Ian Coulson died on October 2, 1994, aged 36, of severe injuries received five days earlier during an aircraft accident in a remote area of northern Zimbabwe. Ian and two members of his staff from the Sengwa Wildlife Research Institute were collaborating with the WWF to count elephants from the air. Ian had been involved in these surveys for many years, contributing to the quota setting process in CAMPFIRE, Zimbabwe's renowned program in which rural communities manage their wildlife and receive the benefits of its use.
Ian always considered this sort of low-level survey to be uncomfortable (to put it mildly) but shrugged off the danger. On this occasion, the aircraft appears to have run into difficulties shortly after the survey started, whereupon it touched the top of the trees and plunged into the ground. With a full load of fuel, it burst into flames on impact. Two of the occupants were killed outright, but Ian and Andrew Masarirevu managed to get out, though with broken limbs and severe burns. Somehow they helped each other traverse several miles of extremely rough country to a village where the elders sent runners for medical assistance. In the sad inevitability of the following five days, during which both men died of their injuries, it is typical of Ian that his main concern was clearly for the welfare of his colleague.
Ian Coulson was born in England but left for Africa with his parents at the age of eight. Throughout his schooling his main interest was natural history, and the more slithery and slippery the creature the better. A fascination with snakes was not diminished even when his brother was bitten by a black mamba. At university, ear-splitting rock music joined Ian's lengthening list of interests. Several years later his wife Sylvia finally managed to reduce the volume, but the snakes persisted and tortoises and pangolins were added. Not surprisingly, Ian was best known to the Species Survival Commission as a member of the African Reptile and Amphibian Specialist Group.
After university in South Africa, from which he graduated with a first in zoology, Ian joined the Department of National Parks and Wild Life Management in Zimbabwe shortly before independence in 1979. He was posted to Gonarezhou National Park and then to Sengwa, where he remained for 13 years, initially as the junior ecologist but later as officer-in-charge. Sengwa is one of the few wildlife areas in Africa set aside for research, and among his other duties he hosted and assisted a long list of both local and international researchers working on issues ranging from dung beetle distribution to elephant communication.
His own research centered on the interaction between elephants and riverine acacia woodlands. Despite his love of elephants, Ian weighed up the issues and determined that the Sengwa woodlands should be allowed to recover from the elephant-induced damage of the 1970s. He therefore insisted that 250 animals be culled, and as a result of this decision the acacia woodland is almost mature. It will be a lasting memorial to a biologist whose honesty, integrity, dedication, and courage was recognised far beyond the wildlife community in Zimbabwe.
Coulson, I.M. (1988). Variation in shield counts in tortoises of the Sengwa Wildlife Research Area, Zimbabwe. J. Herpetol. Assoc. Afr. 35, 9-11.
Coulson, I.M. (1989). The pangolin (Manis temminckii Smuts, 1832) in Zimbabwe. Afr. J. Ecol. 27, 149-155.
Coulson, I.M. (1990). A preliminary check list of the amphibians and reptiles of the Sengwa Wildlife Research Area. Trans. Zimbabwe Sci. Assoc. 64, 49-53.
Heath, M. & Coulson, I.M. (1997). Home range size and distribution in a wild population of Cape pangolins, Manis temminckii, in north-west Zimbabwe. Afr. J. Ecol. 35, 94-109.
Most of Ian's research, on elephant damage to acacia woodland at Sengwa, remains unpublished.
