Excit­ing news for the gorilla pop­u­la­tion in Uganda…

A newly habit­u­ated gorilla fam­ily with 30 mem­bers was launched for tourism on Sep­tem­ber 24, 2009. Chris­tened the Nshongi group, the fam­ily is located in Rushaga on the south­west­ern part of Bwindi Impen­e­tra­ble National Park.

This is the largest group for tourism in the coun­try and is expected to boost Uganda’s gorilla tourism capacity.

The launch was a big event with some world class celebri­ties attend­ing the occa­sion along with other key Uganda gov­ern­ment officials.

—from the man­age­ment of Sanc­tu­ary Gorilla For­est Camp

Check out this amaz­ing pho­to­graph cour­tesy of Sanc­tu­ary Gorilla For­est Camp.

There is one sil­ver lin­ing to our cur­rent eco­nomic cri­sis: Cruise lines are start­ing to think more cre­atively and are offer­ing deep dis­counts (Ocea­nia Cruises), com­pli­men­tary shore excur­sions (Regent Seven Seas), and new itin­er­aries to entice all of us to book another vacation…soon.

There is one sil­ver lin­ing to our cur­rent eco­nomic cri­sis: Cruise lines are start­ing to think more cre­atively and are offer­ing deep dis­counts (Ocea­nia Cruises), com­pli­men­tary shore excur­sions (Regent Seven Seas), and new itin­er­aries to entice all of us to book another vacation…soon.

Wind­star Cruises just announced two new seven-night Canary Islands voy­ages that are sure to pique some inter­est with fans of the line who were get­ting bored with the repeat­ing itin­er­aries in the Caribbean, Costa Rica, and the Mediterranean.

Ten years ago, Wind­star offered a sim­i­lar adven­ture in this region. On Novem­ber 14, 2009, and again on Novem­ber 21,2009, Windstar’s 148-passenger Wind Spirit motor-sail-yacht will call upon the fol­low­ing ports:

• Lis­bon, Portugal
• At Sea
• Casablanca, Morocco
• At Sea
• Agadir, Morocco
• Lan­zarote, Spain
• Las Pal­mas, Spain
• Santa Cruz De Tener­ife, Spain

Dou­ble occu­pancy per per­son cruise fares start at $1,999.These two voy­ages are expected to sell out so call your travel agent or Wind­star Cruises (1–800-258‑7245) for more infor­ma­tion or to book a cruise.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Four Sea­sons Resort Mau­ri­tius at Anahita has added a perk to lure those who love to golf: com­pli­men­tary unlim­ited play, includ­ing a cart fit­ted with GPS. And, this is indeed a bonus since the Four Sea­sons Golf Club Mau­ri­tius is the only golf course in the Indian Ocean built to USGA (United States Golf Asso­ci­a­tion) stan­dards. (Unlim­ited golf priv­i­leges kicked in on Octo­ber 1, 2009.)

“We want every guest to have the oppor­tu­nity to play the course at Four Sea­sons Mau­ri­tius,” says Andrew Har­ri­son, gen­eral man­ager of the Resort. “Ernie Els has cre­ated a cham­pi­onship course that is a chal­lenge for expe­ri­enced golfers, but also encour­ages play at all lev­els, so fam­i­lies can golf together.”

“Intri­cately woven into the scenery, the course is designed with a close eye on pre­serv­ing the coastline’s nat­ural beauty,” says Ernie Els. “The way we have routed the course means it moves in and out of the trees, along the water and back, giv­ing play­ers great variety—including spec­tac­u­lar rocky out­crops, large native trees and jaw-dropping views of the moun­tains and Indian Ocean.”

An inter­na­tional team of researchers has devel­oped a remark­able new roadmap for find­ing and pro­tect­ing the best remain­ing hold­outs for thou­sands of rare species that live only in Mada­gas­car, con­sid­ered one of the most sig­nif­i­cant bio­di­ver­sity hot spots in the world.

An inter­na­tional team of researchers has devel­oped a remark­able new roadmap for find­ing and pro­tect­ing the best remain­ing hold­outs for thou­sands of rare species that live only in Mada­gas­car, con­sid­ered one of the most sig­nif­i­cant bio­di­ver­sity hot spots in the world.

