S4 E5: 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 another three working in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province.

He talks about the many – and exceptionally diverse – mammalwatching opportunities in Bolivia that range from what is arguably Latin America’s best Jaguar watching through to mega-mammals like Chaco Peccaries, Giant Armadillos and Goeldi’s Monkey. Plus Nick describes the many and diverse threats these animals are facing: threats that he is passionate about tackling through the ecotourism he is pioneering.

Nick has more than his fair share of funny stories from running tours. We hear about the time that someone mistook a cup of vinegar for water. And we learn what can happen when a married couple turn up on a jungle trip with wildly differing expectations!

The podcast opens with notes from the field from Jon’s February trip to Guatemala and we chat about our 2023 visit to Klalik Village in West Papua when we discovered an ‘extinct’ possum that is now in the news.

There are dozens of trip reports from tours with Nick’s Adventures on mammalwatching’s Bolivia page. Here’s a report of Charles’s 2023 trip with Nick to Jaguarland and Kaa Iya and this is Jon’s report to Beni and Pando from 2024.

You can follow Nick on Facebook and Instagram. This is his listing on mammalwatching.

Jon’s trip report from Guatemala is here (a research tour led by former podcast guest José Gabriel Martinez-Fonseca).

Here’s a fun Instagram reel about our visit to Klalik and the scientific and conservation impacts that one night in that forest created. If you haven’t heard our podcast episode about that trip then it is one of our most popular.

If you would like to submit you own notes from the field then please get in touch with Jon at info@mammalwatching.com

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Cover art: Nick Mcphee rescues a sloth