VOLUME 25 NUMBER 1 ANNUAL REPORT 2017 25 MARKS OF SUCCESS by Wally and Joni Van Sickle Twenty-five years of working to conserve the biodiversity • In 2006, Roy Young and Rosa Venezia donated a building to of a planet is a challenge to summarize in one page. Realizing IDEA WILD, which has generated almost $900,000 in revenue this is just the very tip of the iceberg, we decided to simply to date. present 25 marks of success. Success can be broadly defined as • Long time investors Chan and Mary Jane Mortimer are an accomplishment of an aim or purpose. IDEA WILD’s purpose received with much enthusiasm as they design international is to equip, empower, and activate the world’s most promising trips to visit projects they have supported through IDEA WILD. environmental leaders to grow and strengthen the movement to • Foundation donors like the Moore Family Foundation and conserve the planet’s biodiversity. Swift Foundation have loyally supported IDEA WILD for • Together we have raised over 9 million dollars--starting with a sixteen years straight (very rare) and have directly made over $10 check. twelve hundred projects possible. • Eighty-five percent of all money raised went directly to the • Jason and Lisa Koppmann were the first of many front lines of conservation. compassionate people to ever sponsor a whole project and • Practice-based conservation has been encouraged over pure have continued to do so every year for over 20 years. science and policy based conservation. • Our long term investment in the cause is realized by the fact • Equipment has been sent to projects in 119 countries. that ninety-seven percent of all our recipients are still working • Almost half (47%) of our recipients worked with indigenous in the field of conservation biology. groups and 82% worked with local stakeholders who rely on • We have been astounded by the dedication of our sheroes healthy ecosystems for their survival. and heroes such as Arif Setiawan, who rode a bus for 16 • Staff and volunteers have traveled and introduced IDEA WILD hours to hand deliver his proposal requesting binoculars to to environmental leaders at universities, non-profits, protected help conserve an endangered primate in Indonesia. areas, and government agencies in 41 countries. • Countless quotes express appreciation for our efforts, such • We have created an army of conservation heroes and sheroes as this one from Bill Lamar, Herpetologist and award winning and have provided equipment directly to 5163 environmental author: “I cannot tell you how often I have run into happy leaders recipients of your largesse. I just wish there were • On average, equipment was used on not more funding organizations as direct as one but three conservation projects, yours.” expanding our impact to over • We are pioneers in the field of 15,000. conservation biology, reaching beyond • Over 4500 dedicated people fuzzy cute red pandas and other have helped hand deliver charismatic species to support projects equipment (97% success) conserving rare plants, tarantulas, to the environmental snails, naked mole rats, caecilians, leaders saving thousands bats, insects, fungi, soil nematodes, of donor dollars on and ugly fish. shipping costs. • Optimism remains our number • Over 45,000 passionate one value. volunteer hours have been • Open mindedness given with heartfelt purpose. dominates the mindset in • Millions of data points have our small but mighty team of been collected-- each offering empowered staff, volunteers, a clue to conserving a species board, donors, and recipients. or ecosystem. • We are still the only • Numerous protected areas have conservation organization on the planet that been created including the newest provides small equipment grants, making us national park in Costa Rica, Los more popular each year -- We have received 7266 Quetzales National Park. proposals in the last 15 years, and 777 in the last • Many new plant, fungi, bird, reptile, mammal, year alone. fish, insect, and amphibian species have been • Our work greatly affects the next seven discovered and a Cuban isopod and Colombian generations of humanity and passing on a world bee have been named in my honor-- quite an of undiminished options is the ultimate success. honor indeed. YOU ARE A PART OF OUR CONTINUED SUCCESS - THANK YOU! IDEA WILD BIODIVERSITY / 2017 he was on a dive trip in Coral Bay as possible existing A RAY OF HOPE there, saying goodbye by Wally Van Sickle III when his dive boat was hit by to the cities and their a 30 foot wave. Owen unwanted comforts. Her Endless streamers of sand stretch broke his back and personal mission drives for miles across a wilderness of shallow her to protect that forest coastal waters. Blues of every shade and its inhabitants and mark the differing depths of sea water she knows that unless she brings back and add color between the patterns of THE LAST UNICORN the scientific evidence to prove the saola, and anything else that triggers