GhanaToday I drove from Lome, Togo to Accra, Ghana with colleague Patrick Ofori-Dansen, with whom I'll co-teach the Earthwatch Manatee Training course for the next 2 weeks. Tomorrow morning we head up to Lake Volta where we will camp for the next 2 weeks with...Read More

CMSI’m in Togo to attend the Convention of Migratory Species WATCH (West African Cetaceans and Their Habitat- yes, manatees got lumped in with cetaceans). The meeting is being held at a nice hotel in Lomé, the capital of Togo.Woman walking along the beach front road...Read More

TogoOn September 29th I flew back to Africa. It’s always an exhilarating feeling taking off, knowing that I’m on my way (and that whatever I forgot, I’ll just have to live without!). At JFK in New York I ran into Dr. Bill Perrin, a colleague...Read More

The good folks at Idea Wild have just notified me that they are funding my request to buy a VHF radio receiver and antenna for manatee tracking work in Gabon. This is a really nice small grant that will allow me to buy a...Read More

Survivor For those of you in the USA, the reality TV show "Survivor" filmed in Gabon this past summer and will air in the USA starting this week. I won't be here to watch it (and I dislike "reality" TV anyway) but it may give...Read More

NextI'm back in Florida for 3 weeks, preparing to return to Africa for the next 6 months. Lots of exciting plans are on the horizon:- On September 29 I'll fly to Lome, Togo to participate in the United Nations Environmental Programme / Convention of Migratory...Read More

CAMPing in MayumbaFlying into Mayumba on Monday. From the plane we also saw a humpback whale just offshore.My online silence this week is due to being in coastal and marine planning (nicknamed CAMP) meetings all week in Mayumba, a national park on the southern border...Read More

Happy ReturnsLast night I arrived in Libreville, Gabon after 4 days of travel from Angola. To get here I spent 2 nights in Luanda, the capital of Angola, followed by 2 nights in Johannesburg, S. Africa. It always takes awhile to get anywhere in Africa....Read More

Angola Trip #2 Wrap-upYesterday I left Soyo and flew to Luanda, Angola’s capital. Tomorrow I’ll fly to Gabon via Johannesburg, S. Africa (there are no direct connections between Angola & Gabon, so it’ll take a few days to get there, par for the course in...Read More

Outrageous Whale Day!Another component of the whale work here is the deployment and recovery of acoustic recording devices (called Marine Autonomous Recording Units or MARUs, developed by Cornell University Ornithology Lab, Bioacoustics Research Program) to record whale song. Actually they continuously record everything 24/7 while...Read More