Gavan Cooke, expedition leader My name is Gavan Cooke. I am 31 year old PhD student at Bangor University, Wales. My supervisor (Prof. George Turner) made me aware of a grant available from the Zoological Society of London, he came up with an idea that might be appealing and agreed that it would be good [...]

Sitting here back in the UK reflecting on the Negros Interior Biodiversity Expedition (NIBE) is a strange experience and I’m not sure the real successes of the expedition have hit home yet. After catching up on sleep and food and the subsequent rounds of press conferences, things have got back to normal pretty quickly. The [...]

28/11/08 Well, we got the camera-traps back safe and sound. The results are modest but, considering we only had four cameras, and given the extremely low density of mammals in this forest, they are encouraging. We didn’t get a picture of an Abbott’s duiker, but we did record Harvey’s duikers and some other important animals [...]

15/10/08 We are at the second camp now (an ex-hunters’ camp), at higher altitude (1550 m asl), it’s raining on and off – and at night it’s COLD! Still, we got some good news last week because along the transects we have seen several piles of Abbott’s duiker dung – which is a huge relief. [...]

22/09/08 We are finding a lot of evidence of disturbance and pressure on this forest and especially its large mammals, and depressingly, there’s no sign of the endangered Abbott’s duiker yet. We are finding some evidence of tree cutting – though not much that is recent, which would support the view of the local Village [...]

16/09/08 Hi, I’m Trevor and I’m heading the team investigating this unknown population of Abbott’s duiker, Tanzania’s endemic forest antelope. Also in the team are Tanzanian researchers and trainees Athumani Mndeme, Richard Laizzer, Joseph Mwagusi and Martin Mlewa. After a couple of ‘logistical hiccups’ (including my car being written off in an accident on the [...]