Dr. Laurie Marker with cheetahs
Namibia, a nation whose cheetah population is the largest of any in the world, once considered the animal as vermin. The country’s citizens now take such pride in their cats they have declared Namibia to be the cheetah capital of the world.
That turnaround and her role in it is one of the topics Laurie Marker, a conservation biologist, educator, and leading expert on the cheetah, discusses in a conversation with Suzan Murray, the director of the Smithsonian Global Health Program at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute.
As founder and executive director of the Namibia-based Cheetah Conservation Fund and a former researcher and executive director of the New Opportunities in Animal Health Sciences Center at the National Zoo, Marker has spent more than 40 years studying the cheetah, working with both wild and captive populations all over the world.
She and Murray delve into the complex network of social, economic and environmental problems that must be unraveled if the cheetah, Africa's most endangered big cat, is to have a permanent place on Earth.
Smithsonian Connections
Learn more about Laurie Marker and the work of the Cheetah Conservation Fund in this Smithsonian magazine profile.
Learn more about Suzan Murray’s previous work as the Chief Veterinarian at the National Zoo.
View this Smithsonian Global article about cheetah conservation.
