My three Spanish colleagues from CBD-Habitat arrived in Bissau late night on May 20. Pablo and Mercedes work primarily with Mediterranean Monk seals in Mauritania, and they were joined by Victor, an “animal capture specialist” from the Spanish Ministry of the Environment who primarily works with birds of prey. The next day we took the capture nets they had brought from Spain to be fitted […]
On Friday morning I flew from Dakar to Bissau, which was a short 40 minute flight, but as usual in Africa the process at the airport beforehand took several hours, most of which I spent with my fellow passengers standing on the bus that eventually transported us from the terminal to the plane. They loaded us onto the bus and then left us there for
I’ve now been in Senegal for 10 days, and tomorrow I continue south to Guinea-Bissau. While here in Dakar I had a productive meeting with Captain Abba Sonko at the Water and Forestry to discuss future plans. Captain Sonko was the person who submitted the proposal to CITES to up-list the African manatee to Appendix I, so he’s very proud that it succeeded, and we’re now both working
It’s been a busy spring, I’ve just finished my very last class for my PhD and a lot of lab work for both my genetics and stable isotope projects, and now it’s time to get back out to fieldwork in Africa! On Sunday I fly to Senegal where I’ll spend a couple weeks and will have some meetings about project sites there (the Senegal Ministry
Not surprisingly, after the CITES COP overwhelmingly reached a consensus to uplist African manatees from Appendix II to Appendix I, the proposal was quickly approved at the CITES plenary session last week. So it will be official in approximately 90 days. What does this mean? It will ban international commercial trade, but in reality not many African manatees are legally traded (about 19 have gone to aquariums in
It’s Official! African Manatees are now CITES Appendix I Read More »
On Wednesday at the CITES Conference of Parties (COP16) in Bangkok, Thailand, the range states reached a consensus to uplist the African manatee to CITES Appendix I. This is actually a bit surprising given the lack of population and illegal trade data that exists for African manatees, but I think it speaks well of the interest of countries around the world wishing to protect our
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is an agreement between governments to ensure that trade of animals and plants does not threaten their survival (I got that wording from their website because I couldn’t have said it better myself!). For endangered species, legal international trade (which includes both commercial trade as well as import/export for scientific study, educational purposes, etc.) requires obtaining an export permit
Even though I’m not in the field right now (I postponed my return to Africa until later in the spring to get some much needed lab work done here in Gainesville, FL) the African manatee project still has alot of different things going on. I’ve spent quite alot of time over the past couple months working with partners on a proposal to the Convention on
It seems there’s always a mix of good news with bad and sad for African wildlife, and the African manatee is no exception. The sad news is that manatee hunting is still almost a daily event in Lambarene, Gabon, a town on the Ogouue River in the central interior of the country (and in many other places in Africa as well). Despite full legal protection under
