As the Director of the Endangered Species Interventions Program at Bat Conservation International, I spend a lot of my time working with partners worldwide to prevent the extinction of threatened bat species. Like any rare species it is a challenging task but their nocturnal and elusive behaviour can make protecting bats especially challenging. This is […]
environmental conservation
From saddle cover to media sensation: the story of the yellow-tailed woolly monkey
During his famous 5 year-long expedition to Latin America (1799-1804), Alexander von Humboldt collected, together with his naturalist partner, Aimé Bonpland, around 60,000 plant specimens and an unknown number of animal specimens that we can safely assume to be in the thousands. Some of these specimens were being shown and described to the scientific world […]
Finding inspiration in rediscovery
I love what I do. I’ve been a naturalist since childhood, and I was lucky enough to grow up in the wilds of west Dorset where the woodlands, coastlines and hills gave me everything I needed to explore my fascination with wildlife and the natural world. In school, the only subject which interested me was […]
On the path of the Spreadwing
We were threading on a narrow foot path, running across a rainforest leading to the Adam’s Peak mountain, the most sacred mountain in Sri Lanka and the fourth highest in the country. Our team of five naturalists was ascending the mountain slowly as we were frequently held by interesting animals, beautiful sceneries of forests, mountains […]
Searching for the Santa Marta Toro: A tale of a Roach & a Rat
Off the coast of northern Colombia lies a formidable mountain, which towers over the small Caribbean city of Santa Marta. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (SNSM) is the tallest coastal mountain range in the world, rising from sea level to over 5,700 m. Older than the Andes, the Sierra Nevada’s dramatic topography has made […]
Meet the Lost & Found team: Sam Needs
Sam Needs is a Welsh writer with a Master’s in Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University. He is currently based in Perth, Australia, where he works with the Said Poets Society, a non-profit who help young people to express themselves through storytelling and performance poetry. What interested in the Lost and Found project? I was most […]
Searching for the Southern Sea Otter
This is an oldie but goodie for the Lost and Found archives. In a letter dated February 2nd, 1915 to the California Department of Fish and Game, lighthouse keeper John W. Astrom reported on a small southern sea otter (Enhydra lutris nereis) population of the coast of Big Sur. Little did Mr. Astrom know that […]
Worth losing a finger for: the Anatolian meadow viper
The Anatolian meadow viper was always an enigmatic species. It belongs to the same group as many widespread vipers, such as the common adder. However, unlike the common adder, which is distributed across Europe and Northern Asia, the Anatolian meadow viper lives only at the top of the Ciglikara mountain plateau, in south-west Turkey. Since […]