Charles and Jon talk with wildlife filmmaker and presenter Nigel Marven from his home in the UK. Nigel describes how a childhood fascination with wildlife led to his first job in TV, 'wrangling worms', and from there to working with Sir David Attenborough and ultimately presenting and making his own shows and films. He explains why his films have often put the spotlight onto smaller, less well-known but fascinating mammals including Russian Desmans, Chinese Mole-shrews and Star-nosed Moles. And ...
Jul 01, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Charles and Jon talk with Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh , founder of the SW/Niger Delta Conservation Project . Rachel, a Nigerian conservationist and visionary, has built a team of almost 100 people working at the grassroots community level to save the wildlife of the Niger Delta. The delta, densely populated and home to oil and gas reserves, is one of the most degraded environments on the planet. It contains over half of the swamp forest in West and Central Africa and is the world's largest mangrove ...
Jun 01, 2025•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Charles and Jon talk to Shavez Cheema, founder of Borneo1Stop Wildlife , from his home in Sabah. Shavez talks about a childhood in Brunei surrounded by wildlife and how, at the age of nine, he was inspired to work in conservation after seeing a neighbour's senseless killing of a monitor lizard. We discuss the massive potential for growth in conservation tourism across Borneo, and both the benefits and problems it might create. And Shavez explains why Borneo1Stop Wildlife is committed to opening ...
May 10, 2025•52 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Charles and Jon talk with mammalwatching power couple Venkat Sankar & Nicole Haseley from their base at Stanford University in California. Nicole and Venkat 'accidentally' turned 2024 into a Big California (Mammal) Year and ended up seeing a record breaking 150 species in the state by December 31. They talk about some of their big year's highs and lows as well as their favourite places in California to mammalwatch, and offer advice on how to identify small mammals in the field. Plus Nicole e...
Apr 07, 2025•50 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Charles and Jon talk to legendary mammal guide Sid Francis from his home in Sichuan. Sid runs through a career as geographically diverse as it is professionally. After studying agriculture in the UK he worked as - among other things - a shepherd in the Falkland Islands shepherd and a school teacher in Denmark before moving to China and becoming a wildlife guide. We talk about how much China - and the public's interest in wildlife there - has changed over the past few years. Sid describes the cur...
Mar 09, 2025•58 min•Season 3Ep. 12
In the first episode of 2025 Charles and Jon talk about their December 2024 trip to Ethiopia's Somali Region and Djibouti. From Dik-diks to Dibatags we discuss some of the rare mammals we encountered along with spectacular species like the poison-covered Crested Rat. We describe the agony of arriving in a camp that looked like the set from a slasher movie, to the ecstasy of taking what appear to be the first ever photos there of a live Abyssinian Genet. And we reveal how we faced up to one of ou...
Feb 01, 2025•57 min•Season 3Ep. 11
In the last podcast episode of 2024, Charles and Jon talk to Marcelo Gavensky from his home in Buenos Aires. Marcelo is director of Birds Argentina , a tour company that recently expanded into running mammalwatching safaris. Marcelo talks about the varied career that led him to establish his tour company. He describes some of his favourite encounters and his work to find a reliable method to see the rare Franciscana or La Plata River Dolphin. We also discuss Argentina's massive mammalwatching po...
Dec 26, 2024•50 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Charles and Jon talk with Rodney Jackson the director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy, who is widely considered the leading world expert on the snow leopard, having devoted over forty years to researching and conserving this elusive cat in South and Central Asia. In a wide-ranging chat Rodney describes his journey from a young boy looking for wildlife around his Harare home to the mountains of Nepal and embarking on a lifetime's quest to study one of the world's most enigmatic cats. He describes...
Dec 01, 2024•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Charles and Jon chat with two Bangkok-based mammalwatchers, Alexander Coke Smith and Jirayu 'Tour' Ekkul. Coke, an American, moved to Thailand a decade ago. He has travelled extensively and many mammalwatchers will be familiar with his superb photos and trip reports . Tour, a Thai citizen, began running trips in the Gulf of Thailand in 2012 to watch the resident Eden's Whales. His company, Wild Encounter Thailand , has grown to offer birding and mammalwatching trips across Thailand and beyond. W...
Nov 11, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Charles and Jon talk to Fernando Tortato from his home in Cuiaba in Brazil's Pantanal. Fernando is Brazil Conservation Program Coordinator for Panthera , the global wild cat conservation organization. Dr Tortato talks about his work researching and championing the rapidly growing Jaguar tourism industry in Brazil. Twenty five years ago it was very difficult to see a wild Jaguar anywhere. Today some of the Pantanal lodges offer 'Jaguar Express Trips' that pretty much guarantee a Jaguar sighting b...
