When you think of African mammals, you’re probably jumping straight to the large, charismatic species like lions, leopards, elephants and rhinos. These endangered species absolutely require detailed research, but they pose two quite significant issues to researchers trying to investigate the ecosystem…

How do you collect reliable, repeatable data underwater when researchers can’t talk to each other, check books and ID charts, or take longer than 50minutes (because they’ll run out of air in their tank)?! Each summer, Operation Wallacea (Opwall) staff and volunteers…

Whenever we visited the site of La Ensenada in Tela bay, Honduras we always told the students about the legendary manatee that was once spotted there. There was no photo evidence, so none of us believed it. But last summer, all of that changed. …

In a recent letter in the journal Science we examined the potential conflicts between the time it can take to obtain the type specimens necessary to describe new species, and the need to provide effective conservation actions for undescribed species at immediate…

Written by José António L. Barão-Nóbrega, photos courtesy of José António L. Barão-Nóbrega, Sophie Elliott, Sara Ferreiro Carballal, Josh Phangurha, and Ciara Loughrey If you are like me and love being out in the field you might have experienced a series of…

In June 2019 I headed to the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve (Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico) with Opwall as one of the expedition herpetologists. This would be my second expedition with Opwall, as I also attended an expedition back in 2018 to the Buton Island…

Over the last few weeks we’ve been sharing our Opwall 12 Days of Conservation – stories about conservation success and ideas from Opwall teams world wide!   Day 1: Pushing back against oil palm in Borneo! Day 2: Overhunting in Honduras Cloud…

Written by and photos courtesy of Frederico M. Barroso While most young children soon outgrow their “dinosaur phase”, it is safe to say that I never quite did so. Grown on a healthy diet of abundant outdoor play sprinkled with ad libitum…

Written by Bethany Richmond Photos courtesy of Amy Dixon I had been looking forward to this evening all week – the evening we were going tarsier spotting! We had heard them calling to each other in the trees all around camp during…

Written by Katie Robertson Photos courtesy of Josh Phangurha & Emily Anderson On Friday the 12th of July our group embarked on one of the most exciting and thrilling adventures, but also one of the most challenging and terrifying experiences some of…

Written by and photos courtesy of Hannah Hoskins Cusuco National Park, North West Honduras, June 2010. I had just finished the first year of my undergraduate degree studying Natural Sciences, a subject I had chosen as it gave me scope to pick…

Words and photos courtesy of Jose Nobrega Data… one of the most valuable things we get after each season. Data entry… whilst being one of the most important activities to be done on-site, it is also one of the biggest sources of…