Malawi: Elephants, hippos and pelicans

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

The team started collecting good data even before the two days of training were finished. So far elephant encounters have been less common than expected and so when we do come across any elephants, we jump straight in with our research tasks. Even counting the animals accurately can sometimes be a challenge. Yesterday we enjoyed the company of a herd of around forty elephants calmly browsing right in front of base camp, but half hidden amongst the bushes. Is takes patience and all of our eyes to count them all and record their sexes and age classes. Baby elephants are especially easy to miss in the vegetation.

We have twice spotted a lone young elephant with a poacher’s wire visibly caught around her head and have informed the relevant authorities in the hope that a vet might be deployed to dart and sedate the elephant to allow removal of the wire and to treat any wounds. However, such a mission needs to be properly planned, resourced and funded, likely including the need for a helicopter. For the moment, all our expedition team can do is to keep a lookout for the elephant and record its location if we see her again.

With training done now, we have a walking team, accompanied by a ranger, which carries out a hippo transect each day. Two other teams search for elephants and collect any fresh elephant dung for later processing to identify what they have been eating. Our camera traps are out and we have carried out our first ‘hyaena call in’ last night. Tonight we will check on half of our camera traps and see what they have recorded.

We also carry out opportunistic recording of other wildlife we come across. This can be very absorbing and there is much consulting of guidebooks, apps and collective knowledge to identify animals, birds, insects and plants. We were excited to spot pelicans on the lake, especially when we saw an unusual association between a pelican and a yellow-billed stork: the two birds swimming with each other and seemingly helping each other to fish together. Nature sometimes reveals some wonderful surprises!

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