In their con­ser­va­tion plan, the researchers, led by con­ser­va­tion biol­o­gists at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, not only included lemurs—those large-eyed, tree-hopping pri­mates that have become poster chil­dren for conservation—but also species of ants, but­ter­flies, frogs, geckos and plants.

Alto­gether, more than 2,300 species found only in the vast area of Madagascar—a 226,642-square-mile (587,000-square-kilometer) island nation in the Indian Ocean—were included in the analy­sis. Cen­tral­iz­ing and ana­lyz­ing the sheer quan­tity of data avail­able to develop a map of con­ser­va­tion pri­or­i­ties pro­vided an unprece­dented ana­lyt­i­cal chal­lenge. The results are described in the April 11 issue of the jour­nal Science.

First, a mas­sive team of researchers col­lected highly detailed data to learn the exact loca­tions of thou­sands of ani­mal and plant species across the island. The researchers then used soft­ware spe­cially devel­oped for this project, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with a com­puter sci­ence researcher at AT&T, to esti­mate the com­plete range of each species. A sep­a­rate opti­miza­tion soft­ware, cus­tomized for this project by researchers at Finland’s Helsinki Uni­ver­sity, was used next to iden­tify which regions are most vital for sav­ing the great­est num­ber of species. Species that have expe­ri­enced a pro­por­tion­ally larger loss of habi­tat due to defor­esta­tion were given top pri­or­ity in the result­ing con­ser­va­tion plan because they are at greater risk of extinction.

“Never before have biol­o­gists and pol­icy mak­ers had the tools that allow analy­sis of such a broad range of species, at such fine scale, over this large a geo­graphic area,” said Claire Kre­men, UC Berke­ley assis­tant pro­fes­sor of con­ser­va­tion biol­ogy and the project’s co-lead researcher. “Our analy­sis raises the bar on what’s pos­si­ble in con­ser­va­tion plan­ning, and helps deci­sion mak­ers deter­mine the most impor­tant places to protect.”

The team’s work demon­strates that rely­ing on a sin­gle group of species for a con­ser­va­tion plan does not pro­vide ade­quate pro­tec­tion for other species groups.

“Pre­serv­ing bio­di­ver­sity in the midst of tremen­dous pres­sures, such as habi­tat destruc­tion and global warm­ing, is one of humanity’s great­est envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges in the 21st cen­tury,” said Kre­men, who worked on this project with New York-based Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, where she is an asso­ciate con­ser­va­tion­ist. “Con­ser­va­tion plan­ning has his­tor­i­cally focused on pro­tect­ing one species or one group of species at a time, but in our race to beat species extinc­tion, that one-taxon approach is not going to be quick enough.”

Accord­ing to some esti­mates, about half of the world’s plant species and three-quarters of ver­te­brate species are con­cen­trated in bio­di­ver­sity hot spots that make up only 2.3 per­cent of Earth’s land sur­face. Mada­gas­car, a devel­op­ing coun­try off the south­east coast of Africa, is one of the most trea­sured of these regions of biodiversity.

An esti­mated 80 per­cent of the ani­mals on Mada­gas­car do not occur nat­u­rally any­where else on Earth. Half of the world’s chameleons and all species of lemurs are endemic to this island. They are joined by whole fam­i­lies of plants, insects, birds, mam­mals, rep­tiles and frogs that are found only in Madagascar.

“The diver­sity of Mada­gas­car is not yell well under­stood, as a large num­ber of species has been recently described, and new dis­cov­er­ies are made every year,” said study co-author David Vieites, a post­doc­toral fel­low at UC Berkeley’s Museum of Ver­te­brate Zool­ogy and in the Depart­ment of Inte­gra­tive Biol­ogy. “For exam­ple, since our study began three years ago, some 50 new species of amphib­ians were dis­cov­ered. Sadly, because of the high rate of habi­tat destruc­tion, huge num­bers of species will go extinct before sci­en­tists have a chance to doc­u­ment them.”

Fresh atten­tion was paid to Mada­gas­car when, in 2003, the country’s gov­ern­ment announced an ambi­tious goal of tripling its exist­ing pro­tected area net­work from about 5 mil­lion to 15 mil­lion acres (20,234–60,700 square kilo­me­ters), or about 10 per­cent of the country’s total land surface.

