RIP Chris Stuart (Stuart on Nature)
I was very sorry to hear that Chris Stuart, of Chris & Mathilde Stuart fame, passed away yesterday at home in South Africa with Mathilde at his side after a short battle with a very aggressive cancer.
Many mammalwatchers have benefited from Chris and Mathilde’s field guides and apps over the years: indeed their guide to the mammals of southern Africa was the very first field guide I bought more than 30 years ago. Their more recent apps on African and North American Mammals are among my favourites.
Though I had never met Chris in person he was a friend: always ready to offer advice on mammal identification and to connect me to his many friends, most recently when I went to Chad last year. Both he and Mathilde lived the sort of life that many mammalwatchers dream of: perpetually travelling around their beloved Africa, with unlimited energy to survey for mammals and to publish, publish, publish! They were a real inspiration.
Chris’s death is a huge loss for the mammalwatching world and I am full of regret that I never made it to South Africa to visit them both and chat over ‘a bottle of red’: something Chris seemed to suggest to me in every second email. I hope still one day to see Mathilde there and raise a glass in Chris’s direction.
Charles and I had a great chat with Chris and Mathilde for the podcast back in September 2022. So if you want to remember Chris and learn more about his life then you can listen here.
Jon
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tomeslice
Oh no!!
That is really sad 😞
My condolences to Mathilde and the family. I was definitely inspired by the podcast episode 🙏🏻