Charles and Jon compare notes from their recent trips to China, and talk the joys of travel there, especially the country's superb mammalwatching opportunities.

Charles and his family spent 10 days in China's Qinghai Province in May, while Jon was in China for a month from mid-April, including almost two weeks in Yunnan Province and a few days in Qinghai.

We discuss the Gouli Valley, and the extraordinary carnivore watching there, due in large part to a guide with superhuman vision. Charles has a close encounter with some Tibetan caterpillar connoisseurs and Jon discovers that seeing any species might be possible with the help of the right friends in China, especially when one is the 'mammal lord'.

Notes: Jon's 2026 reports from China - Yunnan, Qinghai, Tangjiahe, Guangxi and Zhejiang - are already available on mammalwatching's China page. If you are interested in details of the tour he will lead across Qinghai next year, including to the original Valley of the Cats, please email.

The study of Fishers predating Lynxes that Charles discussed at the start is here.

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

You can support mammalwatching and buy us a coffee here https://buymeacoffee.com/mammalwatching

Finally did you know you can sign up to receive a weekly mammalwatching newsletter here? https://www.mammalwatching.com/subscribe-to-updates/

Cover art: Pallas’s Cat in the Gouli Valley, February 2026. Photograph by Man Fu.

Dr Charles Foley is a mammalwatcher and biologist who, together with his wife Lara, spent 30 years studying elephants in Tanzania. They now run the Tanzania Conservation Research Program at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

Jon Hall set up mammalwatching.com in 2005. Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. He has looked for mammals in almost 120 countries.

Charles and Jon talk to conservationists and primatologists Tom Butynski and Yvonne de Jong from their base in Kenya.

Tom and Yvonne run the East African Primate Diversity and Conservation Program and research primates and other mammals in East Africa.

After explaining how their rural childhoods fostered a love for nature, Tom and Yvonne outline very varied career paths that took them around the world and eventually to Kenya - and each other - 25 years ago.

They talk about the importance of citizen science and describe some of the work they are undertaking on a range of species, including the critically endangered Southern Patas Monkey. And they outline the process they have followed to describe the several new primate species and subspecies they have described.

Charles is delighted to hear that if people looking for a new purpose in life then "dik-diks are the way to go", while Jon is shocked when Yvonne claims that she and Tom are not yet "as cool as the birders"!

The episode begins with Charles and Jon taking about their March 2026 weekend in Florida featuring a Florida Mouse and a very lengthy wrong turn!

Notes: Tom and Yvonne's Wild Solutions website is a goldmine of mammalwatching information, including some excellent free pocket guides to African primates, and a sound library of vocal profiles of many galago species (the calls of which are often indispensable to species identification).

Jon and Charles's weekend in Florida report is here.

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

You can support mammalwatching and buy us a coffee here https://buymeacoffee.com/mammalwatching

Finally did you know you can sign up to receive a weekly mammalwatching newsletter here? https://www.mammalwatching.com/subscribe-to-updates/

Cover art: Tom & Yvonne in the field by Rick Strooper.

Dr Charles Foley is a mammalwatcher and biologist who, together with his wife Lara, spent 30 years studying elephants in Tanzania. They now run the Tanzania Conservation Research Program at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

Jon Hall set up mammalwatching.com in 2005. Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. He has looked for mammals in almost 120 countries.

Charles and Jon talk to Joel Sartore, founder of NatGeo's Photo Ark project and one of the world's most preeminent wildlife photographers.

Joel describes his passion for conservation, a passion inspired by parents who cared and a childhood spent in nature.

He outlines his career, which took him from a cub photographer with the Wichita Eagle, to National Geographic where he now runs the Photo Ark and has photographed more than 18,000 species in human care.

Joel explains his photographic techniques and the influence of the artist John James Audubon.

And he offers hope for the future, despite the extinction crisis we are facing, talking about how zoos and ecotourism are helping to save nature. Meanwhile Joel frightens Jon at the prospects of life "in the chocolate factory".

Notes: You can follow Joel on Instagram, along with almost 2 million other people. There are many articles and videos about Joel online, including this PBS show Rare: Creatures of the Photo Ark about his work.

Here's the article about the Banteng recovery in Thailand which Charles discusses at the beginning of the episode. You can find many Thailand trip reports here.

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

You can support mammalwatching and buy us a coffee here https://buymeacoffee.com/mammalwatching

Finally did you know you can sign up to receive a weekly mammalwatching newsletter here? https://www.mammalwatching.com/subscribe-to-updates/

Cover art: Portrait of Joel Sartore, 2021, by Ellen Sartore.

Dr Charles Foley is a mammalwatcher and biologist who, together with his wife Lara, spent 30 years studying elephants in Tanzania. They now run the Tanzania Conservation Research Program at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago.

Jon Hall set up mammalwatching.com in 2005. Genetically Welsh, spiritually Australian, currently in New York City. He has looked for mammals in almost 120 countries.