On the 19th of July 2012, Richard ‘Jim’ Moore successfully defended this PhD thesis entitled Ethics, ecology and evolution of Indonesian slow lorises (Nycticebus spp.) rescued from the pet trade at Oxford Brookes University.

I first came to know Richard when he was an undergraduate at Oxford Brookes. After pursuing a degree in Japanese studies, and spending a year abroad in Japan, Richard also started a degree in Anthropology, and successfully procured a scholarship to spend the summer in Sri Lanka studying one of the world’s top 25 most Endangered primates – the Western purple-faced langur. This meticulous study led to three scientific publications.

Richard then spent a field season in Cambodia with me and Dr Carly Starr to study the pygmy slow loris – it was there he earned his nickname Jim, when it was decided the name Richard was just too difficult to pronounce! And also where he decided that he was well-suited to nocturnal fieldwork.

Shortly thereafter, Jim met with CEO of International Animal Rescue Alan Knight who was looking for the perfect person to spend two years on a project that not only required the mental fortitude to deal with the heart break of wildlife trade, but the physical ability to scale one of Java’s most difficult mountains, to monitor scientifically IAR’s release programme of slow lorises. Jim rose to the challenge, to which the successful completion of his PhD attests. Congratulations Dr Richard ‘Jim’ Moore!