PODCAST · science
Mammalwatching
by Jon Hall & Charles Foley
Charles Foley and Jon Hall talk to mammalwatchers, biologists, conservationists and those with a passion for observing and protecting the world's wild mammals. For more information visit www.mammalwatching.com/podcast. Dr Charles Foley is a mammalwatcher and biologist who, together with his wife Lara, spent 30 years studying elephants in Tanzania. They now run the Tanzania Conservation Research Program at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Jon Hall set up mammalwatching.com in 2005. Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. He has looked for mammals in over 100 countries. Produced and edited by <a href="https://www.mammalwatching.com/2017/02/04/great-rat-catches-world-part
Episodes
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African mole-rats with Kyle Finn
Charles and Jon get a glimpse into the fascinating world of African mole-rats with Kyle Finn, a Postdoctoral Fellow from Linnaeus University, Sweden and one of the world's foremost experts on this family of species. Kyle talks about his work studying Damaraland Mole-rats for his master's degree…
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Stratton Hatfield & Koen Betjes
Charles and Jon talk to Stratton Hatfield and Koen Betjes, two conservation researchers involved in a range of fascinating work in Africa. We cover a lot of ground from Giant Pangolin research in Kenya to the importance of taxonomy for conservation and mammal listing. The pair talk about how they...
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Brett Hartl (Environmental Lawyer)
Charles and Jon talk to mammalwatcher and environmental lawyer Brett Hartl from his home in Prescott, Arizona. After beginning his working life as a ranger in Montana's Glacier National Park, Brett went to law school and now coordinates the Center for Biological Diversity's work on federal...
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Made in China
Charles and Jon compare notes from their recent trips to China, and talk the joys of travel there, especially the country's superb mammalwatching opportunities. Charles and his family spent 10 days in China's Qinghai Province in May, while Jon was in China for a month from mid-April, including...
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Tom Butynski & Yvonne de Jong: Wild Solutions (Kenya)
Charles and Jon talk to conservationists and primatologists Tom Butynski and Yvonne de Jong from their base in Kenya. Tom and Yvonne run the East African Primate Diversity and Conservation Program and research primates and other mammals in East Africa. After explaining how their rural childhoods...
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Joel Sartore: The Photo Ark
Charles and Jon talk to Joel Sartore, founder of NatGeo's Photo Ark project and one of the world's most preeminent wildlife photographers. Joel describes his passion for conservation, a passion inspired by parents who cared and a childhood spent in nature. He outlines his career, which took him...
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Nick Mcphee - Nick's Adventures Bolivia
Charles and Jon chat with Nick Mcphee, founder of Nick's Adventures Bolivia, from his home in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Nick explains how a childhood love of wildlife - inspired by growing up near Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo - led him to Bolivia after five years in the Australian army and...
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Mammalwatching: The Next Generation
Charles and Jon turn the podcast over to three of the youngest mammalwatchers we know: Ellen Linton (20), Bruno Kovacs Gomez (16) and Moses Swanson-Mwamasika (15). In a lively chat the three share stories about their passion, why they love it and what their friends and family think. We hear…
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Adventures in Argentina & Tales from Tanzania
Charles and Jon don't have a guest this month. Instead we talk to each about our recent trips to southern Tanzania (Charles) and Tierra del Fuego (Jon). Charles's adventure coincided with the Tanzanian elections and an outbreak of protests. These may have shut down the country but did not deter…
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Episode 2: János Oláh
In the first podcast of 2026 we talk with professional bird and mammal guide János Oláh from his home in Hungary. János set up Sakertours in 1994. Initially focussing on birding tours in Eastern Europe they expanded to run hide-based photography tours and now mammal tours. János explains how he…
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Episode 1: Expedition to Sulawesi
The Season 4 opener to the mammalwatching podcast has Charles and Jon talking about their September 2025 expedition to Sulawesi. This is a blow by blow - and mammal by mammal - account of a remarkable two week trip that recorded over 80 mammal species. Our story is interspersed with interviews…
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Episode 18: Nachiket Kelkar & Kadambari Deshpande (India)
Charles and Jon speak to conservation power couple Nachiket Kelkar and Kadambari Deshpande from their home in Bangalore. for the finale to Season 3 of the podcast. Kadambari and Nachiket both work to better understand how wildlife and people can co-exist in India, with Kadambari focussing on bats...
