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

Happy 2013~ I hope everyone is having a wonderful new year so far! Last year ended very well for the African manatee project with the exciting news that we received a large grant from the IUCN Save Our Species Fund! The goals of this project are to identify important manatee habitat use sites within three specific areas in Senegal, Mali, and Nigeria, to implement manatee

For those of you in the Portsmouth, NH area, a photography exhibit entitled “Africa is not a Country” is up and running for the month of November. I have 4 photos in the show (including one of Victor, shown below), and proceeds from the sale of my photos and postcards will benefit my African manatee research. The exhibit is being held by the Seacoast African American Cultural Center

An interesting new scientific paper was just published reporting the find of a fossil vertebra that has been identified as a Prorastomid, the earliest ancestral family of Sirenians (which includes all manatees and dugongs). The fossil closely resembles the oldest known member of the Prorastomid family, Pezosiren portelli, which was a dog or pig-sized aquatic mammal that lived 50 million years ago. Unlike today’s manatees and

After 4 long, hot months, Jonathan’s time in Gabon has come to an end. This week he returned home to Puerto Rico to continue his Masters degree studies and his work with Antillean manatees. Jonathan achieved great success with Victor and his Gabonese caregivers during his second round of work there. We are thrilled to report that as of 2 weeks ago Victor has now been

Jonathan reports that Victor now weighs 102 kg! He is eating 70% of his daily diet in plants and has been reduced to 1 bottle feeding a day, so we’re thrilled that his transition to plants is going incredibly well! The trick is to keep Victor gaining weight while he’s weaned from the high calorie milk formula onto a diet of plants, and so far

I just received a message from Jonathan that Victor is now 98 kg!! He is now eating 50 – 60% of his diet in plants daily, and his bottles have been reduced to twice a day, so he’s definitely transitioning well to an adult manatee diet. Jonathan reports that some of Victor’s favorite plants to eat are red mangrove, hippo grass, and water lilies. Victor’s

Sadly my field season is coming to an end, so I packed up all my manatee samples, as well as the plant and other manatee food reference samples to ship back to Florida for analysis. Besides the actual packing I’ve been getting all my permits in order for export and import of samples, which actually takes a mind-boggling amount of time and preparation. Permits can take months even