Carl Gwynfe Jones, MBE (born 20 June 1954) is a Welsh conservation biologist, who has been employed by Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust since 1985, and a founding member (1984) and current scientific director of Mauritian Wildlife Foundation (MWF). Additionally he is Chief Scientist at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, and an honorary professor in ecology and conservation biology at the University of East Anglia. Often outspoken on the importance of knowing your species and using intuition, empathy and practical knowledge over dogmatic education, Jones is best known for his work in recovering the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) from just four individuals in 1974, to an estimated 400. Working in the Mascarene Islands since 1979, Jones has led five successful bird restoration projects where the starting population has numbered less than 12 individuals; as a consequence Mauritius has averted more bird extinctions than any other country. Jones has pioneered the use of ecological or taxon replacements to fill the ecological roles of extinct animals and successfully restored levels of endemic vegetation to previously denuded islets. Jones' work has been highlighted in Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine's 1990 radio documentary Last Chance to See, along with its accompanying book, as well as David Quammen's 1996 book The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions.
Early life
Jones was born in Carmarthen, Wales in 1954. During his youth he was fascinated with animals, and bred kestrels in his back yard. He credits both his initial excitement and subsequent success in restoring the Mauritius kestrel to the experience gathered during this time. Speaking of his decision to pursue conservation as a career, Jones has stated: Subsequently, he has spent his career conserving and studying species and systems and helping others to become conservation biologists.
Education
Carl went to Queen Elizabeth I Grammar School for boys, Carmarthen. He did his BSc at the North-East London Polytechnic. In 1978 Jones began his master's degree at University of Wales, Swansea. Initially studying developmental strategies in owls, the opportunity to run the conservation project in Mauritius saw him change the title of his research to "Studies on the Biology of the Critically Endangered Birds of Mauritius" From these studies he began to formulate a strategy to conserve the most endangered avifauna in his project region. After completing his MSc, he completed a PhD, also at Swansea, studying the pink pigeon (Nesoenas mayeri).
Mauritius and Mascarene Islands
Jones started working in Mauritius in 1979, whilst working for the International Council for Bird Preservation (now known as Birdlife International). Upon arrival, Jones' focus was to run and establish the captive breeding project and to work on the conservation of the most threatened species in the wild. Carl worked on the pink pigeon and the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus), which was considered the world's rarest bird. The species had reached an all-time low in 1974 with only four known wild birds. Despite the prevailing opinion that F. punctatus was doomed to extinction, he took over the recovery project that had been initiated in 1973 and began to implement captive breeding techniques such as "double-clutching", which is the removal of the first clutch of eggs (for captive rearing) which encourages the birds to lay a second clutch, thereby increasing the fecundity of breeding pairs, along with dietary supplementation for parents, fostering of captive reared young to wild pairs and hacking of captive raised birds to ensure maximum recruitment of juvenile birds. Between 1983 and 1993, 333 Mauritius kestrels had been reared, a third of these were captive bred and the remainder were derived from wild harvested eggs, most of these were returned to the wild. The Mauritius kestrel has subsequently been down-listed from Critically Endangered in the late 1970s, to Endangered in 1994 and Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List by 2000.