“Mada­gas­car is one of the poor­est coun­tries in the world, which makes the government’s com­mit­ment to bio­di­ver­sity even more remark­able,” said Ali­son Cameron, co-lead researcher of the project, and post-doctoral researcher at UC Berkeley’s Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence, Pol­icy & Man­age­ment. “Gov­ern­ment lead­ers have devel­oped a very pro­gres­sive vision for social and eco­nomic devel­op­ment, in which the nat­ural land­scape is viewed as a valu­able resource.”

The MacArthur Foun­da­tion sup­ported this project with a joint grant to UC Berke­ley and the Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety, whose staff in Mada­gas­car work with gov­ern­ment offi­cials there to incor­po­rate the results of this study into con­ser­va­tion pol­icy. The Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety has already estab­lished sev­eral new pro­tected areas within the country.

Ulti­mately, a diverse group of 22 researchers from muse­ums, zoos, herbaria, uni­ver­si­ties, non-governmental orga­ni­za­tions and indus­try con­tributed to this new analy­sis. The authors received help from an addi­tional 62 non-authored col­lab­o­ra­tors who, in turn, were part of much larger research teams that col­lected the data used in this study.

Another co-author affil­i­ated with UC Berke­ley is Brian Fisher, an adjunct pro­fes­sor at the campus’s Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Sci­ence, Pol­icy & Man­age­ment and chair of ento­mol­ogy at the Cal­i­for­nia Acad­emy of Sciences.

For their analy­sis, the researchers uti­lized decades worth of field data painstak­ingly col­lected through­out Mada­gas­car by intre­pid biologists.

“Sim­ply iden­ti­fy­ing the species on the island and deter­min­ing where they are located is very dif­fi­cult,” said Kre­men. “The ter­rain is rough, there are few roads, and we often had to hike 18 miles (30 kilo­me­ters) to get to the field site. Once there, we’d live for months in a tent under a tarp, endur­ing leeches and tor­ren­tial rain­falls, eat­ing rice and beans, to doc­u­ment the range of ani­mal and plant species in a spe­cific area. This is truly hard-won data.”

The rich data source allowed the researchers to map out the habi­tat of 2,300 species through­out every square kilo­me­ter of the island. “We spend years of our lives col­lect­ing this data, and peo­ple some­times won­der why we do it,” said Kre­men, who per­son­ally spent the greater part of eight years pri­mar­ily col­lect­ing field data in Mada­gas­car. “It is grat­i­fy­ing to know that the data col­lected may lit­er­ally put some species on the map for protection.”

Based upon this work, some sur­pris­ing areas emerged as con­ser­va­tion pri­or­i­ties, includ­ing coastal forests and cen­tral moun­tain ranges, which had large con­cen­tra­tions of endemic species. Such regions, the researchers noted, have his­tor­i­cally been neglected in favor of large tracts of forest.

“Ear­lier efforts at con­ser­va­tion plan­ning focused on whether a pro­tected species was included in a des­ig­nated area, but that region may not include a sig­nif­i­cant frac­tion of the species’ pop­u­la­tion for it to remain viable in the long term,” said Cameron, who also pro­vides tech­ni­cal advice to the Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety and the gov­ern­ment of Mada­gas­car. “In con­trast, our analy­sis goes fur­ther by max­i­miz­ing the pro­por­tion of every species, so that they achieve max­i­mum con­ser­va­tion, within the tar­get of 15 mil­lion acres set by the gov­ern­ment. This is a huge shift in approach, made pos­si­ble through advances in com­puter tech­nol­ogy that allowed us to cen­tral­ize such a large amount of data and to ana­lyze it all together.”

The researchers noted that sim­i­larly rich sources of data exist in other parts of the world, and that their method of analy­sis could be eas­ily trans­ferred to other high pri­or­ity regions for conservation.

—Sarah Yang for UCBerkeley

Sanc­tu­ary Lodges & Camps—founded by Aber­crom­bie & Kent as envi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able lodgings—has expanded into Zam­bia with five new properties:

Sussi & Chuma is built among huge ebony trees, just upstream from Vic­to­ria Falls in the Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park. The 10 lux­ury tree houses have pri­vate views of the Zam­bezi River. Chuma House is an exclu­sive two-bedroom villa located near the lodge.

