Samantha Zwicker (MS, PhD) is a tropical ecologist, wildlife rehabilitation specialist, and founder/co-director of Hoja Nueva, a Peruvian conservation organization established in 2015, dedicated to rewilding, community-based conservation, and non-invasive mammal monitoring across the Amazon. She earned her PhD in Quantitative Ecology at the University of Washington, where she studied sensor-based methods to monitor elusive felids and the influence of human disturbance on mammal communities. She also holds a master’s degree in conservation ecology and a diploma in nonprofit management. Raised on Bainbridge Island, Washington, Zwicker earned a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies before entering graduate research. In 2014, she assisted a PhD project in Madre de Dios and was captivated by the biodiversity of the Las Piedras region, setting her path firmly toward tropical conservation. Motivated by accelerating biodiversity loss and rampant wildlife trafficking, Zwicker founded Hoja Nueva to bridge rigorous science, restoration, and policy advocacy. Under her leadership, Hoja Nueva operates an Amazon research station, implements long-term, community-partnered camera-trap grids, and runs Peru’s first felid-oriented rewilding center. Zwicker places particular emphasis on non-invasive monitoring—she believes that rigorous, camera-based, spatially informed approaches are the ethical backbone of modern conservation, reducing risk to animals while producing robust inference. Zwicker’s credibility extends to institutional influence: she collaborated with SERFOR to co-create Peru’s first regulatory guidelines for wild-felid rehabilitation and release. These protocols now undergird national rewilding efforts. Her scientific record reinforces Hoja Nueva’s field approach. Zwicker’s peer-reviewed work includes analyses of how mammal communities respond to human pressures, temporal niche shifts in ocelots, and density/occupancy estimation applied to margays, all derived from broad-scale camera-trap datasets. Her doctoral dissertation, Elusive felids of lowland Amazonia: Assessing the effects of human disturbance across an unprotected landscape, continues to guide comparative research across Amazonian sites. Zwicker also has a distinguished rewilding track record: between 2020 and 2025, she has overseen the release of 8 ocelots (7 confirmed successful) and 8 margays (6 confirmed successful) using both hard and soft release protocols, monitored via camera traps and VHF telemetry. In 2025, Zwicker orchestrated the soft release of a female jaguar on Hoja Nueva’s private land, marking the organization’s first large-cat reintroduction.
Through all this work, Zwicker consistently challenges the pervasive notion that predators seized from the pet trade are unreleasable. Her success stories serve as living rebuttals—proof that with careful site selection, ecological monitoring, and community integration, trafficked felids can return to functioning wild populations. Zwicker’s conservation philosophy is rooted in partnership and humility. Nearly a decade living in Peru has allowed her to forge deep connections with Madre de Dios’s communities, embedding her work in local culture and resisting “parachute science.” She emphasizes co-designed solutions, capacity building, and local stewardship. Beyond her scientific and operational roles, she is hands-on in rehabilitation, mentoring, data analysis, and community education. She continues refining felid ecology methods, expanding Hoja Nueva’s presence in Madre de Dios and beyond, and proving that rescued predators can once again roam free in their native forests.