Dr. John G Ewen
Senior Research Fellow
Website Hihi Conservation
Current Conservation Boards/Memberships
Conservation Translocation Specialist Group
Conservation Planning Specialist Group
Hihi Recovery Group (Chair)
Hihi Conservation Charitable Trust (Trustee)
Journal Editorial Roles
Editor, Animal Conservation
Associate Editor, Emu Austral Ornithology
Research Interests
My research focusses on small population recovery, often involving conservation translocation, and the decision science that packages this. I enjoy working with recovery teams on solutions to complicated decisions starting from being explicit in our values (expressed as objectives) and then using our science to ensure we best achieve them. One of my motto’s ‘science doesn’t make decisions it informs them’. Although I work across a broad range of species, I have been most closely involved with hihi, a threatened passerine species found in New Zealand.
Current Projects
Hihi conservation in New Zealand
Echo parakeet management programme
Olive white-eye recovery programme
Bringing threatened species back from the brink of extinction/DRAHS
Publications
Book
- Ewen, J.G., Armstrong, D.P., Parker, K. & Seddon, P. (Editors)(2012). Reintroduction Biology: integrating science and management. Blackwell Publishing.
Recent Representative Papers
- Ewen, J.G., Walker, L. Canessa, S. & Groombridge, J.J. (2014) Improving supplementary feeding in species conservation. Conservation Biology (in press)
- Ewen, J.G., Soorae, P.S. & Canessa, S. (2014) Reintroduction objectives, decisions and outcomes: global perspectives from the herpetofauna. Animal Conservation (in press)
- Walker, L., Ewen, J.G., Brekke, P. & Kilner, R.M. (2014) Sexually selected dichromatism in the hihi Notiomystis cincta: multiple colours for multiple receivers. Journal of Evolutionary Biology DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12417
- Walker, L., Thorogood, R., Karadas, F., Raubenheimer, D., Kilner, R. & Ewen, J.G. (2014) Foraging for carotenoids; do colourful male hihi target carotenoid-rich foods in the wild? Behavioural Ecology DOI: 10.1093/beheco/aru076
- Seddon, P., Moehrenshlager, A. & Ewen, J.G. (2014) Reintroducing Resurrected Species: Selecting DeExtinction Candidates. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 29: 140-147 (with cover image).