Lechwe Plains Tented Camp in the Lochin­var National Park, north of Lusaka, is a photographer’s par­adise. Located on the Chunga Lagoon, this World Her­itage Wet­land offers incred­i­ble birdlife and tens of thou­sands of Kafue Lechwe (ante­lope), an aquatic ante­lope of excep­tional grace.

Kulefu Tented Camp in the Lower Zam­bezi National Park is on the wildest stretch of the Zam­bezi. Eight spa­cious tents are set on plat­forms at the river’s edge.

Puku Ridge Tented Camp in the South Luangwa National Park is a real wilder­ness expe­ri­ence under can­vas with excit­ing wildlife oppor­tu­ni­ties. This superb prop­erty is located on a ridge over­look­ing game rich floodplains.

Chichele Pres­i­den­tial Lodge was orig­i­nally built by Pres­i­dent Kaunda and refur­bished as an early colo­nial “Gentleman’s Lodge”. The hill­top set­ting in South Luangwa National Park over­looks plains teem­ing with wildlife.

“Though rel­a­tively unknown out­side Africa, Zam­bia offers a diverse range of envi­ron­ments with pro­lific wildlife,” said Aber­crom­bie & Kent Group Chair­man and CEO Geof­frey Kent. “Walk­ing safaris were pio­neered in Zambia’s Luangwa Val­ley; if you have only seen ani­mals from inside a vehi­cle, you will find walk­ing with big game a thrilling expe­ri­ence. Night dri­ves are also a spe­cialty and the best means of see­ing some of the more elu­sive noc­tur­nal species, includ­ing leopard.”

The com­pany also oper­ates Olo­nana in Kenya’s Masai Mara; Swala in Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park and Kusini in the Serengeti; Gorilla For­est Camp in Uganda’s Bwindi Impen­e­tra­ble For­est; and four prop­er­ties in Botswana (Sanc­tu­ary Chief’s Camp, Sanc­tu­ary Chobe Chilwero, Sanc­tu­ary Stanley’s Camp, and Sanc­tu­ary Baines’ Camp).

For more infor­ma­tion, visit Aber­crom­bie & Kent or call 1-(800) 554‑7094.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Photo of Zam­bezi Kulefu Camp by Yolandi Scanes, cour­tesy of Aber­crom­bie & Kent

Twenty-nine ani­mal con­ser­va­tion­ists who have ded­i­cated their lives to sav­ing the Earth’s endan­gered species have been nom­i­nated to receive the bien­nial Indi­anapo­lis Prize, the world’s lead­ing award for ani­mal con­ser­va­tion. The nom­i­nees’ work spans the globe, rep­re­sent­ing a range of species from insects to mam­mals, and includes amphib­ians, ele­phants, bats, wolves and sharks, among many oth­ers. The Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee will review the appli­ca­tions and select the six final­ists, who will be announced in the spring of 2010. The Prize Jury will then deter­mine the win­ner who will be announced in mid-2010 and hon­ored at the next Indi­anapo­lis Prize Gala, to be held Sep­tem­ber 25, 2010, in Indianapolis.

Twenty-nine ani­mal con­ser­va­tion­ists who have ded­i­cated their lives to sav­ing the Earth’s endan­gered species have been nom­i­nated to receive the bien­nial Indi­anapo­lis Prize. The nom­i­nees’ work spans the globe, rep­re­sent­ing a range of species from insects to mam­mals, and includes amphib­ians, ele­phants, bats, wolves and sharks, among many oth­ers. The Nom­i­nat­ing Com­mit­tee will review the appli­ca­tions and select the six final­ists, who will be announced in the spring of 2010. The Prize Jury will then deter­mine the win­ner who will be announced in mid-2010 and hon­ored at the next Indi­anapo­lis Prize Gala, to be held Sep­tem­ber 25, 2010, in Indianapolis.

In addi­tion to receiv­ing the $100,000 Prize, the recip­i­ent is also awarded the Lilly Medal, an orig­i­nal work of art that sig­ni­fies the winner’s con­tri­bu­tions to con­serv­ing some of the world’s most threat­ened animals.

The 2008 Indi­anapo­lis Prize was awarded to leg­endary field biol­o­gist George Schaller, Ph.D. Schaller’s accom­plish­ments span decades and con­ti­nents, bring­ing fresh focus to the plight of sev­eral endan­gered species—from tigers in India to goril­las in Rwanda—and inspir­ing oth­ers to join the crusade.

