About LEGENDS OF THE WILD

Legends of the Wild was created in 2013 to provide an incremental source of funding for scientific field research aimed at wildlife conservation; to create in effect an intersection between the multi-billion dollar tourism industry and consistently underfunded wildlife conservation efforts. We offer our clients the opportunity to join small expeditions organized to monitor the status of wildlife species. Our expeditions focus on specific field research projects conducted by our naturalist guides. We donate a portion of the revenues of each trip to fund the specific research project. This incremental funding is essential to the sustainability of the research project.

We propose to our clients, direct engagement in field research projects aimed at wildlife conservation. As an example, our upcoming Darien Gap Jaguar Electronic Collar expedition (Dec/2016) will offer participants first-hand involvement in a research project whose overall process includes the identification of optimal sites to trap the feline, construction and installation of the traps, care and vitals of the animal during the collar fitting as well as testing of the collar and subsequent monitoring of the movement of the feline. Participants on our scheduled (April/2017) Snow Leopard Expedition will accompany our naturalist guide who will be conducting camera trap research to assess the habitat use and prey abundance of snow leopards in Nepal’s Shey-Phoksundo National Park. 

The greatest value created by our company today lies in its efforts to strengthen the nascent trend of steering tourism revenues to wildlife and wild-land conservation projects. Underlying this strategy is the recognition that a vast majority of tourism revenues is dependent upon the attractiveness of wildlife and wild-lands. The alarming rate of depletion of animal species and wild-lands across the planet today will certainly undermine future growth in tourism revenues barring significant increases in the funding of conservation initiatives.

While we are a small tour operator today, our aspirations to protect natural heritage are ambitious. To the extent that we are successful in fully funding, through tourism revenues, the research projects that preoccupy us today, we will have succeeded in providing tangible support to ongoing scientific work aimed at wildlife conservation, we will have provided first-hand education and involvement in conservation projects to our clients and we will have continued to promote a business model that hopefully will be increasingly adopted and employed by far more significant players in the tourism industry.

Our commitment to sustainable tourism is very clear. Our company was created solely to provide tangible value to specific efforts to preserve endangered wildlife. We have chosen to work directly with scientists who require funding to both initiate and sustain field research projects and who, importantly, use the product of their research to educate those segments of the population that represent the most imminent threat to specific species of wildlife. The challenges that we face are varied. Bringing clients into extremely isolated jungle and mountain settings to witness, first-hand, exceptional field research demands outstanding guiding relationships and regional knowledge as well as superb logistics and risk management.