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2 June Last night was our last night all together so we threw a little party for the team, though I wasn’t really in the party mood and have to admit to shedding a tear or two. We’ve come so close so many times, but still haven’t managed to catch a pygmy hippo. And what would...

27 May I’m starting to think that I’m just not meant to see a pygmy hippo in the wild. I came back to Kenema today, promising some new colleagues a lift back with me as they had spent the night on the island. When I arrived at the campsite where they’ve been staying on the island...

23 May Another close call over the weekend, but still no pygmy hippo. I wish they could understand it’s for their own good! It’s become worryingly quiet over the last couple of days and frustration levels amongst the team are growing. What are we doing wrong? It started so well, but we...

8 May No luck so far. There haven’t been many signs of hippos around the traps, but a couple of them have feeding sites nearby. The team are busy improving their radio telemetry skills ready so that if we do catch a hippo we’ll be able to track where it goes. Unfortunately, I have to...

5 May The whole team have been on Tiwai for two days now and yesterday we started opening the traps. We’ve removed the strong cover materials that, for the last month, have allowed the pygmy hippos to walk over the traps without falling in and replaced them with partly broken rattan mats on...

2 May 2012 The team are starting to assemble in Tiwai. Michele, the vet from Palm Beach Zoo who is an expert in wildlife immobilisation (or anaesthetics to you and me) arrived yesterday after travelling from South Africa where she’s working on another project involved rhinos and lions. Today...

24 March 2012 I arrived on Tiwai Island last night along with Mohammed, one of my assistants from Gola . It’s just a couple of hours drive from our HQ in Kenema and luckily, since it’s the end of the dry season, the mud roads are still ok to drive on. The journey may have been a little...

When people think of hippos they tend to think of the big kind, frequently seen patrolling African rivers in natural history programmes on the TV(or perhaps the brightly coloured, rather hungry plastic variety from a well known children’s game?). What about the little guy? Who thinks about the...

When people think of the RSPB they wouldn’t normally think of tropical rainforests, but we’ve actually been working to protect these amazing places for more than 20 years. We’re now working with partners in 7 different countries – Indonesia , Sierra Leone , Montserrat , Kenya...