MSc Conservation Biology (UCT)

Eliupendo Alaitetei Laltaika was born and raised in Northern Tanzania, where he developed a passion for the preservation of the African ecosystem. Determined to pursue a career that would allow him to interact with iconic wildlife species, he worked as a park ranger in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and was promoted to Wildlife Management Officer in 2021. Laltaika has been able to apply himself to the field-based human-honeyguide mutualism. Studying human-honeyguide interaction in several regions of Tanzania has been hugely rewarding for Laltaika.  He has thoroughly enjoyed working with the many dedicated honey hunter communities in his experience with the African Honeyguide Research project so far. Laltaika joined the project as a master’s student, and he is proud of the success achieved so far and dedicated to ensuring that this fascinating human-honeyguide mutualism continues to exist in the future. Laltaika joined the University of Cape Town in 2020, where he did his Masters in Conservation Biology. 

Laltaika returned to UCT in mid 2022 to pursue his PhD in Conservation Biology, again working with the African Honeyguide project. He is supervised by Prof. Claire Spottiswoode and Dr Jes van der Wal.

Thesis
Honeyguide-human cooperation across human cultural landscapes in Tanzania. 

Publications
van der Wal, J.E.M., Spottiswoode, C.N., Uomini, N.T., Cantor, M., Daura-Jorge, F.G., Afan, A.I., Attwood, M.C., Amphaeris, J., Balasani, F., Begg, C.M., Blair, C.J., Bronstein, J.L., Buanachique, I. O., Cuthill, R.R.T., Das, J., Deb, A., Dixit, T., Dlamini, G.S., Dounias, E., Gedi, I.I., Gruber, M., Hoffmann, LS., Holzlehner, T., Isack, H.A., Laltaika, E.A., Lloyd-Jones, D.J., Lund, J., Machado, A.M.S., Mahadevan, L., Moreno, I.B., Nwaogu, C.J., Pereira, V.L., Pierotti, R., Rucunua, S.A., dos Santos, W.F., Serpa, N., Smith, B.D., Tolkova, I., Tun, T., Valle-Pereira, J.V.S., Wood, B.M., Wrangham, R.W. and Cram, D.L. 2022. Safeguarding human–wildlife cooperation. Conservation Letters. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12886