condary school in the country. It has also held teacher training sessions modeled on Marker's program and launched a conservation video, "Spirit of the Kalahari," starring local actors.
"We deal with an integrated system of people learning to live with wildlife, predators," Marker says. "We study the needs of the people, and the predators."
More than three decades of biological research underlie these outreach efforts, Marker adds – work on everything from how many cheetah exist in a region to the cats' range and breeding patterns.
"We probably know more about the biology of the cheetah than most other endangered species," Marker says.
Conservation groups also research farming practices, such as corralling young calves, which can minimize human-cat conflict.
While conservationists say they are seeing attitudes shift, they also know they have a long road ahead.
This past year, two orphaned cheetah cubs that Cheetah Conservation Botswana had rehabilitated were shot and killed after they were reintroduced into the wild. The group had released them on property owned by a supportive farmer, but the cats had roamed onto other, less friendly land.
"It's going to be a generational thing," Jones says. "The predator-livestock issue won't be solved in our lifetime. It will be changed in the next three, four generations."