“Fol­low­ing in Schaller’s foot­steps will not be easy, but the cur­rent nom­i­nees are excep­tional,” said Michael Crowther, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Indi­anapo­lis Zoo, the orga­ni­za­tion respon­si­ble for ini­ti­at­ing the con­ser­va­tion award. “These con­ser­va­tion­ists are all liv­ing their own unique and fas­ci­nat­ing adven­tures that bat­tle the odds, but achieve great victories.”

The nom­i­nees for the 2010 Indi­anapo­lis Prize include many indi­vid­u­als work­ing to con­serve the diverse wildlife of Africa:

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, Ph.D.: (Save the Ele­phants) Founded Save the Ele­phants; devotes his life to the cause of ele­phant conservation—from tes­ti­fy­ing before Con­gress to lead­ing anti-poaching aid pro­grams in Africa.

Jack Hanna: (Colum­bus Zoo and Aquar­ium) For more than 30 years, Hanna has been the pub­lic face of zoos, bring­ing the con­ser­va­tion mes­sage to mil­lions of peo­ple world­wide; pas­sion­ately ded­i­cated to Rwanda’s endan­gered ani­mals and its people.

Lisa Hywood: (Tikki Hywood Trust) Works tire­lessly to pre­serve Zimbabwe’s wildlife—including cap­tive breed­ing, man­age­ment and mon­i­tored release of endan­gered species and con­ser­va­tion edu­ca­tion in under-privileged, rural areas.

Lau­rie Marker, D.Phil.: (Chee­tah Con­ser­va­tion Fund) Founded the Chee­tah Con­ser­va­tion Fund; led a con­ser­va­tion pro­gram from hum­ble begin­nings in rural Namibia to an unpar­al­leled model for preda­tor conservation.

Gre­gory Ras­mussen, Ph.D.: (Painted Dog Con­ser­va­tion) Dili­gent advo­cate of the crit­i­cally endan­gered African wild dogs; founder of the Painted Dog Con­ser­va­tion, which strives to increase the range and num­bers of wild dogs in Zim­babwe and else­where in Africa.

Lente Lidia Roode: (Hoed­spruit Endan­gered Species Cen­tre) Estab­lished the Hoed­spruit Endan­gered Species Cen­tre, a non­profit orga­ni­za­tion that pro­vides a safe haven for orphaned and sick ani­mals, com­plete with an edu­ca­tion cen­ter, res­cue unit and breed­ing program.

Addi­tional nom­i­nees work­ing out­side of Africa:

Karen Eck­ert, Ph.D.: (WIDECAST: Wider Caribbean Sea Tur­tle Con­ser­va­tion Net­work) Ded­i­cated to research, mul­ti­lat­eral marine resource man­age­ment and the inter­na­tional con­ser­va­tion poli­cies for sea tur­tles for more than three decades.

Ger­ardo Cebal­los, Ph.D.: (Insti­tuto de Ecolo­gia, Uni­ver­si­dad Nacional Autonoma de Mex­ico) Leader in design­ing con­ser­va­tion strate­gies for endan­gered species and threat­ened ecosys­tems; con­ducted the first geo­graph­i­cally explicit analy­sis of pat­terns of pop­u­la­tion and species extinc­tion in a major tax­o­nomic group (mammals).

Nigel Col­lar, Ph.D.: (BirdLife Inter­na­tional) Researched and com­piled a unique and com­pre­hen­sive dataset on glob­ally threat­ened bird species that was pub­lished in ground­break­ing regional Red Data Books worldwide.

Ruth M. Elsey, M.D.: (Louisiana Depart­ment of Wildlife and Fish­eries) Fos­tered pro­grams to enhance the sur­viv­abil­ity and sus­tain­abil­ity of the Amer­i­can alli­ga­tor, in addi­tion to par­al­lel efforts for other crocodilians.

George Fen­wick, Ph.D.: (Amer­i­can Bird Con­ser­vancy) Founded Amer­i­can Bird Con­ser­vancy; ded­i­cated to cre­at­ing and sus­tain­ing glob­ally sig­nif­i­cant bio­di­ver­sity reserves, tack­ling policy-based threats to birds and gen­er­at­ing fund­ing resources for the bio­di­ver­sity community.

