Simon Mustoe's Blog: Wildlife in the Balance
November 27, 2025
Leading from Being podcast about ecosystems
This was one of the most thrilling podcasts I’ve done in a while. It was my absolute pleasure to meet Marti Spiegelman and Todd Hoskins and talk on the Leading from Being podcast about ecosystems.
‘How do we know the world isn’t in a state of being reborn? Not metaphorically, but actually materially, ecologically being rebuilt by the intelligence of billions of organisms.‘
Todd Hoskins
Marti and Todd’s insights, wisdom and knowledge far surpass my own.
November 23, 2025
Snorkelling in the Lembeh Strait in June/July
Hi there, I’m stuck in Jakarta airport waiting to get home and thought I’d like to remind the snorkelers among us of a trip I have coming up next June. While I was just away, we had German filmmaker Otto Honnegger with us and he mentioned that the resort we’re using ‘Dive into Lembeh’ is one of his favourites. He’s been almost every year for the past 15 years. Nice to know!
Find out more here
While Lembeh is ordinarily associated with diving, the snorkelling spots are excellent, as this US blog...
November 20, 2025
TRIP REPORT for Raja Ampat and the Banda Sea, Expedition Cruise with Pindito
Here is my trip report for Raja Ampat and the Banda Sea with Pindito. In the end, one of the earliest and furthest northern cyclones to ever develop in the Arafura Sea (channelling strong winds from the northwest) didn’t detract from our trip’s enjoyment. By implementing the ‘flexible itinerary’ rule, we were able to stay ahead of unseasonal winds. This made for another memorable trip into this extraordinary part of the world.
Read the full trip report here
Amazing whale and dolphins
Looking...
November 6, 2025
Where are the teachers, doctors and fire fighters in conservation?
Have you ever wondered, where are the teachers, doctors and fire fighters in conservation? Of course you haven’t. Why would we ever expect our frontline responders, healthcare professionals and educators to drop what they’re doing and volunteer? Isn’t it strange then, that conservation depends almost entirely on volunteer labour. Doesn’t this deny these and other important people a voice or chance to play a role?
Search and rescue forces running to a destroyed building.
November 2, 2025
The return of the great whales and connecting human food with wildlife
A couple of interesting studies came out this week. If any of you have read Wildlife in the Balance you may recall me talking about the number of whales in the world’s oceans in the past. I mentioned, in particular, the impact of species like Blue Whale and Sperm Whale on fisheries and climate. The return of the great whales is something that isn’t talked about that much.
Return of the great whales
In Nature Communications a study titled ‘The global biomass of mammals since 1850’ was recently p...
October 22, 2025
Where kids beat professionals to restore mangroves
In the marshmallow challenge a bunch of CEOs and primary school kids were given marshmallows and toothpicks and told to build the tallest structure possible within a certain amount of time. The kids did it faster through rapid experimentation, failure and adaptation. The CEOs procrastinated as they tried to work out how, and took longer. I was reminded of the marshmallow challenge when I was in a talk by an associate from Ozfish the other day.
October 15, 2025
A wonderful encounter with mysterious Sperm Whales
I’m writing this in the noisy departure lounge of Nadi Airport, Fiji. The plane is delayed a couple of hours, so I thought I’d start thinking about one of the most thought-provoking encounters of our recent trip to Taveuni & the Yasawas: a wonderful encounter with mysterious Sperm Whales.
Many travellers are milling around me right now using Fiji as a hub to traverse the Pacific. It’s amazing the variety of cultures and nationalities that meet here.
October 10, 2025
The Message of the Lyrebird, Melbourne Exclusive
For the last 10 years I’ve been privileged to know film-makers Nick Hayward (Platypus Guardians, Quoll Farm) and director Mark Pearce. While we worked on a series of short films about Australia, they were completing a love project about Lyrebirds. Nick filmed the infamous Attenborough scene of the birds mimicking chainsaws. This was voted Attenborough’s #1 moment by the British public. But was it real? Or was the bird simply reproducing a sound of natural origin?
October 8, 2025
Animals behave in surprising ways
The other day I wrote an article about scientific catastrophising. In How to Survive the Next 100 Years: Lessons from Nature I’ve also delved into how news algorithms amplify catastrophe; are often chronically out of data; and that consuming a more balanced diet of information is much better for us. It’s a simple fact that animals behave in surprising ways. What we digest online is mostly there to grab our attention and AI logic amplifies what the internet has already chosen as fact.
October 3, 2025
Snorkelling and diving at Paradise Taveuni, Fiji in October 2025
I’ve been away for a couple of weeks taking a group of friends and family to Fiji so this is just a quick udpate. I don’t normally do tours outside of the Pindito trips we do to Indonesia. But this was the chance to bring everyone together at a wonderful place we discovered in Fiji a couple of years ago. Paradise Taveuni is located at the southern end of the country’s eastern division. The island is a barrier to predominant trade winds which makes it a good bet for reasonable swimming weather.
Wildlife in the Balance
- Simon Mustoe's profile
- 3 followers
