Category: Wildlife Blogger of the Year 2018 Entries

When I worked as an ecological consultant, a lot of my work revolved around one group of species, the bats. Partly due to its legal protection, but also due to the way it has adapted to live alongside humans. In many cases even taking to using our residences as their homes, often without the homeowners awareness. I love this about bats; they quietly go about their business slipping off into the night and returning before we leave our beds to go to work. Even in the most urban settings it is actually more common than not to hear one on …

I was tossing two or three projects around in my mind, but couldn’t decide which to visit first, then one day ‘Cuddle Me ~ Kill Me’ the book by Richard Peirce happened to pop up on my Facebook page, a signed copy, I ordered it. The book starts by telling the story of Oliver and Obi, unwittingly raised by volunteers believing they are doing a good thing, hand raising ‘orphan cubs’. The story unfolds, the two cubs, along with many others, including black leopards and tigers, first come into the ‘cub cuddling’ arena of tourism, handled by tourists looking to …

As I apprehensively shuffled into the cage, my gut clenched and my heart stopped…I immediately knew that I was in a bad place, and I desperately wanted to run straight back out. But something stronger told me to carry on, and that by enduring the next hour in this awful place I could find hope to make a positive change to the hell that I currently found myself encased in. After an hour of experiencing the heartbreaking pain of filming undercover, I spent the next hour crying at what I had seen, both angry and upset. And that’s when I …

On the morning of April 9th 2018, I found myself nearly three months into my Central American backpacking trip, I awoke to my last day on the ‘Rich Coast’, in the modest village of Nosara. A year prior and I would be found in urban London, on my way home from work, riding the wonders of the northern line. Not however, without the company of Paulo Coelho’s novel ‘The Alchemist’ to hand, a book about a young man who seeks wisdom and knowledge through adventure and omens. After gaining a degree in Anthropology, my passion for travel and culture was …

The Elephant Gathering in Sri Lanka had been top of my ‘must see’ list for so long. We had just passed the halfway point of our trip around Sri Lanka and the big day was just around the corner! Part of the reason we’d planned our month-long visit in September was for this amazing event… I’d read about it, obsessed over photographs and videos and now the day had finally arrived, I could barely believe I was about to witness one of nature’s greatest spectacles in person. A little bit of context… As a conservationist I’ve been lucky enough to …

It was a moonless African night with countless number of stars – there are much more of them in the South hemisphere than in the North. No human habitation in tens of miles away: just several tents around a little campfire. Rangers are quietly talking to each other in one of 11 local languages. One hour more – and they will put the fire out and leave me alone with this night. “Just don’t forget to turn on your torch before going to the toilet: if you see someone’s eyes – better wait a bit.” – Shaba, a massive guy …

As we drove along a narrow, winding road which ran parallel to the ocean, I felt myself beginning to doze off. The sky, reflected in the mirror-like surface of the ocean, was a beautiful shade of blue, unblemished by even a single cloud. Just as my eyelids began to fall shut, something in my peripheral vision caught my eye. As I turned to pinpoint the source of the movement, I found myself stunned into silence. My brain couldn’t quite process what I was seeing; I briefly wondered if I had fallen asleep and was blissfully dreaming. Unable to form a …

One thing that I don’t often look forward to is hearing my alarm go off in the morning, but when that alarm is waking you up for a shark dive, it truly is the sweetest sound… Back in 2016, I undertook a placement year in the Bahamas at the Bimini Sharklab so interacting with sharks was a pretty standard day at the office! There is nothing more exhilarating than getting to share the water with these fascinating creatures and as we headed out to find them, there was an extra element of excitement in the air. On this particular day, …

The Kruger National Park, in South Africa, is one of my favourite places on Earth. Its landscapes are vast, its wildlife is abundant and varied, and it is one of the few great African reserves which can be explored both independently and cheaply. But mostly, I love this wild expanse because, very occasionally, it throws up something so unexpected it nearly knocks you over backwards. It was mid-February 2016, and I had already been in the park for a month. I had spent the previous evening with an enchanting pack of endangered African wild dogs, and I set out from …