provincial advisory structures supporting Vulture and Wild Dog conservation, and is a co-author on several peer-reviewed scientific publications relating to Vulture poisoning risk, Wild Dog movement ecology, and Cheetah-Lion interactions. In 2017, he was recognised as first runner-up in the Special Award for Endangered Species Conservation category at the Rhino Conservation Awards.
Beyond his technical conservation work, Chris is known within Wildlife ACT for his collaborative, hands-on leadership and his commitment to mentoring the next generation of conservationists, helping develop the species managers and field leaders who carry the organisation’s work forward.
“Information is key. You cannot conserve what you don’t know, and it is through this lens that Wildlife ACT works to implement strategic monitoring and research to inform and enable effective conservation management of wildlife.”