On New Year’s Eve 2021, Ellesmere and Sierra Foley sat down with Patrick and Katy Hall to reflect on the highs and lows of growing up in a mammalwatching world. Ellesmere reveals the real reason to visit the Louvre, and Patrick gives tips on how to stare down a Tassie Devil. Sierra has an overly-close encounter with leeches. And Katy makes a shocking confession about feeling “lucky” to have had a mammalwatching childhood!

Plus see if you can identify a mysterious mammal call that Charles plays at the start of the episode. More than 99% of mammalwatchers won’t know the answer.

Charles and Jon interview Bob Pitman, a marine ecologist from Oregon who has recently retired after spending more than 40 years working with the USA’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Bob has seen more cetacean species than anyone else on the planet – over 80 species of whales and dolphins in the wild – and has only a handful left to find. During a fascinating interview Bob discusses some of his work researching Killer Whales including the day he had a snowball fight with a pod of Orcas. He also talks about memorable encounters with mythical species like Pygmy Right Whales and the ghosts of the seas: the beaked whales.

We interview Vivek Menon founder and Executive Director of the Wildlife Trust of India. Vivek is a distinguished conservationist, scientist and author of the Field Guide to Indian Mammals (required reading for any mammalwatcher heading to the sub-continent). During more than 30 years of conservation work Vivek has had many adventures around the world. He talks about getting drenched while kayaking alongside breaching Humpback Whales, being pounced on by Clouded Leopards and having a Chimp decorate his head with parts of a colobus monkey.

Charles and Jon interview Nils Bouillard, a young Belgian biologist who specializes in bat acoustics. In 2019 Nils set out to spend a year traveling the world to try to record as many bat species as possible. His Big Bat Year, the first of its kind, took him across 6 continents and 400 bat species. Nils talks about what drew him to bats and a Big Bat Year, and the many adventures he has had along the way including that time he caught bats with a Sinaloan drug cartel looking on.

We interview Wendy Panaino from the field in South Africa, about her research on one of Africa’s rarest, most endangered and most endearing mammals: the Ground (Cape) Pangolin. Wendy’s ground breaking research means she probably knows more about this species than anyone in the world and she shares some of her findings with us, including an explanation of how one even starts to study an animal this hard to find. Wendy also describes some of the other fascinating mammal species that she encounters, nonchalantly shrugging off the perils of spending nights alone wandering through the Kalahari desert following pangolins and avoiding lions.

Charles and Jon interview Tomer Ben-Yehuda and Alex Meyer, two 30-something mammalwatching friends about their adventures and misadventures around the world. We cover the full spectrum of mammalwatching emotions: the thrill of seeing a White-bellied Pangolin in the Central African Republic; the blissful relief of a last minute Maned Wolf sighting in Brazil, and the agony of standing on top of a nest of biting ants while waiting for a porcupine to reveal itself. Plus Tomer finally reveals the shocking truth behind why he and Alex earned the nickname “The Hard Boys” in Uganda.

We interview  Russ Mittermeier, world famous author, mammalogist, conservationist and primate watcher. Russ takes us on a trip from a Tarzan-loving kid watching monkeys at the Bronx Zoo to a Tarzan-loving scientist discovering new species of primates in the jungles of the Amazon and Madagascar, and becoming the first person to see all 80 genera of primate in the wild. We hear about why mammalwatching is a force for conservation good, the thrill of coming face to face with a Tiger on his first day in the forests of South-east Asia, and how tales of Yetis inspired Russ’s hunt for a White Uakari.

We talk to  Lisa Dabek, senior Conservation Scientist at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, and Founder and Director of the globally renowned Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Lisa has received numerous awards and accolades for her work. The most recent include two from the IUCN. In 2019 she won their prestigious George Rabb award for conservation which she received in 2019 ‘In recognition of her outstanding leadership and innovation in the conservation of one of the most overlooked groups of mammal species, the amazing tree kangaroos, and her over three decade commitment to conservation and local people in Papua New Guinea’. And just last month – September 2021 – she was awarded the IUCN’s Harold Jefferson Coolidge Memorial Medal given to individuals who have made ‘internationally significant contributions to effective conservation’.

We discuss Lisa’s remarkable success in setting up PNG’s first conservation area, and working with local communities to protect the superb mammals it contains. She also explains how difficult it is to see, let alone study, tree kangaroos, especially when someone with a score to settle just cast a spell on you.

We interview Martin Royle about the vision behind his ecotour company Royle Safaris. We talk about how much work has gone into designing tours that actually see (rather than search for) Javan Rhinos and Siberian Tigers, plus the cascading conservation benefits that come from small scale ecotourism. And we hear about some of Martin’s adventures along the way, including that time he thought a Tiger had eaten his friend.

We interview father and son Hari and Venkat Sankar about their mammalwatching adventures at home in California and around the world. We talk about how Venkat got the mammalwatching bug when he was 14 after a very close encounter with Wild Dogs; Venkat’s love for rats and bats; and how their relationship survived the Puma that Hari saw but Venkat didn’t.