Oct 06, 2024•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 7
Charles and Jon are joined from South Africa by Rod Cassidy who runs world famous Sangha Lodge in the Central African Republic. A true mammalwatching nirvana. Rod talks about his early career as a bird guide and conservation researcher including his entry for the Darwin Awards during an ill-fated attempt bat collection expedition. He talks about the importance for conservation of the work he and his wife Tamar are doing in the Central African Republic and some of the spectacular mammals they reg...
Sep 12, 2024•44 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Charles and Jon are joined by Claudia Diaz , from Wild About Colombia, at her home in Bogota. Claudia and Robin Smith founded Wild About Colombia in 2017 and the company quickly developed a reputation for high quality and adventurous mammalwatching trips. Claudia talks about a career which has taken her from marine biology in Mexico's Gulf of California back to her native Colombia, via studying conservation in the UK. She describes her passion for involving local communities in ecotourism and ru...
Aug 05, 2024•59 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Charles and Jon talk to Dr Barbara Taylor (USA) and Dr Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho (Mexico), who together lead the global efforts to save the Vaquita from extinction. The Vaquita, a tiny and beautiful porpoise, is found only at the top of the Gulf of California and holds the unfortunate distinction of being the world's rarest marine mammal (possibly the rarest of any mammal species). There may be as few as 6 animals left alive. The story of the Vaquita's precipitous decline from its discovery in 1958 i...
Jul 06, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Charles and Jon talk to Australian author, broadcaster and wildlife nut Bradley Trevor Greive (BTG) from his home in California. BTG has an extraordinary CV: he was a paratrooper and cartoonist before becoming a successful author and broadcaster. In between he found time to win the French Polynesian Rock Lifting Championship, graduate from the Russian Cosmonaut Space Program, spend 6 years working on Brown Bears in Alaska and still practice on his ukulele. And he devotes considerable energy to s...
Jun 07, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Charles and Jon talk to conservationist Bill Robichaud, best known for his work to protect what many would argue is the world's most enigmatic mammal: the Saola. Saolas - a beautifully marked 100kg bovid - are often referred to as the 'Asian Unicorn' because of their scimitar-like horns and rarity. The species, first discovered by scientists in 1992 in the mountains of Vietnam, is one of the most stunning zoological discoveries of the past 100 years. Bill has dedicated his career to trying to le...
May 06, 2024•56 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Charles and Jon open Season 3 of the podcast from the jungles of the Ivory Coast, before talking to Peter Kaestner , the world's most accomplished birder. In February 2024 Peter became the first person ever to see 10,000 bird species, though, as we hear at the very end of the episode, the climax of his record came with more plot twists than a Hitchcock movie. Peter talks about his fiercely competitive family, and his older brother Hank's pivotal role in starting a lifelong love of birding. He ex...
Mar 28, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In the season finale to Season 2 of the podcast, Charles and Jon talk to the founder of Cat Expeditions - camera trap virtuoso and feline aficionado - Sebastian Kennerknecht from his home in California. Sebastian explains how his passions for wildlife and photography were formed and talks about the powerful role photography can play in conservation. He shares fascinating stories that demonstrate both his dedication to - and the skills behind - camera trapping. And we hear about some of his many ...
Feb 12, 2024•55 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Charles and Jon meet conservation legend and primatologist Patricia Wright . Dr Wright is most famous for her work in Madagascar, including her discovery of the Golden Bamboo Lemur. She is Founder and Executive Director of Stony Brook University Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments, and Founder and Executive Director of the Centre ValBio , a research and training center in Ranomafana, Madagascar. Some of her many achievements during a very distinguished career include being th...
Jan 15, 2024•53 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Charles and Jon talk to conservationist and tapir champion Dr Patricia Medici from her home in Brazil's Pantanal. Patricia is a founding member of the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (Institute for Ecological Research) , a Brazilian non-governmental organization which she helped set up in 1992. She also chairs the IUCN's Special Survival Commission Tapir Specialist Group , a network of over 130 tapir conservationists from 27 different countries. We talk with Patricia about her work and the thr...
Dec 14, 2023•59 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Charles and Jon meet Connor Burgin a PhD student working on mammalian systematics at the University of New Mexico. As a young boy Connor was fascinated by Wikipedia's list of dinosaurs. His fascination shifted to lists of present day fauna and at the age of twelve he began to create and update his own list of the world's mammals which quickly became the state of art. His childhood project turned into the American Society of Mammalogists' Mammal Diversity Database , which is now widely regarded a...
