Malawi: End

Update from our Malawi expedition volunteering with elephants, hippo, cats, pangolins and African biodiversity

The Biosphere Expeditions 2023 Malawi expedition has now come to an end – successfully. We had no more drama since the attempted elephant rescue, although we did notice a lack of elephant herds visiting us near base camp since then, but quite a few sightings of elephants very close to where the juvenile elephant died (tusks removed). This is perhaps not surprising: elephants are known to mourn their dead.

We continued our research tasks right up to the end of the expedition, saving time for a celebratory sundowner by the lake on our last night, with toasts made and many group photos taken as the shimmering red sun dropped below the trees.

Benni summarised what we had achieved over the expedition:

• 218 elephants counted in 22 sightings
• 16 ID profiles created for 10 matriarchs and 6 bulls 28 dung samples collected and processed, yielding 2134 seeds cleaned, dried and photographed
• 446 hippos counted over 4 transects
• 140 observations of 97 species recorded on the iNaturalist citizen science database
• Over 43,000 camera trap pictures captured and analysed, from 18 camera traps, identifying 21 different species

This was an impressive achievement for a relatively small group of citizen scientists over a short period of time, very much a testament to the hard work and diligence of this team of experienced Biosphereans.

It has been a rewarding and successful expedition, and I am looking forward to seeing the research report in due course – and looking forward to doing it all over again next year.

Update from our Malawi volunteer expedition including elephant volunteer Africa and lion volunteer Africa