Clinton Dean Wright has been involved in the Wildlife Industry for almost 2 decades.
After completing his undergraduate with honours degree in Animal Science he became a safari guide and worked in Big 5 areas in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Eswatini.
He then headed to Taiwan were he work as a teacher for 8 years as well as a short stint in copywriting, branding and marketing, and started an events company. During this time he travelled much of Asia and almost never left.
After returning to South Africa, he part owned and managed two Vodacom stores before deciding to return to his passion in Wildlife.
He returned to University and obtained his second honours degree (Wildlife management) and then completed a Master’s degree in Wildlife Management specializing in the African Wild Dog, Lions and Leopard. He spent the next 5 years following wild dog packs, as well as monitoring and catching wild lions in Zululand, South Africa while working for a charity.
He then married a Brazilian fashion model who has turned out to be one of the most naturally gifted arthropod specialists around, and they raise their son Ricky while living in the heart of a biodiversity hotspot in Maputaland, South Africa.
Clinton then co-founded numerous conservation charities in South Africa, the United States and England and worked on putting the building blocks in place to restore ancient elephant migration routes and securing critical biodiverse habitat. After 6 years working on this, he joined Ubuntu Wildlife Trust to continue aspects of this project and is also currently a director of FreeMe Wildlife KZN, Ubuntu’s implementing partner in South Africa. Both these organisations represent the values he believes in and wants his son to grow up being exposed to.
He has written many reports and management plans for various reserves, and completed multiple surveys, species lists, alien plant eradication plans, managed burns and ecological assessments.
He was recently part of a team to find and describe a new species of widow spider – potentially the largest in the world.
He is currently trying to motivate himself to write his first books – one of fiction and one a field guide. He is fluent in English and Afrikaans, and speaks Mandarin and a bit of iSiZulu. He loves cricket and rugby but is too old now to play either, and was never really any good. He still lives in Maputaland, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa with his wife and son and their ginger cat Mithi (and a few spiders and scorpions).
UBUNTU WILDLIFE TRUST is honoured to have Clinton on the team. His wealth of knowledge, experience and passion for wildlife conservation makes him a valuable member to the Ubuntu WT family. He will be the driving force on the ground in South Africa.
Email : clinton@ubuntuwildlifetrust.com
