A Welsh biologist who saved nine species from extinction has been given a top environmental award, despite being criticized for getting eggs from the nest of the world’s rarest bird and having other controversial methods.
Professor Carl Jones has been awarded the 2016 Indianapolis Prize, often considered the “Nobel prize” in the conservation world.
The conservationist, also chief scientist at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, has devoted a great part of his life to wild birds’ protection. He has spent nearly four decades of working in Mauritius.
As the 2016 Indianapolis Prize winner, Jones will receive an unrestricted $250,000 in cash along with the Lilly Medal.
"I know of no other conservationist who has directly saved so many species from extinction,” said Simon N. Stuart, chairperson of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Species Survival Commission, and the one who nominated Jones for the award.
Jones was instrumental in bringing back at least nine species from the brink of extinction, such as the Mauritius kestrel, echo parakeet, and Rodrigues warbler. Through conservation efforts, he also led recovery efforts for six out of the 63 bird, amphibian and mammal species around the world that have been downlisted on the IUCN Red List.
Jones first went to Mauritius in the 1970s, when there were only four Mauritius kestrels surviving in its wild, which made it the rarest bird worldwide. The species’ number soared to more than 300 a decade later.
“I'm particularly proud of this award because it validates the conservation of animals — like Telfair's skinks and pink pigeons — that are not megavertebrates, but provide critically important ecosystem services nonetheless,” said Jones, who is originally from St. Clears in Wales.
Jones’ techniques, however, are not celebrated by everyone. They involve captive breeding and a strategy dubbed as “double-clutching,” which involves the snatching of eggs from the nests and hatching them under incubators. This move prompts the mothers to lay another set of eggs while in the wild.
He has earned credit for the idea of “ecological replacement,” where other species assume the crucial ecological roles of extinct ones.
Jones said there were many opposed to captive breeding and manipulative methods and calling them controversial and untried. However, he asserted that those proved to be highly effective methods after all.
Unfazed by stress from criticism he received in his 20s, Jones has given his entire life to conservationism that he became a first-time father only eight years ago at age 53. An optimist, he lauds the scientific breakthroughs of today that include gene editing and having designer animals.
“People are very happy to destroy the world,” he explained. “But if you want to save it then you have to be prepared to take bold action.”
Other ecologists deemed Jones a deserving winner of the prize. Indiana Zoological Society President and CEO Michael Crowther said that his conservation approach can be scaled and adapted for other world ecosystems, now serving as models for what can be achieved elsewhere.