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Episode 17: African Golden Cat researcher Laila Bahaa-el-din
Charles and Jon talk with carnivore conservation expert Laila Bahaa-el-din. Laila studied the near mythical African Golden Cat for her PhD in Gabon from 2010 - 2015 and was the first to study the species for a PhD. She explains how her grandfather inspired her to follow a career in conservation…
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Episode 16: Nigel Marven
Charles and Jon talk with wildlife filmmaker and presenter Nigel Marven from his home in the UK. Nigel describes how a childhood fascination with wildlife led to his first job in TV, 'wrangling worms', and from there to working with Sir David Attenborough and ultimately presenting and making his...
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Episode 15: Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh, Nigeria
Charles and Jon talk with Rachel Ashegbofe Ikemeh, founder of the SW/Niger Delta Conservation Project. Rachel, a Nigerian conservationist and visionary, has built a team of almost 100 people working at the grassroots community level to save the wildlife of the Niger Delta. The delta, densely...
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Episode 14: Shavez Cheema, Borneo
Charles and Jon talk to Shavez Cheema, founder of Borneo1Stop Wildlife, from his home in Sabah. Shavez talks about a childhood in Brunei surrounded by wildlife and how, at the age of nine, he was inspired to work in conservation after seeing a neighbour's senseless killing of a monitor lizard. We...
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Episode 13: Venkat Sankar & Nicole Haseley's Big California Year
Charles and Jon talk with mammalwatching power couple Venkat Sankar & Nicole Haseley from their base at Stanford University in California. Nicole and Venkat 'accidentally' turned 2024 into a Big California (Mammal) Year and ended up seeing a record breaking 150 species in the state by December…
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Episode 12: Sid Francis, China
Charles and Jon talk to legendary mammal guide Sid Francis from his home in Sichuan. Sid runs through a career as geographically diverse as it is professionally. After studying agriculture in the UK he worked as - among other things - a shepherd in the Falkland Islands shepherd and a school…
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Episode 11: The Horn of Africa
In the first episode of 2025 Charles and Jon talk about their December 2024 trip to Ethiopia's Somali Region and Djibouti. From Dik-diks to Dibatags we discuss some of the rare mammals we encountered along with spectacular species like the poison-covered Crested Rat. We describe the agony of...
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Episode 10: Marcelo Gavensky and Argentina
In the last podcast episode of 2024, Charles and Jon talk to Marcelo Gavensky from his home in Buenos Aires. Marcelo is director of Birds Argentina, a tour company that recently expanded into running mammalwatching safaris. Marcelo talks about the varied career that led him to establish his tour...
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Episode 9: Rodney Jackson and Snow Leopards
Charles and Jon talk with Rodney Jackson the director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy, who is widely considered the leading world expert on the snow leopard, having devoted over forty years to researching and conserving this elusive cat in South and Central Asia. In a wide-ranging chat Rodney...
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Episode 8: Coke Smith and Jirayu 'Tour' Ekkul (Thailand)
Charles and Jon chat with two Bangkok-based mammalwatchers, Alexander Coke Smith and Jirayu 'Tour' Ekkul. Coke, an American, moved to Thailand a decade ago. He has travelled extensively and many mammalwatchers will be familiar with his superb photos and trip reports. Tour, a Thai citizen, began...
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Episode 7: Fernando Tortato & Jaguar tourism
Charles and Jon talk to Fernando Tortato from his home in Cuiaba in Brazil's Pantanal. Fernando is Brazil Conservation Program Coordinator for Panthera, the global wild cat conservation organization. Dr Tortato talks about his work researching and championing the rapidly growing Jaguar tourism...
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Episode 6: Rod Cassidy, Sangha Lodge
Charles and Jon are joined from South Africa by Rod Cassidy who runs world famous Sangha Lodge in the Central African Republic. A true mammalwatching nirvana. Rod talks about his early career as a bird guide and conservation researcher including his entry for the Darwin Awards during an ill-fated...
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Episode 5: Claudia Diaz, Wild About Colombia
Charles and Jon are joined by Claudia Diaz, from Wild About Colombia, at her home in Bogota. Claudia and Robin Smith founded Wild About Colombia in 2017 and the company quickly developed a reputation for high quality and adventurous mammalwatching trips. Claudia talks about a career which has…
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Episode 4: The Vaquita (with Barbara Taylor & Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho)
Charles and Jon talk to Dr Barbara Taylor (USA) and Dr Lorenzo Rojas-Bracho (Mexico), who together lead the global efforts to save the Vaquita from extinction. The Vaquita, a tiny and beautiful porpoise, is found only at the top of the Gulf of California and holds the unfortunate distinction of...
