And the winners are … the 2023 NUTTER Awards

It gives me great pleasure to announce the winners of the 2023 Awards for Mammalwatching’s most Notable, Unique, Tantalizing, Tenacious and Enlightening Reports: The N.U.T.T.E.R Awards.

Thank you to the team at Project Felis – especially Ruben and Valentin – for their help organising this, along with those who attended the last community meeting to shortlist the reports. And thank you to every mammalwatcher who nominated reports in the first place.

The winners are below. Congratulations to everyone who was nominated – the community would not be the same without you and the voting was close in all categories. Meanwhile I hope the winners are already updating their LinkedIn profiles with this great honour that is beyond prestigious!

Charles Foley and I hope to invite some of the winners onto Season 3 of the mammalwatching podcast so we can all get the chance to know them a bit better.

Jon

Best Trip Report

WINNER: Yellowstone (USA) 2023, Greg Easton
https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/yellowstone-guide-2/

Borneo 2023, Daan Drukker

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Trip-report-Borneo.pdf

Madagascar 2023, Jonas Livet

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Madagascar-2023-26-days-Jonas-Livet-Ruta-Vaicekauskaite-for-Mammalwatching.pdf

South Africa 2023, Valentin Moser

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/2023_SouthAfrica.pdf

Vietnam 2023, Alex Schouten and Jeannette den Hertog

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Trip-report-Alex-and-Jeannette-Vietnam-2023.pdf

West Papua 2023, Jon Hall

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/new-trip-report-west-papua-2023/

Most Inspiring Conservation Person, Place or Thing

WINNER: Sahara Conservation Fund for their work bringing Oryx and Addax back to Chad
https://www.mammalwatching.com/podcast/s2-e19-john-newby-chad/

Arnaud Desbiez’s work on Giant Armadillos and Giant Anteaters in Brazil

https://www.mammalwatching.com/podcast/s2-e13-arnaud-desbiez/

Nils Bouillard for his Big Bat Year and book

https://www.mammalwatching.com/podcast/episode-15-nils-bouillard/

KAFS in Madagascar, home to Sucker-footed Bats, Aye-ayes and much more

No podcast for this one but this is the project https://madagascarpartnership.org/field-sites/kianjavato/

Most Unexpected Mammal Encounter!

WINNER: Carlos Bocos, Jon Hall and team – Western Long-beaked Echidna in West Papua
https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/new-trip-report-west-papua-2023/

Manu and Sophie Baumgartner – Spotted Linsang in India

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/trip-report-north-east-india/

Koen Betjes – Giant Otter Shrew in the DRC

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/drc-salonga-region-2022-koen-betjes-longterm-stay-38-species-including-bonobo-allens-swamp-monkey-giant-otter-shrew-giant-pangolin-and-water-chevrotain/

Rob and Remy Jansen – Pacarana in Ecuador

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/its-a-wild-life-pacarana-encounter/

Patrick Richard –  Falanouc in Madagascar

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Madagascar-2023-V2.pdf

Best First Trip Report

WINNER: Moses Swanson-Mwamasika – Zimbabwe. A fun report from mammalwatching’s youngest – and possibly keenest – member!
https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/moving-to-zimbabwe-part-i/

Koen Betjes, DRC2022  – a fascinating set of species in a place that is hardly visited by mammalwatchers

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/drc-salonga-region-2022-koen-betjes-longterm-stay-38-species-including-bonobo-allens-swamp-monkey-giant-otter-shrew-giant-pangolin-and-water-chevrotain/

Joey Brunk, Poland 2023. Joey has submitted a bunch of useful reports this year and this was his first.

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Poland-Trip-Report-1.pdf

Ben Chapple, Kenya 2022 – a mammoth report with perhaps the highest ever species count!

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Kenya-2022-BC.pdf

Ellen Linton, Sax Zim Bog, Minnesota, 2023. A useful report of a fairly new mammalwatching site, with some excellent species. A great read too and bonus points for converting family members!

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/trip-report-sax-sim-bog-minnesota/

The Propitrek, Madagascar. Not many people travel around Madagascar independently, and so this report is invaluable for those who want to.

https:/www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/northern-madagascar-the-propitrek/

Vsevolod (Seva) Rudyi & Ekaterina (Katya) Sichinava, Vietnam: a very useful report for anyone wanting to travel around Vietnam on their own

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/vietnam-trip-report-22nd-dec-2023-to-5th-jan-2024-mostly-cat-tien/

Most Helpful Community Member

WINNER: Venkat Sankar – for helping a great many people with their bat and rodent IDs from North and South America and Africa, as well as some great reports. I am looking forward to his first trip to Asia so he can start identifying all those small mammals too.

Daan Drukker  – for some very detailed reports and for his extremely useful work on Squirrels of West Africa and Mongolia

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Provisional-field-guide-to-the-Squirrels-of-West-Africa.pdf

https://www.mammalwatching.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Provisional-field-guide-to-the-Squirrels-of-Mongolia.pdf

Rob & Remy Jansen – for making most of us jealous with their life of perpetual mammalwatching. A life that has produced a wealth of trip reports and shared great information including a site for Northern Oncilla in Colombia that several people benefitted from.

https://www.mammalwatching.com/community-post/northern-oncilla/

Ian Thompson – for some of this website’s most entertaining reports and for apparently being ready to join just about every trip anyone is planning!

Post author

Jon Hall

3 Comments

  • Moses Swanson the XVI

    What an honor it would be to be invited on to the podcast

    4
  • JanEbr

    Both Venkat as the winner and Daan as the runner-up were (and continue to be) indeed exceptionally helpful, not just on the website, but also in private communication. I really like Venkat’s approach to ID, where even if he’s not sure, he tries to narrow it down and gives you some ideas and pointers – I watch small rodents now mainly to show them to Venkat 🙂 (unless they are from an area that Venkat doesn’t know, in which case I continue to bug Vladimir instead, who also has been endlessly helpful to me. Daan’s independent approach to travel has been really good for my own planning – I think he’s now somewhat afraid that we started to stalk him, considering our choice of destinations! One person really missing from the “helpful” category to me is Carlos, because that’s another guy, who has been always willing to have a look at my photos (especially of bats) and point me in the right direction, showing extensive patience with my blindness to even the most obvious ID features.

    • Jon Hall

      That’s great to hear Jan. I hope next year you will nominate Carlos! I agree – he should have been up there too.

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