Dr Darragh Hare
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Biology; Pembroke College Research Associate
About
Dr Darragh Hare is a Senior Research Fellow in the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Department of Biology at the University of Oxford and studies conservation conflicts: acrimonious, morally fraught divisions over biodiversity conservation and governance. Dr Hare collaborates closely with non-academic conservation professionals working on real-world conflicts. His work uses quantitative methods to measure people’s attitudes, beliefs, and policy preferences, and uses results to propose practically orientated ways to improve outcomes for biodiversity and people.
Dr Hare has ongoing projects in Scotland (deer management, woodland restoration, potential reintroduction of Eurasian lynx), the United States (deer management, carnivore coexistence, wildlife decision-making and governance), Germany (hunting, carnivore coexistence), and southern and East Africa (human-wildlife conflicts, protected areas management, community-based natural resource management, hunting). This research generates social and political evidence on how different groups think about some of the thorniest issues in biodiversity conservation.
Expertise
- Human-wildlife conflict and coexistence
- Conservation conflicts
- Hunting
- Public opinion / Public perceptions
- Controversial topics in conservation
- Wildlife management
- Evolution and human behaviour
Selected publications
- Context matters: German public perceptions of trophy hunting in sub-Saharan Africa (2026)
- Enabling conditions for community hunting to deliver sustainable wild ungulate management in highland Scotland (2025)
- Beyond message framing: Participant characteristics predict social acceptability of increased deer culling in Scotland (2025)
- International perspectives on the acceptability of rangers shooting at suspected criminals inside protected and conserved areas in Sub-Saharan Africa (2025)
- A shifting baseline theory of debates over potential lynx and wolf reintroductions to Scotland (2025)
- International disparities in conservation priorities are more complicated than Global North–Global South divisions (2025)
- Public perceptions of trophy hunting are pragmatic, not dogmatic (2024)
- Public perceptions of deer management in Scotland (2021)
- Overcoming racism in the twin spheres of conservation science and practice (2021)
- Threats posed to conservation by media misinformation (2020)