Rod­ney Fox: (Rod­ney Fox Shark Expeditions/Fox Shark Research Foun­da­tion) Mir­a­cle sur­vivor of one of the world’s worst shark attacks; regarded as a world author­ity on Great White Shark research, obser­va­tion and conservation.

Birute Mary Galdikas, Ph.D.: (Orang­utan Foun­da­tion Inter­na­tional) More than 35 years of advanc­ing research on wild orang­utan ecol­ogy and behav­ior; estab­lished reha­bil­i­ta­tion and release pro­grams and saved mil­lions of acres of trop­i­cal rain for­est in Kalimantan.

Paul Gar­ber, Ph.D.: (Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois Urbana-Champaign) More than 30 years of ded­i­ca­tion and com­mit­ment to research, con­ser­va­tion and edu­ca­tional pro­grams involv­ing the mon­keys of Latin America.

Mau­rice Hornocker, Ph.D.: (Sel­way Insti­tute; Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus, Uni­ver­sity of Idaho) Devoted his career to under­stand­ing the eco­log­i­cal role of wild cats and advo­cat­ing for the con­ser­va­tion of large car­ni­vores, includ­ing the first-ever field inves­ti­ga­tion of cougars.

Rick Hud­son: (Fort Worth Zoo; Inter­na­tional Iguana Foun­da­tion; IUCN Tur­tle Sur­vival Alliance) Ded­i­cated advo­cate for rep­tile con­ser­va­tion, includ­ing ground­break­ing work with the Jamaican iguana and the coor­di­na­tion of the largest tur­tle res­cue event in history.

Rod­ney Jack­son, Ph.D.: (Snow Leop­ard Con­ser­vancy) Con­ducted an in-depth radio-tracking study of snow leop­ards in the 1980s; ded­i­cated to build­ing local com­mu­ni­ties’ capac­ity as key play­ers in con­serv­ing the species.

Jana John­son, M.S., Ph.D.: (Moor­park Col­lege, The But­ter­fly Project) Founded The But­ter­fly Project, a cen­ter for endan­gered but­ter­fly prop­a­ga­tion and research; helped the Palos Verdes blue but­ter­fly pop­u­la­tion, once pre­sumed extinct, grow from 200 to 10,000.

James Earl Ken­namer, Ph.D.: (National Wild Turkey Fed­er­a­tion) Devoted leader in wild turkey research, sci­en­tific wildlife man­age­ment and forg­ing coop­er­a­tive con­ser­va­tion part­ner­ships to grow the wild turkey pop­u­la­tion from 1.3 mil­lion to 7 mil­lion in less than 30 years.

Thomas H. Kunz, Ph.D.: (Boston Uni­ver­sity) For more than 50 years, has sig­nif­i­cantly and instru­men­tally con­tributed to the con­ser­va­tion and teach­ing of bat ecol­ogy, phys­i­ol­ogy and behavior.

Amanda Lol­lar: (Bat World Sanc­tu­ary) Estab­lished Bat World Sanc­tu­ary, the largest reha­bil­i­ta­tion facil­ity in the world ded­i­cated exclu­sively to bats; cre­ated the first nutri­tion­ally sound diet for debil­i­tated bats.

Edward Louis Jr., Ph.D., DVM: (Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo) Tire­less con­ser­va­tion advo­cate of island bio­geog­ra­phy, includ­ing the dis­cov­ery of 30 per­cent of known lemurs to date.

Stephen McCul­loch: (Har­bor Branch Oceano­graphic Insti­tu­tion) Cre­ated leg­is­la­tion to fund sev­eral ongo­ing marine mam­mal research and con­ser­va­tion pro­grams while work­ing to con­struct the first teach­ing marine mam­mal hos­pi­tal, sci­ence and edu­ca­tion center.

Rodrigo Medellin, Ph.D.: (Uni­ver­sity of Mex­ico) Gal­va­nized bat research through­out Latin Amer­ica by using a mul­ti­pronged approach includ­ing research, edu­ca­tion, pop­u­la­tion biol­ogy, mol­e­c­u­lar ecol­ogy and com­mu­nity involvement.

