Laurie Marker

Laurie Marker (née Laura Lee Bushey) was born in Detroit, Michigan and lived in Birmingham, a suburb of Detroit. Her father, Ralph, came from a farming family and was an agricultural economist and accountant. Her mother, Marline, was an elementary and high school teacher and kept the family active in the community with nonprofit work. Marker's family moved to Southern California when she was four years-old. She spent her childhood surrounded by animals, learning how to care for horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, donkeys and goats. Marker's family resettled in Palos Verdes, and later in San Jose, both in Northern California (USA), in time for her to finish high school at age 16. There she solidified her love for animals, starting with her dogs, and her horse on which she competed locally. She started college early at San Francisco State University, intending to become a veterinarian, but the emerging wine industry in the Napa Valley caught her eye. She enrolled in the agriculture, enology and viticulture programs at Napa Valley College. While there she re-opened the Pope Valley Winery, in Angwin, which had been closed since prohibition. She also began operating a dairy goat farm. == Career beginnings ==

Marker soon moved her wine and goat operations to Oregon, where she founded Jonicole Vineyards. In 1974, to make ends meet, she began working at the newly opened local exotic animal park, Wildlife Safari, in Winston Oregon, where her tenure spanned 16 years. She was fascinated by the cheetahs she met there, and was struck by how little was collectively known about them in the scientific community. Marker decided to extensively study the ten cheetahs at Wildlife Safari and began developing what eventually became the most successful captive breeding program in the country. She had inadvertently become one of the world's foremost experts on cheetahs, and began teaching zoo keepers and other captive breeders her techniques, and slowly expanded her research. In 1977, Marker took a trip to South West Africa (now Namibia), which contained the largest living population of wild cheetahs. She brought with her a captive-born cheetah named Khayam, in order to test her theory that captive-raised cheetahs could be taught to hunt in a wild setting, and could potentially survive if released. While there, she learned that cheetahs were being killed by farmers at an unsustainable rate of around 900 per year, mostly due to the cats being misunderstood and wrongly accused of killing their livestock. When Marker returned with Khayam to the U.S. several months later following their successful research project, they traveled regionally and nationally making public appearances to generate awareness for the cheetah's plight. Khayam served as the first ambassador animal for her species. International Cheetah Day is now celebrated every year on December 4, Khayam's birthday, in her honor. For the next ten years, Marker continued traveling to Africa to learn more about the wild cheetah's problems and what could be done to assist endangered populations. From 1988 to 1991, Marker served as executive director at the Smithsonian Institution's Center for New Opportunities in Animal Health Sciences (NOAHS), in Washington DC. == Cheetah conservation work ==

In 1990, Marker founded the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF), which began as a research outpost in a small farmhouse on some land in Otjiwarongo, Namibia. CCF has grown from sponsors and donations over the years and now occupies over 165,000 acres of mixed-use land. The program has placed over 650 dogs with farmers across Namibia and continues to expand. == Continuing scientific contributions ==

In the early 1980s, with collaborators at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo and National Cancer Institute (USA), Marker helped identify the cheetah's lack of genetic variation, thus causing the species greater problems for survival. Collaboration with the two above listed institutions lead to Marker becoming executive director of the Centre for New Opportunities in Animal Health Sciences (NOAHS), in 1988, based at Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo. She continues to serve as a NOAHS Research Fellow. Marker graduated in 2002 from Oxford University with a doctorate in zoology. More recently, Marker joined the Steering Committee of the Greater Waterberg Complex, Namibia, in 2011, and the Steering Committee of the Natural Resource Department at Namibia University of Science and Tech in 2012. Restoration thinning reduces bush encroachment on freehold farmlands in north-central Namibia. October 4, 2021 by Nghikembua M., Marker L. L., Brewer B., Leinonen A., Mehtätalo L., Appiah M., Pappinen A. Global dataset for seized and non-intercepted illegal cheetah trade (Acinonyx jubatus) 2010–2019. February 16, 2021 by Tricorache, P., Yashphe, S., Marker L. L. Twenty-five years of livestock guarding dog use across Namibian farmlands. February 11, 2021 by Marker L. L., Pfeiffer L., Siyaya A., Seitz P., Nikanor G., Fry B., O'Flaherty C., Verschueren S. Marker continues to travel the world, giving educational talks and presentations, fundraising and running the Cheetah Conservation Fund facilities in Namibia and Somaliland. She continues to collaborate with scientists and conservationists to increase knowledge and awareness for the cheetah and its endangered status, to develop best practices in research, education, and land use to benefit all species, including people, and to develop sustainable systems that are protective of the environment, socially responsible, and economically viable, and to save the cheetah and their ecosystems from extinction. == Awards & recognitions ==

• 1988 - White Rose Award, Oregon's Top Ten Women. • 1992 - Conservationist of the Year, African Safari Club, Washington, DC. • 2000 - Marker was recognized as one of Time Magazine's Heroes for the Planet. Burrows Conservation Award, Cincinnati Zoo • 2001 - Windhoek Rotary Club's Paul Harris Fellowship Award. • 2002 - Marker received a special award from the Sanveld Conservancy, signifying Namibia's farming community's public acknowledgement of Dr. Marker and CCF's contributions. • 2003 - Chevron-Texaco Conservationist of the Year. • 2005 - Living Desert's Track's in the Sand – Conservationist of the Year. • 2008 - Zoological Society of San Diego's Lifetime Achievement Award. Tech Museum's Intel Environmental Award, Society of Women Geographers' Gold Medal, Indianapolis Prize Finalist. • 2009 - BBC World Challenge Finalist, St Andrews Prize for the Environment Finalist, International Wildlife Film Festival Lifetime Achievement Award. • 2010 - Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement. Finalist for the BBC World Challenge Award. The Explorers Club Lowell Thomas Award, Indianapolis Prize Finalist. • 2011, 2012 - Rainer Arnhold Fellow. • 2013 - Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large, Cornell University, International Conservation Caucus Foundation(ICCF) Good Steward Award. • 2015 - Ulysses S. Seal Award for Innovation in Conservation, E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Technology Pioneer Award, Eleanor Roosevelt Val-Kill Medal Award. • 2020 - Explorers Club President's Award for Conservation. == Publications ==

• A Future for Cheetahs (2014) by Dr. Laurie Marker (author), Suzi Ezsterhas (photographer). • Chewbaaka (2017) by Dr. Laurie Marker and Jessie Jordan. • Cheetahs: A Celebration of Speed and Elegance (2018) by Dr. Laurie Marker (author), Suzi Ezsterhas (photographer). • ''Teacher's Resource Guide: A Predator's Role in the Ecosystem'' (multiple editions) By Dr. Laurie Marker and The Cheetah Conservation Fund. • Cheetahs – Biology and Conservation (2018) A volume in the Series: Biodiversity of the World: Conservation from Genes to Landscapes; edited by Laurie Marker; Lorraine K. Boast; Anne Schmidt-Küntzel. Series Editor – Philip J. Nyhus. ==References==