Category: Uncategorized
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Teaching & training
We have a wealth of experience teaching local researchers and guides safe techniques for accessing trees, in both Spanish and English. It’s important to empower local scientists to be able to undertake their own research and be able to access and enjoy the trees that surround them. We’ve trained eagle researchers, herpetologists, botanists and mammal
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Bird ringing
Ringing birds is one of the methods used to help us understand movements and migrations, as well as population trends for these animals. Undertaken by trained and licenced individuals, it’s most commonly done with a mist net to catch the birds. However, for larger species and more intelligent species, such as raptors, this method doesn’t
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Canopy Bridges
Back again with Mossy Earth on their land on the Río Tiputini, Orellana, Ecuador. On this project the aim was to construct canopy bridges over the road, with scope to expand to the wider area in the future. The idea of these bridges is to increase canopy connectivity, allowing arboreal fauna to cross between disconnected
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Canopy Camera Traps
On this project we were once again working with Mossy Earth, this time in their recently purchased ~200 hectares of land on the Río Tiputini, Orellana, Ecuador. The rope work had two objectives: rigging to get the ME team (and local guides) up into the canopy for filming purposes on their YouTube channel, and to
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Mexican Salamanders
In June 2023 we were asked to help a Mexican NGO, Conservación de Anfibios A.C., with some research in the canopy. This organisation, spearheaded by José Alfredo Hernández Díaz, aims to conserve the wealth of amphibian diversity in the state of Puebla, Mexico. Specifically, they work outside the town of Cuetzalan in a 8 hectare
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Mashpi Magnolias
In January and February of 2023 Ollie was invited to the famous Mashpi Lodge to offer tree climbing as an activity for the guests and staff there as well as explore the canopy for interesting species. Mashpi lodge is located in the Tropical Andes bioregion of Ecuador and sits within a sizeable reserve of 3000
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Herps at Height
In September 2022, Ollie and a small team went out to the Canandé reserve in the Chocó region of NW Ecuador to look for new species of reptiles and amphibians in the canopy, as well as test out some novel canopy sampling methodologies. The project was the realisation of a long-awaited dream and yielded some
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Canopy leaf sampling
During a joint Fundación Jocotoco and INABIO expedition to a remote sector of the Canandé reserve in NW Ecuador, Ollie found himself useful in the collection of botanical samples from the canopy despite only being armed with a catapult, a home-made weight and some polypropylene cord. Understanding the plants in the forest is critical to
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Cliff-side invasive plant removal
Cabo Espichel in the Arrábida Natural Park, SW Portugal is home to huge limestone cliffs, some impressive cave systems and unique biodiversity. Two species of plant are endemic to this peninsula, that is to say they exist here and nowhere else on Earth. These species are Euphorbia pedroi and Convulvulus fernandesii. Tiago de Zoeten, Mossy
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Skynet
In the summer of 2021 Ollie was working in Croatia as a herpetologist for Operation Wallacea. He was running baseline surveys for reptiles and amphibians in the Krka national park. One night he joined the bat team who were becoming increasingly frustrated with low capture rates in the mist nets around the edges of a
Ropey Science 