A Greater View of Vangas: Matt McGee’s Third Field Season

Matt McGee, a PhD candidate in the Razafindratsima Lab in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, is now in his third field season with Wildlife Madagascar, continuing his research on Madagascar’s remarkable birds, especially the vangas.

This season, Matt is continuing detailed observations of vanga foraging behavior while also launching a new mist-netting project, through which the team will band birds, collect morphological measurements, and collect biological specimens when possible. While vangas will be the primary focus, the team will also document other bird species encountered during mist-netting, creating opportunities to build a longer-term dataset on the bird communities across our rainforest sites.

Matt will be working alongside Malagasy student researchers and Wildlife Madagascar staff, with additional support from bird-handling specialists at The Peregrine Fund – Madagascar to ensure that the team is properly trained in all aspects of the work.

At Wildlife Madagascar, all animal handling is conducted exclusively by trained professionals following established ethical and research protocols.  At Wildlife Madagascar, all animal handling is conducted exclusively by trained professionals following established ethical and research protocols. Animal welfare is our highest priority, and every effort is made to minimize stress. No animals are harmed during this research, and all are safely released after data collection.

What the team learns about the birds will aid in conservation planning within this critically important rainforest.