Frank Todd, a good friend of mine, and I went to visit Madagascar to try and find the illusive Madagascar Pochard. We stayed in a park called Ankrafantsika National Park in Northern Madagascar. This is where we met two vets named Hannah and Mai. They were researching lemurs. The vets were taking tissue, fur, blood and fecal samples. Also, measuring the animals and radio collaring some to track. We stayed watching the lemurs and learning about the study for a week.

Then, we went to a breeding facility for the Madagascar Pochard, the world’s rarest duck, South of the park and stayed a couple of days taking pictures. Frank took roughly 2,000 photos of the duck! I only took 100. He was a photo fanatic. In Madagascar, we found a lot of wildlife, most of them being lemurs some being birds such as bee-eaters and ducks. We finally made it South to the other end of the island and discovered the dancing Sifaka and Ring-tailed Lemurs. The babies wrap their tails around their mother’s stomach.

Unfortunately, Frank and I discovered the severity of deforestation in the country. It is probably the worst I have ever witnessed. Despite the dire environment there are still 116 different types of lemurs in the wild. In total we were in Madagascar for 2-weeks and I highly recommend the trip.

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