Axel Moehrenschlager

Dr. Axel Moehrenschlager serves as the Director of the Small Cats Program and Conservation Translocations for Panthera.  In this role he collaborates with others to escalate support, partnerships, discoveries, innovations, actions and impacts around the world that help 33 species of Small Cats and their ecosystems. He also collaborates to elevate the power of responsible conservation translocations such as reintroductions and reinforcements to restore and strengthen the viability of Small and Big Cat populations globally.

Axel has worked on a broad variety of threatened species globally, ranging from plants, invertebrates, amphibians, and birds to lemurs, antelopes, and hippopotami. In his belief that biodiversity conservation is largely about interdisciplinary approaches, a primary focus has been on community-based conservation to generate benefits that align with the values and priorities of local communities and Indigenous People.  Before joining Panthera, Moehrenschlager founded the Centre for Conservation Research and later the Wilder Institute at the Calgary Zoological Society in Canada.

Axel serves on the Leadership and Steering Committee of IUCN’s Species Survival Commission. He is also the Chair of the IUCN SSC Conservation Translocation Specialist Group which escalates Science, Guidance, Policy, Training, Action, and Outreach around the world. Axel is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Calgary in Canada, Adjunct Associate Professor at Clemson University in the United States, Erskine Fellow at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, and Research Associate at Oxford University where he received his Ph.D. Axel also serves for several boards, advisory committees, and funding agencies in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Kenya.