Nov 22, 2023•54 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Charles and Jon talk to the legendary John Newby about his 50 years in Chad and Niger working to save some of the rarest antelopes in the world. This is a fascinating story, which begins in the 1970s when John recalls seeing vast herds of Oryx, Addax and Dama Gazelle in the Sahara. Yet 15 years later these species had reached the edge of extinction. A warning on how quickly things can change. But this is also a story of hope and of nature's resilience when it is is given a chance: thanks to the ...
Oct 21, 2023•1 hr 8 min
Charles and Jon talk to Professor Joel Berger from his home in Colorado. Joel has spent a lifetime studying 'extreme species in extreme places' as a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and at Colorado State University and the University of Montana. He has worked on many mammals including Huemul in Chile, Musk Ox in Russia and Pronghorn in the USA. And he has focussed his work on some of the larger and unsung species that live in the world's deserts (of all types). In an enter...
Sep 11, 2023•48 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Charles and Jon are reunited with Carlos Bocos who inspired, designed and guided their hugely successful trip to West Papua in June 2023. From Long-beaked Echidnas to Long-fingered Trioks, we talk about the incredible mammalwatching on New Guinea, the extraordinary local communities who helped us along the way, and a death-defying BASE jumping Ground Cuscus. Here is the YouTube trailer . For more information visit www.mammalwatching.com/podcast Notes: Here is Jon's trip report from West Papua . ...
Aug 09, 2023•52 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Charles and Jon talk to Luke Hunter , the director of the Big Cat Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society and one of the world's leading experts on wild carnivore conservation. Luke discusses his work to protect Lions in west and central Africa, the reintroduction of Cheetahs in India, and a tragic story of Cheetah conservation in Iran. We also talk about the growing potential of wild cat eco-tourism around the world and how giving a child a set of toy zoo animals can spark a lifetime of ma...
Jul 03, 2023•54 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Charles and Jon chat with Harriet Kemigisha - founder of Harrier Tours - from her home in western Uganda. Harriet talks about a life that has taken her from a young village girl exploring the forest with her grandfather on hunting trips, to the founder of a successful wildlife tour company. She recounts her rediscovery of the Green-breasted Pitta in Kibale National Park when she was a ranger in 2005. And she describes how she figured out a strategy to see an African Golden Cat , one of Africa's ...
May 24, 2023•56 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Charles and Jon talk with Brendan and Dan Nugent - Australian mammalwatching newcomers - about their recent expedition to Chad with Jon. They talk about the other-worldly scenery of the Ended Massif; the Dama Gazelles of Ouadi-Rimé - "the most beautiful things they have ever never heard of"; and a safari on steroids in Zakouma National Park, including being in the middle of tens of millions of Red-billed Quelea (yes, birds!). Plus Brendan explains how ear plugs can help you survive the horrors o...
May 07, 2023•49 min•Season 2Ep. 14
Charles and Jon talk to Whitley Award-winning conservationist Arnaud Desbiez , from his home in the Brazilian Pantanal. Since 2010, Arnaud and his team have been studying one of the planet's most iconic and secretive animals: the Giant Armadillo. Very little was known about this magnificent mammal before their work began and the more the project uncovers the more we understand just how important a role this species plays in the ecosystems it inhabits. Arnaud talks about the challenges both Giant...
Apr 14, 2023•59 min•Season 2Ep. 13
Charles and Jon talk to distinguished mammalogist Dr Roland Kays , head of the Biodiversity lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and a Professor at North Carolina State University. Roland has published on sloth sleep and incognito Olinguitos and written a North American mammal field guide - also an app - that many of you will have. Roland talks about his work describing the Olinguito, one of the most significant new mammal discoveries of the 21st Century (it was the first new car...
Mar 16, 2023•58 min•Season 2Ep. 12
Charles and Jon talk to legendary mammalogists and conservationists John and Terese Hart about 50 years' of work in the Congo rainforest. John and Terese have made an enormous contribution to studying and protecting African biodiversity and have had way more than their fair share of adventures en route. From discovering new monkey species to studying Okapis, they share spellbinding stories that are guaranteed to make mammalwatchers weak at the knees. For more information visit www.mammalwatching...
Feb 28, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 11
We chat with Venkat Sankar about how we plan and prepare for the perfect trip. From designing an itinerary and choosing target species to taking the "right" pictures. We also swap tips on how we identify some of the world's most obscure mammals either in the field or after we get home. And Jon talks about his recent trip to Bioko Island, a place where the primates were nervous and the pedestrian crosswalks plentiful. Notes: Bioko Island trip reports are here . Venkat's Colombia report is here . ...
Feb 09, 2023•48 min•Season 2Ep. 10