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Episode 3: Bradley Trevor Greive
Charles and Jon talk to Australian author, broadcaster and wildlife nut Bradley Trevor Greive (BTG) from his home in California. BTG has an extraordinary CV: he was a paratrooper and cartoonist before becoming a successful author and broadcaster. In between he found time to win the French...
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Episode 2: Bill Robichaud and the Saola
Charles and Jon talk to conservationist Bill Robichaud, best known for his work to protect what many would argue is the world's most enigmatic mammal: the Saola. Saolas - a beautifully marked 100kg bovid - are often referred to as the 'Asian Unicorn' because of their scimitar-like horns and…
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Episode 1: Peter Kaestner
Charles and Jon open Season 3 of the podcast from the jungles of the Ivory Coast, before talking to Peter Kaestner, the world's most accomplished birder. In February 2024 Peter became the first person ever to see 10,000 bird species, though, as we hear at the very end of the episode, the climax…
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Episode 23: Sebastian Kennerknecht
In the season finale to Season 2 of the podcast, Charles and Jon talk to the founder of Cat Expeditions - camera trap virtuoso and feline aficionado - Sebastian Kennerknecht from his home in California. Sebastian explains how his passions for wildlife and photography were formed and talks about…
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Episode 22: Patricia Wright
Charles and Jon meet conservation legend and primatologist Patricia Wright. Dr Wright is most famous for her work in Madagascar, including her discovery of the Golden Bamboo Lemur. She is Founder and Executive Director of Stony Brook University Institute for the Conservation of Tropical...
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Episode 21: Patricia Medici
Charles and Jon talk to conservationist and tapir champion Dr Patricia Medici from her home in Brazil's Pantanal. Patricia is a founding member of the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (Institute for Ecological Research), a Brazilian non-governmental organization which she helped set up in 1992....
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Episode 20: Connor Burgin
Charles and Jon meet Connor Burgin a PhD student working on mammalian systematics at the University of New Mexico. As a young boy Connor was fascinated by Wikipedia's list of dinosaurs. His fascination shifted to lists of present day fauna and at the age of twelve he began to create and update…
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Episode 19: John Newby & Chad
Charles and Jon talk to the legendary John Newby about his 50 years in Chad and Niger working to save some of the rarest antelopes in the world. This is a fascinating story, which begins in the 1970s when John recalls seeing vast herds of Oryx, Addax and Dama Gazelle in the Sahara. Yet 15 years...
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Episode 18: Joel Berger
Charles and Jon talk to Professor Joel Berger from his home in Colorado. Joel has spent a lifetime studying 'extreme species in extreme places' as a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and at Colorado State University and the University of Montana. He has worked on many…
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Episode 17: Expedition to West Papua
Charles and Jon are reunited with Carlos Bocos who inspired, designed and guided their hugely successful trip to West Papua in June 2023. From Long-beaked Echidnas to Long-fingered Trioks, we talk about the incredible mammalwatching on New Guinea, the extraordinary local communities who helped us...
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Episode 16: Luke Hunter
Charles and Jon talk to Luke Hunter, the director of the Big Cat Program at the Wildlife Conservation Society and one of the world's leading experts on wild carnivore conservation. Luke discusses his work to protect Lions in west and central Africa, the reintroduction of Cheetahs in India, and a...
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Episode 15: Harriet Kemigisha
Charles and Jon chat with Harriet Kemigisha - founder of Harrier Tours - from her home in western Uganda. Harriet talks about a life that has taken her from a young village girl exploring the forest with her grandfather on hunting trips, to the founder of a successful wildlife tour company. She...
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Episode 14: Expedition to Chad
Charles and Jon talk with Brendan and Dan Nugent - Australian mammalwatching newcomers - about their recent expedition to Chad with Jon. They talk about the other-worldly scenery of the Ended Massif; the Dama Gazelles of Ouadi-Rimé - "the most beautiful things they have ever never heard of"; and…
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Episode 13: Arnaud Desbiez
Charles and Jon talk to Whitley Award-winning conservationist Arnaud Desbiez, from his home in the Brazilian Pantanal. Since 2010, Arnaud and his team have been studying one of the planet's most iconic and secretive animals: the Giant Armadillo. Very little was known about this magnificent mammal...
