Month: October 2017

That’s all folks. Once again we must call time on our expedition in South Africa. Our citizen scientists have departed, the kit is packed and now I must make my travels north, back to Scotland. But what a month in the fynbos it has been – expeditions never fail to surprise me – they offer difference, diversity, discovery, data and sometimes adversity.

Before we talk about the discovery and data, let me initially offer some thanks. First off, to our participants, who stepped up to the daily challenge of data collection to achieve our collective goals of better understanding the ecology and conservation issues of the fynbos. Thank you for your contribution towards advancing knowledge, and making this expedition a success.

Before that, we owe a big thank you to Melda, Gurli and Barbara, for the continual provision of culinary delights, and their botanical wisdom! A big thanks also to John and Lizzie, for sharing their time, knowledge and enthusiasm for the Cape rockjumper work and all things avian. We would also like to thank the extended Lee family (Anja, Elli, Charlie, Chris & Elaine), for not just hosting the expedition, but their un-ending hospitality. And finally, our enormous collective thanks go to Alan, our leader in all things scientific. It is indeed a privilege to share in your world and work with such a dedicated scientist and committed conservationist.

So what of the success I mentioned? Well, success is a strange metric to measure when it comes to expeditions. It is influenced by the people you meet, the experiences you have, the challenges you overcome…to mention a few. Ultimately, it is perhaps most dependent on your expectations.

The expedition’s expectations focussed on a few key field research activities. Of course much data still need to be crunched from the various field surveys and just think of all those camera traps still clicking and collecting data….long beyond our departure. But what have we achieved in the past month?

In case you have forgotten, here are just some of our highlights:

• Several new camera trap monitoring stations have been established to monitor leopard, caracal and other mammal activity and movement patterns;
• We completed as much small mammal trapping as we did in the first two years of this expedition, recording three new species at Blue Hill in 2017;
• Several hundred camera images from Blue Hill have be analysed, identified and catalogued, revealing activity of leopards and African wildcat across a number of locations;
• Over 12 km of nocturnal transects surveys have been completed across the Blue Hill area;
• We have assisted with multiple bird and biodiversity surveys across six sites in the Karoo (covering around 3000 km);
• Assisted bird biologists (John & Lizzie) with ongoing doctoral research on Cape Rockjumper’s at Blue Hill (a bird species endemic to the fynbos);
• Established nearly 300 permanent monitoring plots for endemic honeybush plants used to make tea;
• Completed the first diurnal and nocturnal mammal maps for Blue Hill;
• Undertook further bat monitoring and entered/analysed two years worth of sonogram data;
• Collected multiple leopard scats for DNA analysis, and kept searching for leopards.

In isolation, these may just seem like bits of data, as field research rarely gives us instant results or fast answers to our bigger questions. To paraphrase one of our participants, we are simply uncovering and fitting together small pieces of the fynbos puzzle. And as we slowly put them together, we will reveal a bigger picture of how this fire-driven ecosystem works and sustains the larger predators such as Cape leopards. Arguably, only with this knowledge can we adequately conserve them.

So to my mind, with this bounty of new information, we have been more than successful. I refer you to one of the earlier blogs at the start of the expedition, when we set out Alan’s aims and expectations. We have achieved all of these, and more. No matter whether you are a citizen scientist, scientist or expedition leader, we all go on expeditions with a varying mix of nerves, hope and expectation. If your expectations are realistic, then with a bit of graft, success is often forthcoming.

Thank you for all your efforts and I, for one, look forward to returning next year.

Best wishes to you all

Craig Turner
Expedition leader

The devil is the detail, when it comes to expeditions. This is true of the planning, organisation and execution of most of the fieldwork. The latter also requires a combination of hard work, flexibility, patience and luck. Particularly when you are trying to get data on Cape leopard and caracals.
We are all realistic that only the ‘lucky’ will encounter them face-to-face. However, we have technology on our side, in the form of camera traps. The ‘detail’ is picking where to locate them, so you have to think like a cat and site them where they will hopefully pass. These camera traps give us ‘eyes’ in the field in multiple locations, over a huge area and every hour of the day or night.

We also have the eyes of our team in the field every day, also looking for signs of these predators, which can range from tracks to scratched trees to scat. We have all been issued with ‘scat bags’, so potential leopard scat can be collected, verified by DNA analysis, and in turn help build a DNA database, to track movements of leopards – dead or alive. A powerful conservation tool from such small evidence.

