John "Tico" McNutt, Ph.D. '95

By Stephanie Towne ’11

For recent Alumni Award recipient Dr. John “Tico” McNutt, an average day at the office looks quite different than for most UC Davis alums. As the program director and principle investigator for the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust, McNutt has lived and worked in Africa since 1989. He first came to Botswana to assist with a long-term behavioral research project on Chacma Baboons, alongside other UC Davis graduate students. “I came to fill a gap in the continuity of the baboon research and to help sort out administrative and government research permit issues for the continuation of the Baboon field research,” explains McNutt.

McNutt committed to staying in Africa long-term when he began the Botswana Wild Dog Research Project in 1989 as a doctoral candidate in the animal behavior group at UC Davis. His research in conjunction with the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust aims to accurately address complex behavioral and ecological questions about the African Wild Dog, described at that time as Africa’s most endangered large carnivore.

The project took shape in what he calls Quantitative Natural History, which entails studying and recording the hundreds of free ranging wild dogs within a specific subpopulation. “Qualitative natural history is the hard won knowledge that can only be acquired by spending years recording observations of a subpopulation of one’s focal species,” explains McNutt. “This of course requires living in the wildlife habitats with the study population.”

One of the Botswana Predator Conservation Trust’s most cutting edge projects is the BioBoundary Project, which seeks to keep wild dogs separate from domestic livestock and intolerant farmers by mimicking the chemical scent markers that wild dogs use to demarcate their territory. The project requires collecting, identifying and matching hundreds of organic chemicals and cracking the code of the wild dog’s own chemical language. “Working out how all this chemical complexity relates to African wild dog territory requires intensive field observations to be fully integrated without investigations in the laboratory,” explains McNutt.

McNutt and his wife, Lesley Boggs-McNutt, have also invested tremendously in the community through the social program Coaching for Conservation (C4C), a program to teach communities how to protect wildlife and their habitats. “C4C aims to help the conservation of Botswana’s natural resources by using organized sports to engender self-respect among Botswana’s youth and inspire a generation of kids who care,” explains McNutt. The program has grown considerably, now having a team of coaches, a permanent environmental educator and sports facilitator, and the recently constructed Conservation Education Centre to provide programs to primary school children throughout the year.

Those interested in learning more about Dr. McNutt’s work will be able to do so while discovering the beauty of South Africa with Aggie Adventure’s trip “Southern Africa Unmatched.” The trip, set for November 11-23, 2011, will take travelers on a whirlwind adventure through Africa’s most beautiful and fascinating sites, including a visit with Dr. McNutt in Botswana. Duties permitting, McNutt will be able to discuss his work with the Botswana Wild Dog Project and guide a game run to find some of his study subjects in the wild.

Although McNutt is unable to leave Botswana very often, he was recently back in the United States to receive the 2011 Emil M. Mrak International Award, one of six prestigious awards given to UC Davis alumni and friends of the university to honor outstanding accomplishments and service to UC Davis. The Emil M. Mrak International Award specifically honors alumni who have worked outside of the United States. Click here to learn more about the Cal Aggie Alumni Association’s 2011 Alumni Awards recipients.

Posted April 2011