Patrick T. Redig, DVM, Ph.D.: (The Rap­tor Cen­ter, Col­lege of Vet­eri­nary Med­i­cine, Uni­ver­sity of Min­nesota) Ded­i­cated more than 35 years to pro­tect­ing rap­tor pop­u­la­tions though exten­sive field work, bench research, clin­i­cal work, pro­fes­sional teach­ing and com­mu­nity service.

Patrick Rose: (Save the Man­a­tee Club) Worked to help edu­cate oppo­nents, build coali­tions and focus on spe­cific pro­tec­tion goals for man­a­tees, includ­ing pro­tect­ing the manatee’s habi­tat and advo­cat­ing for strong growth man­age­ment laws.

Carl Safina, Ph.D.: (Blue Ocean Insti­tute) Brought ocean con­ser­va­tion into the envi­ron­men­tal main­stream by using sci­ence, art and lit­er­a­ture to inspire “sea ethic.”

Simon Stu­art, Ph.D.: (IUCN-World Con­ser­va­tion Union) Devel­oped the IUCN Red List Cat­e­gories and Cri­te­ria, which assesses the extinc­tion risk for species.

Amanda Vin­cent, Ph.D.: (The Uni­ver­sity of British Colum­bia) First per­son to study sea­horses under­wa­ter, doc­u­ment exten­sive com­mer­cial trade, and ini­ti­ate a sea­horse con­ser­va­tion project, Project Seahorse.

The bien­nial $100,000 Indi­anapo­lis Prize rep­re­sents the largest indi­vid­ual mon­e­tary award for ani­mal con­ser­va­tion in the world and is given as an unre­stricted gift to the cho­sen honoree.

The Indi­anapo­lis Prize was ini­ti­ated by the Indi­anapo­lis Zoo as a sig­nif­i­cant com­po­nent of its mis­sion to inspire local and global com­mu­ni­ties and to cel­e­brate, pro­tect and pre­serve our nat­ural world through con­ser­va­tion, edu­ca­tion and research. This award brings the world’s atten­tion to the cause of ani­mal con­ser­va­tion and the brave, tal­ented and ded­i­cated men and women who spend their lives sav­ing the Earth’s endan­gered ani­mal species. It was first awarded in 2006 to Dr. George Archibald, the co-founder of the Inter­na­tional Crane Foun­da­tion and one of the world’s great field biologists.

In 2008, the Indi­anapo­lis Prize went to Dr. George Schaller, the world’s pre­em­i­nent field biol­o­gist and vice pres­i­dent of sci­ence and explo­ration for the Wildlife Con­ser­va­tion Soci­ety. The Eli Lilly and Com­pany Foun­da­tion has pro­vided fund­ing for the Indi­anapo­lis Prize since 2006.

A flurry of South Africa travel pack­ages are being announced now that the 2010 World Cup is only eight months away. Here’s a 15-day adven­ture from Africa Adven­ture Con­sul­tants that com­bines 10 nights in Cape Town (or other cities), two soc­cer matches in Cat­e­gory 1 (best) seats, and a four-night game safari at Thorny­bush Pri­vate Game Lodge in Thorny­bush Nature Reserve near Kruger National Park. The land-only price is $7,820 per person.

Africa Adven­ture Consultant’s pres­i­dent Kent Red­ding is see­ing an uptick in book­ings for the period sur­round­ing the World Cup. “Now is cer­tainly the time for soc­cer fans to make World Cup Africa travel plans, as we’re already see­ing lim­ited avail­abil­ity at some hotels through­out South Africa. With the recent news from Lon­don regard­ing bogus tick­ets, it’s also impor­tant to pur­chase your travel pack­ages from rep­utable operators.”

In addi­tion to World Cup Africa travel, Denver-based African safari expert Africa Adven­ture Con­sul­tants orga­nizes safari adven­tures through­out East and South­ern Africa, with des­ti­na­tions includ­ing Tan­za­nia, Kenya, South Africa, Uganda, Namibia, Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, Rwanda, Zam­bia, Vic­to­ria Falls and Ethiopia.

For more infor­ma­tion, visit Africa Aven­ture Con­sul­tants or call 1-(866) 778‑1089.

—Andrea M. Rotondo for LuxurySafariExperts.com

Photo cour­tesy of Thorny­bush Pri­vate Game Lodge