On Thursday the new car engine was put into our car. Yes, that’s it hanging from a tree in the photo above! The mechanics spent hours hooking up the various tubes and wires, and I naively thought this meant we were close to being finished with the repairs. Tomas and I discussed where we would drive first- should we continue our original plan to drive […]

Late on Tuesday evening we got a call that a fisherman had found a manatee calf entangled in a fishing net near Tocc Tocc Reserve in Lac de Guiers. He said the calf was able to get to the surface to breathe and that there were other manatees nearby. Since it would take us several hours to get to the site, and working out of a

We left Dakar last Saturday, in a car loaded full of supplies for manatee sample collection and camping,  thrilled to be getting out of the crowded city for a couple weeks of fieldwork in northern and eastern Senegal. Tomas had found a private businessman willing to rent us a car for a reasonable rate, which was lucky, because none of the car rental companies will rent

Back in business in Dakar Time is flying! I’ve already been in Senegal a week and a half, but it seems much shorter. I hit the ground running and have had several very productive meetings while in Dakar. Last week I met with Alain Seck, the curator of the mammals collection at IFAN (which stands for Institute Francaise d’Afrique Noir (the French Institute of Black

Time To Go! Sunday morning I head out the door and back to Africa! My doctoral qualifying exams are finished and I’m now an official PhD candidate! So now I’m really excited to get back out to the field. I’ll spend the next 3 months in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau and hopefully the Gambia, where I’ll be collecting data and samples, doing surveys, and training African colleagues. I’m

Save Our Seas Foundation has published a lovely new book highlighting the work they support, including my West African manatee research. Click here to access a web version, and scroll to page 51 to see the West African manatee section.

I am so impressed and proud! Aristide Kamla, who came to Florida for training last November, has already held his own training workshop in Cameroon! Last weekend Kamla provided training in data collection and use of field equipment (including collecting environmental data, looking for signs of manatee feeding, identification of manatee food plants, and of course how to search for the manatees themselves) at Lake Ossa, where

Bittersweet Some of you may recall my joyous posting on January 25, when I received the export permits for the samples from Mali after waiting 13 months. Well, as I predicted, shipping the samples would turn out to be another challenge. I spent several weeks setting up a DHL corporate account so that my African colleagues wouldn’t need to pay for shipping and wait for

But Wait, There’s More! Just after I posted previous blog about Dawda’s training, I received a few more photos that should really be included. Dawda spent part of his time at Crystal River snorkeling with manatees, which he really enjoyed because this just isn’t possible in Africa (primarily because African manatees are too scared to stay anywhere near people, but also due to lack of