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Episode 12: Roland Kays
Charles and Jon talk to distinguished mammalogist Dr Roland Kays, head of the Biodiversity lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and a Professor at North Carolina State University. Roland has published on sloth sleep and incognito Olinguitos and written a North American mammal…
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Episode 11: John & Terese Hart
Charles and Jon talk to legendary mammalogists and conservationists John and Terese Hart about 50 years' of work in the Congo rainforest. John and Terese have made an enormous contribution to studying and protecting African biodiversity and have had way more than their fair share of adventures en...
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Episode 10: Trip Planning & Equatorial Guinea
We chat with Venkat Sankar about how we plan and prepare for the perfect trip. From designing an itinerary and choosing target species to taking the "right" pictures. We also swap tips on how we identify some of the world's most obscure mammals either in the field or after we get home. And Jon...
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Episode 9: Jo Setchell
Charles and Jon talk to Professor Jo Setchell from her home in the UK. Dr Setchell, a distinguished primatologist and anthropologist, has studied primates in Cameroon, Gabon, the DRC and Borneo and has particular research interests in sexual selection among Mandrills and primate conservation....
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Episode 8: Tales of the Unexpected
Charles and Jon talk to recently converted mammalwatchers about their early mammalwatching experiences. Admittedly, some of our guests might deny they have been converted but we know different. We talk to Steven Arthur, Cheryl Antonucci's partner, about being stalked by Swamp Rabbits in Missouri....
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Episode 7: Mammalwatching Guides
Charles and Jon are joined by Season 1 podcast veterans Mac Hunter and Cheryl Antonucci who starred in the first two podcast episodes, along with professional birding - and now mammalwatching - guide Carlos Bocos who dialed in from his home in Spain. We talk about guides: the benefits they bring…
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Episode 6: Charles Foley
Jon finally gets the chance to interview his co-host Charles Foley. Charles shares adventures from a life spent working with African Elephants in Tanzania's Tarangire National Park with his wife Lara. His thirty years of research has generated many advances in our understanding of Elephants,...
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Episode 5: Karina Karenina & Andrey Giljov
Charles and Jon talk to Russian biologists and mammalwatchers Karina Karenina and Andrey Giljov (aka The Travelling Zoologists) from their new home in Paraguay. In a journey that runs from the Russian steppes to the Paraguayan chaco, they talk about their work to save Russia's Saiga Antelopes and...
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Episode 4: Christopher Scharf
Charles and Jon talk to Christopher Scharf about his 30 year quest to photograph the planet's most iconic wildlife - a project that is destined to be a time capsule of 21st century wildlife observation. Chris talks about some of the near mythical mammals he has seen and the near mythical…
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Episode 3: The First Mammalwatching Meeting
Charles and Jon report back from the inaugural mammalwatching meeting in Asturias, Spain. Join us as we watch Brown Bears, Common Genets and Broom Hares and chat with the participants. In a podcast first you can share the ecstasy of people seeing lifer mammals, followed by the agony when one - a...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Charles Foley and Jon Hall talk to mammalwatchers, biologists, conservationists and those with a passion for observing and protecting the world's wild mammals. For more information visit www.mammalwatching.com/podcast.
Dr Charles Foley is a mammalwatcher and biologist who, together with his wife Lara, spent 30 years studying elephants in Tanzania. They now run the Tanzania Conservation Research Program at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.
Jon Hall set up mammalwatching.com in 2005. Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. He has looked for mammals in over 100 countries.
Produced and edited by <a href="https://www.mammalwatching.com/2017/02/04/great-rat-catches-world-part
HOSTED BY
Jon Hall & Charles Foley
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Mammalwatching have?
Mammalwatching currently has 82 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Mammalwatching about?
Charles Foley and Jon Hall talk to mammalwatchers, biologists, conservationists and those with a passion for observing and protecting the world's wild mammals. For more information visit www.mammalwatching.com/podcast. Dr Charles Foley is a mammalwatcher and biologist who, together with his wife...
How often does Mammalwatching release new episodes?
Mammalwatching has 82 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Mammalwatching?
You can listen to Mammalwatching on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Mammalwatching?
Mammalwatching is created and hosted by Jon Hall & Charles Foley.
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