Detail in scientific or conservation terms often equates to data. Whether this comes from our mammal mapping, small mammal trapping or camera trapping, it all helps to inform our understanding of how leopards, caracals and other species (often the prey base) use the fynbos environment. However, we shouldn’t become fixated on the predators, as we are also here to understand the wider biodiversity of this environment, which includes the ongoing work on the bird and vegetation. After all, we are not on safari, where we are spoon-fed the big five from the comfort of an air-conditioned bus.

The weekend did give us a new understanding and a chance to get some historical perspective on the landscape. A morning walking to some rock art sites and viewing some stone artifacts (e.g. stone hand axes) from the wider area gave us alternative appreciation of how people and wildlife once used and survived in this landscape.

Our modern day ‘survival’ in terms of fieldwork at least, is often vehicle dependent. It’s a long walk over tough terrain to most of our field sites, so vehicles are vital, but things go wrong. And an afternoon fixing the rear shock absorbers on one of our field vehicles (thanks Steve) was another detail that needed addressing but means our fieldwork can continue into its last week.

So as we enter the home straight of this year’s expedition, we already know the team’s hard work and patience in the field has delivered some great data. The checks on the camera traps will now begin and fingers crossed we’ve got the detail of the set-up right. We just need a bit of luck on our side to reveal more data on our target species.

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There is much good news to report. Firstly the weather has warmed again, with murmurs of it now being too warm for fieldwork….is that possible?

Despite the climatic yoyo, our fieldwork programme is now in full swing, with at least two more honey bush monitoring sites being established and data recorded. The mammal mapping programme continues to document the distribution of most mammal species across the Blue Hill Reserve. Both surveys benefit from the aid of technology, using bespoke Android Cybertracker apps for data entry. We always hope we have some Android users in the group – thank you Tobias and Elena.

But the mammal mapping doesn’t cover all species. For the bats, technology is again our friend, as high frequency microphones can be plugged into iPhones or iPads (who are we to not share stuff equally between the greedy corporate giants). Combine these with the magic of a Bluetooth GPS and a bat identification app, and we can detect and map that which we can’t even see! Finally, smartphones can live up to their name and be positive force for conservation research.

You still have to walk the walk tough – well, do the 2 km transect at night. But that just offers more opportunities to map nocturnal mammals. And who knows when you may bump into a cat! Despite this ‘incentive’, it is still a tough ask if your day in the field started at 06:30 (or earlier).

However, no amount of technology is substitute when it comes to small mammals, as live traps are still the default preference. Our trapping programme has continued, repeating the survey of 2016. The surprise is our capture rates have almost doubled, and again we are recording species not previously documented. Next week, we will trap completely new site, so have high hopes.

I will let our scientist (Alan) crunch the data to see if the results thus far are a function of the recent fire? There is still much to learn about how the fynbos functions and supports such a diverse fauna.

The ‘Carnivores of the Cape Floral Kingdom’ expedition continues to evolve and expand, and for the first time we can extend a warm welcome our second group of citizen scientists. It’s great to be able to double our time in the field this year.

The team all arrived safely. With initial introductions, risks assessments and briefings completed, we stretched our legs with a brief orientation around Blue Hill Escape – the team’s new home for the next 12 days.

Alan kicked off the initial scientific training with an overview of the mammal mapping work, where we are trying to build a spatial database of mammal sightings to compliment the results collected by the camera traps. The team were also introduced to a range of equipment that will become their tools of the trade. The day was rounded off with some mammal identification training, and a brief history of the work so far at Blue Hill.

Rested and recuperated from the travel and briefing exertions of the first day, the science training ‘on the job’ began in earnest on day 2 (Monday), with camera trapping deployment and setting up honey bush plots along the south road. This offered a chance for some practical exertions in the form of the off-road 4WD ‘commute to work’, and then a 2 hr hike back to base (for most). Steve was the lucky one, undertaking some 4WD training with the expedition leader, before driving home.

In the afternoon we were introduced to the work of our guest scientist Dr. Margaux Rat, part of the Hot Birds research team. We’ll be helping her project by assisting via video analysis – exploring the effects of temperature on the social networks of sociable weavers. It should give us an insight on how hot and bothered we will all be by climate change!

Tuesday morning brought yet more variety, this time in the form of the weather. Our field visit along the east road was cut to less than hour, by sub-zero temperatures, and the effects of unseasonal wind chill. Highlighting why hypothermia always gets mentioned in the safety briefing. Welcome to South Africa in the Spring!

Margaux was the ultimate beneficiary of the conditions, with all volunteers more than willing to sit in a fire-warmed kitchen, nursing cups of hot coffee whilst undertaking video analysis work on the weavers.

There will be a 20 degrees swing in temperature in the next 24 hr, so will all be out in the field again, and this time hopefully for a little longer…