Monthly Archives: January 2023

Yearly roundup: 2022

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A Eurasian lynx crosses a small stream.

2022 has been a year of transition for me.

I started the year out in the bush. We did a track survey of wildlife out by the coast of Uppland. It is always wonderful seeing tracks of lynx, marten, roe deer and wild boar out in the wild.

One of these winter days, as from out from nowhere, an otter peaked out from the icy water just five meters from where I was standing. It dove back into the water within a few seconds, only to reappear again five meters in another direction. It went up on land as I was standing there in awe. This is one of the rare occasions I have seen an otter in the wild. And I have never been this close.

Out doing a wildlife census by the east coast of Uppsala.

Another rare encounter was when there were reports of a lone wolverine in an industrial area in the city of Uppsala. I went there to see the tracks and could barely believe my eyes. They were really of a wolverine. There were also video of the animal. Very interesting!

Jan Fleischmann and I wrote a series of articles on wild cats this year, for the Swedish magazine Kattliv. We started out with the elusive jaguar, continued with the puma, the black-footed cat, and lastly the cheetah.

One of four articles we wrote about wild cat species in 2022. This one about the black-footed cat, a species I worked with in the field back in 2011.

As summer came, I started working as museum host at the Evolutionary Museum in Uppsala. It is very interesting saying good morning and good night to a wide array of dinosaurs.

The museum also has extinct wild cat species, including two species from the Smilodon genus. There is also a skull from Machariodus. It was fascinating learning more about these historic and pre-historic species. The Smilodon species, for instance, lived side by side with us people in the Americas.

Wolverine tracks in central parts of Uppsala city.

After summer, I have shifted focus to something I have been wanting to work more with for a long time: Leadership and communication. So I have started working as organization developer for Naturskyddsföreningen i Stockholms län (The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation in Stockholm county). More on this in a future post, though.

I hope that 2023 will be fantastic, and that this is the year when we halt the decline of biodiversity worldwide!

Be safe!

Jonatan

Even dinosaurs want to be clean. One day while working at the Evolutionary Museum in Uppsala.
A Machairodus palanderi at the Evolutionary Museum in Uppsala.