This post was originally published on Mongabay.com Dung beetles have emerged as one of the most intensively studied animal groups in tropical rainforests. They are very easy and cheap to survey and are strong indicators of the health of rainforests and the presence of diverse mammal communities. Dung beetles also […]
A lesson from the mammoth’s forgotten botfly
How do you measure whether a restoration project worked? The answer is, typically, you don’t. Most efforts to plant trees or recover native environments either aren’t followed up by scientists over time, or else they are carried out by practitioners who may not have the time, resources or expertise needed […]
I’ve somewhat neglected my blog of late, thanks to the hectic combination of a stint of fieldwork in the Southern Ethiopian highlands followed closely by the hustle and bustle of moving city to start my PhD. Over the past few years, I’ve done quite a bit of fieldwork in remote […]
A few weeks ago, it was my pleasure to be jointly interviewed on the Conservation Careers and Wild Voices Podcasts. It’s been a while since I dabbled in the podcasting world myself and I keep meaning to get back into it. So, it was great fun to talk with Nick […]
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. And when fieldwork throws up problems, write a blog post about it. I’m a big fan of people that talk about failures. It’s probably a British thing. Truth is, fieldwork has so many moving parts, so many things that can go slightly awry—or […]
When the mist rolls in and all you can see are the silhouettes of ferns and tree trunks, you’d be forgiven for thinking that you’re standing in an ancient forest. But once a gust of wind lifts the blanket of white, you start to notice things. The trees aren’t so […]
This is a re-post of an interview I did with Terra Inconita after winning wildlife blogger of the year. On 31 December 2018, Gianluca Cerullo’s story The rare jungle cat that thrives in degraded rainforests, featuring a bag of his own poo-for-research, won the 2018 Wildlife Blogger of the Year competition […]
Today it was announced that I won Wildlife Blogger of the Year, 2018! This post is a repost from the great folks at Terra Inconita, who ran the competition. You can read my winning entry here. Bag of poo delivers conservation message, winning Wildlife Blogger of the Year 31 December, 2018 – A conservationist’s account of fieldwork […]
Mammal camera traps are sexy and butterfly nets make you feel like a Victorian scientist. But nothing beats the gruesome realities of catching dung beetles. Dung beetles are just about one of the most important and cost-effective animals you can sample, whether you’re doing so to test the impacts of […]