Biosphere Expeditions: blogs from the frontline of wildlife conservation & the fight for a more sustainable planet

A great big thank you to all expedition participants from both week 1 and week 2. Biosphere Expeditions and the DDCR are really grateful for the hard work that everyone has put in to collect a lot of good data that will be of long-lasting benefit to the reserve and it wildlife. As well as working hard, I think everyone has really enjoyed their experience here in the Arabian desert.

We had a beautiful misty last morning here in the DDCR, well worth the extra half an hour wait for the tents to dry. Thanks for everyone’s efforts this morning to get the camp packed up.

I have really enjoyed the expedition this year and, as well as the wildlife and the beautiful environment, a big part of that was the great company in both teams. I know that Moayyed and Greg have also really enjoyed having Biosphere Expeditions at the DDCR again this year.

As you know, a lot goes on behind the scenes at the DDCR to keep the place running and all the DDCR staff work very hard. A big thank you to them and we hope you like the T-shirts 😉 I also hope that Greg, Moayyed and Tamer enjoy the diverse selection of slightly sandy tea bags and left-over biscuits I have left for them in the DDCR office kitchen :))

As the group 2 know from this morning’s final de-brief, we were lucky enough to record Gordon’s wildcat on one of our camera traps. This is great news, as the rare feline has not been recorded on the reserve for a couple of years! There are many thousands of camera trap images, which now need to be carefully analysed and Areej, our UAE placement in group 2, has kindly offered to assist Moayyed with this task in the weeks ahead. Areej told me that she has really enjoyed the expedition and it has been a great opportunity for her to get some real field work experience and find out if she enjoys the life of a wildlife conservationist working in the field. I think her expedition journal entry sums up the experience nicely (see below). Thanks also to Elena for her artistic contribution to the expedition journal (also see below) and mammoth effort of desert clean up with Ulrike yesterday.

Thanks again to everyone, you have been amazing! I hope you enjoy the selection of images below from the camera traps and our last days of field work.

Paul Franklin
Expedition leader

The second group of the Arabia 2019 expedition is now underway after completion of training on species identification, research methodology and use of equipment and traps.

We have split into three groups each day. The first job for each group is to check the live trap and grid of ten rodent traps in the area of the reserve they are covering that day. On most days each group then goes on to complete circular observation counts of target animal and plant species in two of the reserve’s quadrat squares. By the end of the week, the plan is that a circular observation will have been completed on all 62 of the reserve’s 2 km x 2 km square quadrants, giving us good data on the distribution of oryx, gazelle and the main plant communities. The team have also been collecting plenty of random observations while driving and walking within the reserve. Today we recorded lappet-faced vulture, hen harrier and toad-headed agama among many other species. Our rodent traps were successful this morning with a couple of captures of Cheeseman’s jerbil.

Our placement student Areej is enjoying being out in the desert getting some field experience in conservation research. The experience and talking with Moayyed and Greg also provides some ideas regarding prospects for work in the field of wildlife conservation within the UAE. Areej was rewarded on her birthday with the capture of three Cheesman’s jerbils in the rodent traps.

The camera trap results from the few days between groups 1 and 2 recorded a group of ten lappet-faced vulture, a Bonelli’s eagle and a female pallid harrier. We will collect the SD cards again on Friday and the results will be analysed in full by Moayyed after the expedition. As well as the science, we are managing to do a bit of litter picking in the desert, Elena is showing particular enthusiasm and energy for this.

Tomorrow is our last day of circular observations; the whole reserve will then have been covered by our citizen scientists. We will celebrate with dinner at the Arabian Adventures camp and on Saturday morning we will have a debrief from Greg to summarise what the team has achieved this week.

Time has flown by and team 1 is done. It’s been a great week. We collected a lot of data and I am confident in saying that the team all really enjoyed their experience here in the Arabian desert.

Yesterday we collected in the small mammal traps and the memory cards from the camera traps that were set at the beginning of the week. Team 2 will deploy the small mammal traps in three new locations. The camera traps have been left in place and we will retrieve the second set of memory cards at the end of next week.

The camera traps recorded over 6,000 (!) images this week (not including the 11,700 images of tree branches blowing in the wind caught on a single camera trap, which we will re-position next week). Species recorde included Arabian red fox, oryx, both gazelle species, sand grouse, pallid harrier and brown-necked raven. There was also a great shot of a southern grey shrike catching an insect. Greg and Moayyed will undertake a detailed analysis of the camera trap results over the next few weeks.

The large mammal traps did not catch anything, so will try with a different type of bait next week.

The small mammal traps were more successful with captures of Egyptian spiny mouse on the rocky outcrop in the north of the reserve and Cheesman’s gerbil in the south of the reserve. The team also made observations of jerboa and jird during daylight, which is unusual. At the southern trap grid location, we also recorded cat tracks.

Fox den surveys went well with 49 dens checked for activity, including the discovery of 14 new fox den locations. There were also several sightings of Arabian red fox during the week.

The team managed to undertake circular observations in 35 of the reserve’s 64 2×2 kmquadrants. This leaves 27 quadrants for the team 2 to survey next week. Circular observations recorded 285 oryx, 112 Arabian gazelle and 114 sand gazelle.

