Charles and Jon talk with Vladimir Dinets, naturalist extraordinaire, about his adventures travelling the world searching for wildlife. We hear about a quest to Pakistan to be the first biologist to see a Woolly Flying Squirrel in the wild; and how 48 hours inside a Mexican hollow tree is the perfect place to recover from the flu and look for black Jaguars. And he remembers his first near death encounter, when a 14 year old Vladimir had to battle a monster bear in Siberia. Plus we hear from Howard Frederick about the animal behind his recording of the mystery mammal in episode 18.

Here is the YouTube trailer.

Notes: Vladimir has a ton of trip reports up on mammalwatching.com : just search for "Dinets". He has many more adventures and reports on his own website. Vladimir has written several books including Dragon Songs about his work with crocodilians, and guides to finding the mammals of North America and Japan.

For more information visit www.mammalwatching.com/podcast

Cover Art: Vladimir Dinets in Siberia, 1997.

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 over 100 countries.

Produced and edited by Jon Hall & Charles Foley.