Congo River DaysOn Tuesday we boated 40km up the Congo River from the mouth, to several tributaries where I have been on previous trips and interviewed villagers about manatees. Accompanying me was Tim B. (the Angola LNG wildlife specialist), Wilson (a translator since I don’t speak Portuguese, Kisolongo or Lingala), Junior (Angola LNG environmental team assistant) and our two boat drivers who have taken me […]
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Angola Trip #3 It’s been almost a year since I’ve been here in Soyo, so it’s interesting to be back. It takes the better part of 2 days to get here; I flew from Tampa to Houston, spent the night, then flew from Houston directly to Luanda, the capital of Angola (15 hours, 7640 miles), then took another short flight up to Soyo, in northern
Looking forward…. Today colleagues and I announced the next round of African manatee conservation training workshops, to be held in Ghana in October and November. These training sessions, which are held over 2 weeks as we camp on Lake Volta, are one of my favorite things that I do in Africa. It’s a rare opportiunity to be able to spend a nice long period of
The University of Florida has awarded me a 4 year stipend and tuition coverage for my PhD work on West African manatees! I’m really excited and a bit overwhelmed by this generous award. It will certainly help ease the burden of my fundraising efforts so I can focus on my research, and it will also give me the time to take those classes I’m going
Disney comes through again!! I recently received word that the Disney Conservation Fund has awarded me another year of funding! This news could not have come at a better time. This money will allow me to focus both on manatee behavioral and baseline health research in Gabon and on capacity building, research and educational outreach work in other West African countries. Yippeee!!!
Mamiwata art exhibition (painting by Moyo Ogundipe, 1999, image courtesy of NY Times) Aside from real manatees, I’m also fascinated by the Mamiwata spirit that many people believe is embodied by the manatee. Mamiwata is depicted as a woman, mermaid, seductess, even women’s labor union organizer as well as many other forms, both in Africa and the Caribbean. My friend Sarah recently alerted me to
Posters are ready to go! Manatee informational posters in French that I created with Aimee Sanders, a graphic design and outreach speacialist working in Gabon, are now printed and ready to be distributed! These posters were created with funding from my USFWS Wildlife Without Borders grant for training and outreach work to help conserve West African manatees. I’m really happy with the way they turned
I received word last week that I have been awarded a grant from Save Our Seas Foundation for manatee tagging in Gabon! I am very excited, I’ve been working to raise money for this for the past 3 years!! The award will fund 2 GPS tags, belt and tether attachments, satellite time, some tracking gear, boat fuel for tracking, a stipend for a Gabonese technician