Mande -Burung.Team Members and Objectives.

• The Team will be on expedition for approx three weeks.We will depart on Halloween, 31st October, from London, and return on 19/20 November.
• I will be leading the team.I will be joined by Dave Archer and John McGowan, who will be bringing their tracking expertise to the team ,whilst Dr.Chris Clark and Richard Freeman will be providing technical and Zoological expertise respectively.
• Dipu Marak will head up the Indian Team,which will include both trackers and porters.
• We will be deploying traditional tracking techniques, as well as using hi-tech equipment such as infra red, camera traps, thermal imaging and field microscopes, as well as a helicam, if appropriate.
• The team will be engaging in both arduous physical treks,and night stake outs.
• We have already arranged a series of appointments with alleged Mande-Burung eyewitnesses.
• The expedition will be filmed for a forthcoming documentary.
• I would love to see one, but at the end of the day, its all about the science.Getting pictures on the camera traps would be amazing.What the expedition really hopes to do though, is get tangible physical evidence of the creature,should it exist,which can then be analysed by independent scientific experts.(e.g. to extract D.N.A for the mapping of genomes).
• I also hope to have a great adventure whilst we are there, and get to chill with the locals!
  

Mande -Burung.

Over the last few weeks , I have spent much of my free time preparing for the expedition to India,which departs at the end of October.The leader of the Indian team, Dipu Marak, has worked hard on comprising a really excellent itinerary for the three weeks that we are there.
As we have vehicles this time, we will be able to cover a large area of the Garo Hills. We have arranged interviews with eyewitnesses, and will of course , be trekking deep into the jungle, in the hope of finding evidence of the elusive creature.As well as the the normal camera traps,and G.P.S. etc, which we normally take out,we will also be taking silicon moulds , rather than than the plaster of paris, which has the potential to degrade, as I learnt from my last time in Sumatra. We will also be taking field microscopes, for on the spot anlysis of any finds, as well as infa red game finders and night vision equipment. We may also employ the use of a helicam,if it is apprpriate to do so.
The expedition will also be filmed for a forthcoming documentary,so you will be able to see for yourselves what happened.
I'm off to the Doctors tomorrow, to find out just how much the price of Malaria tablets have gone up.Time to dust off that knackered old rucksack again!