the bright sand. The landscape is modified by Wally Van Sickle III worth of the forest to her fellow traps. Currently, anti-poaching patrols daily by the motion of the water creating species, she will not be able to have removed over 130,000 snares. An patterns reflecting wave and wind. A precipitous mountain save it. unknown number remain and they are Offshore sand cays break the surface and range forms a spine between Camille is French, constantly being reset. occasionally offer a surface for vegetation Vietnam and Laos. Over 600 miles of though growing up The Lao word for conservation is to take hold. Such is the water nation of during the near rough, steep, and in places impenetrable in the French “anoulak” and when Camille began her The Bahamas. death experience and recovery he provide jungle covers the ancient mountain range. Caribbean, she Ph.D. research in 2011 she simultaneously The black outline of a giant batoid connected to his life’s purpose. No longer warm Peaks are often shrouded in clouds and never lived a founded a conservation organization glides through the coastal shallows satisfied with a life of aimless wandering he shallow rainfall, as moisture laden winds come day of her life with the name Project ANOULAK flapping its underwater wings. Shimmering knew it was time to do something for the resting, in off the Gulf of Tonkin and inundate in France. In (http://conservationlaos.com/). They help streams of light reflect off the back, creating ocean and its many life forms. feeding, the isolated Annamite Mountain range particular, conduct active patrols and snare removal, a mirage-like effect and adding mystery He went on to earn his BSc, first breeding, with a tropical monsoon climate. Several she train Laotian students to be the next to this ancient resident of the sea. The class honours degree and Ph.D. in marine and nursery thousand feet below on the eastern has generation of conservationist, conduct ray is seeking the warmth of the shallow ecology with a doctoral thesis entitled, areas. Impacts side a flat plain leads to school based education programs and water where abundant sunshine heats up “The ecology and biology of stingrays are likely even the sea. they inform, engage, and empower local its body. Food lies just under the sand. (Dasyatidae) at Ningaloo Reef, Western more significant As the full moon communities in ecosystem protection. Electrosensitivity allows the ray to locate Australia.” Before leaving Australia, Owen in creek systems rose over Bach Ma Wildlife research is also a vital component hidden prey items and fill its stomach. published 11 scientific publications with his and offshore National Park, the sky of ANOULAK and helps keep Camille in sand cays where turned to a dark purple the forest. juvenile life hue with the Annamites Her Ph.D. research required OWEN RICHARD O’SHEA : THE BAHAMAS history stages are changing from a vibrant green bioacoustic software, weather interrupted. to darker purple. A moving stations, and a laptop computer Owen and his carpet of moonlit fog found to estimate density, taxonomic Overhead an unusual object advisor and mentor, Mark Meekan. Soon team, with the help its way through the passes and status, and behavioral ecology whizzes past. A modern day technological after, in 2013, he took a research position of a donated drone over the steep edge falling towards of the white-cheeked gibbon marvel in the form of a tiny drone carries a with the Shark Research and Conservation from IDEA WILD, work the sea. The scene was surreal and and other primates. All were camera and sends real time video back to Program at the Cape Eleuthera Institute in to assess population created an other-worldly landscape. provided by IDEA WILD. a nearby researcher intent on locating and The Bahamas while also teaching at the estimates, relative Somewhere out in the moonlit been GPS units, two-way radios, tagging rays. The ray has been spotted Island School where hundreds of students abundance and demography jungle a unicorn like animal slipped into dedicated and vegetation measuring and now the hunter becomes the hunted. learn about the marine ecosystem. Owen of two species of stingray: the a pool for a drink. Unusually long, black to primate research even gear were provided in two Within a few moments, a corral of promotes local environmental issues in southern stingray and chupare parallel horns with sharp tips adorn its as a young girl, and now works to help additional IDEA WILD equipment human legs shows up and surrounds the regional schools as well as important life whiptail stingray. The drone will head. The animal is an ancient, ancestral conserve some of the most beautiful grants to ANOULAK. ray. Waves splash at the waist and knees of lessons, like learning to believe in yourself be used over different seasons and bovid and is one of the world’s rarest primates on the planet including the red- Rachel Carson said “Those who the research crew.