The team’s random observation data yielded 470 records, including 1,829 oryx, 566 Arabian gazelle and 90 sand gazelle. Also 4 MacQueen’s bustard, 10 lappet-faced vulture, 4 desert eagle owl and 2 Bonelli’s eagle.

Last night we were treated to dinner at the Arabian Adventures camp, where some of the team had a go at sand boarding, camel riding and henna painting.

I would like to thank the team 1 for all their hard work this week and also for being such great company. I know that Greg and Moayyed are really appreciative of everyone’s hard work and the data will be of significant long-term benefit to the DDCR, enabling comparisons with other expedition years where data has been collected in the same way. A special thanks also to Mohamed, a UAE national, who was part of the team 1 and enriched the experience by sharing his knowledge and experience of living in Dubai, as well as his great enthusiasm for the wildlife and habitats of his country.

We wish all of this week’s team a safe journey and are looking forward to meeting next week’s team.

Safe travels everyone.

We (Moayyed, Paul and Greg) met the team on Saturday at the Premier Inn in Dubai and we arrived at the DDCR at 10:00. We got started straight away with Greg’s introductory presentation about the history, fauna, flora and conservation objectives of the DDCR, as well as the importance and reasons for the data collection the team will be doing over the next week. We then did round the table introductions for everyone to learn names and something about why people had come. It is always interesting to hear of the diverse backgrounds, which make up our citizen science teams. We have four nationalities in this team including the UK, Germany, France and Mohamed who is from Dubai and was telling me on the drive back to DDCR how much he loves being out in the desert with wildlife and how if he goes out on trips into the desert with his friends, they will all be sitting around the fire checking their phones while he is off searching for interesting creatures. I have also since discovered that his other passion is for English football, so when he is not out in the desert, he is checking his phone for the footie scores.

Following my expedition introduction we ran through the risk assessment before getting started on the survey training. We managed an introduction to the most essential equipment and data sheets before lunch. Seven of the team were keen to drive the vehicles on the expedition, so went for a 4×4 training session in the Arabian Adventures Landcruisers.

Finally we headed off to the campsite to put up tents and get settled in. Greg joined us later in the afternoon and took the drivers for practical sand driving training on one of the trickier sections of tracks in the reserve. All the drivers picked it up really well and managed to get up a track going over quite a steep dune. It’s really good having quite a few drivers, as it gives us more flexibility during the expedition.

On Sunday we continued the science training, starting with use of the GPS. This is an essential piece of kit on this desert expedition. We use GPS to locate all our survey points, live traps and the fox dens we are recording. They are mounted in the vehicles when we are driving to navigate along the various tracks in the reserve to reach the required survey quadrant. Then we use the GPS to mark the vehicle as a waypoint before setting off on foot, so that it can easily be relocated even though not visible across the dunes. Then it’s a navigation tool while walking on foot through the desert and gives us the latitude and longitude co-ordinates to record observations on the data sheets. As part of the expedition preparation Greg had already loaded all the essential survey waypoints onto the GPS such as fox dens, trap locations and circular observation points, as well as the base mapping for the track network.

Training continued on Sunday morning with the team’s first foray into the desert. We went as one group with Greg and Moayyed to learn how to find and record fox dens, how to make the circular observations and how to identify the main large tree and shrub species on the reserve. Then came the last main part of the training on how to set the live traps, rodent raps and camera traps.

Sunday afternoon the team were let loose. Dividing into three groups of four, we went out to set traps, one team heading into the north section, one team central and one team south. After a long day, all the groups managed to navigate safely back to the campsite where we met Greg for our debrief of the day’s activities.

Monday was the first full day of data collection. Again we split into three groups (north, central and south) and each team headed out , following a briefing with Greg. The first job was checking live traps and rodent traps, then each team had three circular observation points to cover and three or four fox dens to check, as well as the random recordings, which are observations of all the key species sighted while driving or walking during the day. The last field task of the day was to reset the rodent traps before returning to the campsite for data entry and debrief.

During the debrief we all sit around the campfire (although the fire is not actually alight at that time of day) and each team recounts its experiences of the day. This includes recounting what the team did, interesting wildlife observations as well as some often amusing stories.  We had one successful rodent capture of a spiny mouse in the rocky northern sections, good observations of Arabian oryx, Arabian gazelle, sand gazelle and lappet faced vulture. Also various good reptile and bird sightings. As well as filling out the data sheets, we keep a record of all the species we see during the week. I was pleased to learn that one of the team is a keen bird watcher, so that should help us get a good bird list. The hoopoe lark was heard today, which is one of my favourites because of its amazing call and flight display that it does from the top of dunes.

In the debrief, I now include a confessions section and a most interesting thing learnt section. In the confessions section we learned one group had forgotten to take spare GPS batteries (tut tut! Mary, Marilyn and Juliane) and another group got their vehicle a bit stuck and had to be rescued by Greg. Good lessons learned included smoothing the sand around the rodent traps so fresh tracks can be easily seen the next day and how to take compass bearings so that if you forget your spare GPS batteries you can still navigate!
I get the feeling that the whole team are really enjoying this experience in the desert, it truly is a very special place. As Deborah said “the desert is my happy place”.