The American Society of Mammalogists Conservation Awards Committee selected Héctor Ramirez-Chaves for the 2016 William T. Hornaday Award from the American Society of Mammalogists. Héctor is now a doctoral student at the University of Queensland in Australia and he has already made a strong impact on mammalian conservation in his homeland in northern South America and more recently with his fieldwork in Central Asia. Héctor has authored over 45 peer-reviewed papers (and many more technical reports), three books and four book chapters on various aspects of mammalogy. His published works include studies in conservation biology, natural history, and distribution studies of rodents, bats, shrews, anteaters, and especially small carnivores. He has also produced synthetic investigations of patterns of species richness and endemism in Neotropical mammals.
Some of his work has also focused on large-scale assessments of the conservation status and distribution of Colombian mammals. In 2015, he was awarded the Adriana Espinosa Award of the Colombian Mammal Society for his outstanding contributions to South American mammals. Héctor’s references all spoke to his commitment to conservation-focused studies and his efforts to encourage numerous undergraduate Colombians to study mammals and contribute to the conservation of their habitats.
