A small collection of videos made by the Butaan Project. It took us three years to get the first moving images of wild butaan. Some recordings are made using camcorders tied to trees and triggered by passive infrared monitors, others are made by volunteers from camouflaged hides.
A young butaan attempts to remove fruit from an uncooperative tree
Practical Conservation for Neglected Species
We work with endangered and neglected people, wildlife and habitats, finding practical solutions to serious problems.
The only obligate fruit-eaters among reptiles are two species of monitor lizard that live in the Philippines. Frugivorous vertebrates tend to be able to fly (almost all are bats and birds) and so these lizards have a unique ecological role as highly specialized and relatively immobile fruit eaters. Before this project started, the only studies of this unique giant and endangered lizard had involved killing the animals. We have developed a set of techniques that allow us to learn about these animals in a completely non-destructive way.
Varanus exanthematicus is the smallest and most poorly known African varanid. Although it is regularly available in the wildlife trade, details of its natural history are scarce. Virtually all that is written about V.exanthematicus in the literature actually refers to the larger white-throated monitor, V.albigularis.
Bui Hippo Project 
A small collection of videos made by the Butaan Project. It took us three years to get the first moving images of wild butaan. Some recordings are made using camcorders tied to trees and triggered by passive infrared monitors, others are made by volunteers from camouflaged hides.
Practical Conservation for Neglected Species
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The only obligate fruit-eaters among reptiles are two species of monitor lizard that live in the Philippines. Frugivorous vertebrates tend to be able to fly (almost all are bats and birds) and so these lizards have a unique ecological role as highly specialized and relatively immobile fruit eaters. Before this project started, the only studies of this unique giant and endangered lizard had involved killing the animals. We have developed a set of techniques that allow us to learn about these animals in a completely non-destructive way.