Tag: conservation holiday

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Update from our desert expedition / working holiday volunteering with oryx and wildcats in the United Arab Emirates (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/emirates)

All is well in the desert!

After assembly on Sunday, Monday saw the team being trained up on the use of research equipment, live and camera traps, datasheets, animal identification and oryx scoring (health status of individuals) as well as on GPS navigation… intensively ;).

Training how to use the Swarovski Optik spotting scopes and laser distance measurers to assess Arabian oryx health in the desert.
Training how to use the Swarovski Optik binoculars, spotting scopes and laser distance measurers to assess Arabian oryx health in the desert.

Ben, Lizzy, Liz and Hildegard went on their 4×4 desert driving course, whilst everyone else prepared and set up the camera traps supervised with Greg, the expedition’s chief scientist. Three groups went out to set a total number of 12 live and 12 camera traps in the field, each within their assigned survey area for the week (North, Central and South). From Tuesday onwards, the teams have checked the live traps every morning but unfortunately no capture… yet.

Setting up a camera trap
Setting up a camera trap

After the trap checking, we go on desert survey walks up and down the sand dunes. Three quadrants of 2 x 2 km are surveyed per day per team. This may not sound much, but is actually hard work and we suffer for science here 😉 The South group (Bernhad, Hildegard and Liz) encountered gazelles and a few oryx and were lucky to spot an eagle owl. More oryx herds were found in the Northern parts of the reserve, with Lizzy and Sokolov assessing the health status of a lot of oryx individuals and also spotting a ringed Maqueens bustard. Alex, Irmtraut and Ben and I (Central group) did not spot a single oryx within our quadrant despite scouring the beautiful landscape for hours. We did, however, come across mountain and sand gazelles on our trek through the desert.

Desert sruvey trek
Desert survey trek

We’ve hit the groove and research routine now: breakfast at 6:00, followed by route planning and packing up, leaving base at 7:00 – just after sunrise. The early morning desert scenery is amazing, as is the sunset. It’s pitch dark by the time we have dinner at 19:00, so we all sit around the fireplace reviewing the day and chatting about each group’s adventures. And only a short while after having another great meal prepared by our chef Thaya, it suddenly gets really quiet at camp. I wonder why 😉

Thaya in action with vegetarian food kindly provided by www.ripeme.com. Picture courtesy of www.wouterkingma.com
Thaya in action with vegetarian food kindly provided by http://www.ripeme.com. Picture courtesy of http://www.wouterkingma.com
Dinner time. Picture courtesy of www.wouterkingma.com
Dinner time. Picture courtesy of http://www.wouterkingma.com

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Update from our conservation holiday volunteering with lynx, wolves and wildcats in the Carpathian mountains of Slovakia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/slovakia)

Hello everyone and welcome to the first entry of the 2013 Slovakia diary. We’re Peter Schuette, your expedition leader, and Adam Stickler, Peter’s sidekick for our forthcoming Slovakia adventure.

We’re putting the finishing touches to the paperwork, the equipment has been packed, the cars are serviced and ready to roll, the snow has been falling to give us good tracking conditions and we’re looking forward to our time in Slovakia with our scientist Tomas.

We’ll meet in Germany in 9 days, pack up all the gear (see picture below) and then drive south and east to base five days ahead of you to set up. In case you are wondering what’s in all the boxes, it’s paperwork, scat collection kits, books, batteries, GPSs, etc. You can also see the walking poles, radios, a map, first aid pack (which we’ll hopefully never use) and lots of top-notch Swarovski Optik gear (which we’ll hopefully use lots) on there.

Kit
Kit

That’s it for now. We’ll be in touch again from Slovakia with more updates. See you there in due course.

Peter & Adam

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Update from our desert expedition / working holiday volunteering with oryx and wildcats in the United Arab Emirates (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/emirates)

The camp’s up, the shopping (mostly) done, we have one 4×4 (picking up the other one tonight), we have a cook (crucial) and we have our datasheets and work plan (crucial too).

It’s been really cold at night (about 5 degrees Centigrade), so make sure you bring a fleece, hat, gloves, etc. The hardy can have a freezing shower in the morning; for the rest I recommend waiting until it heats up during the day, which it does quite quickly once the sun is up. It’s the desert, you know 😉

Cold morning at base
Cold morning at base

Our cook Thaya has scrubbed all the pots and pans and is ready to work his magic. We went shopping yesterday and I am glad he was with me as I would have been lost in town without him. As you should know from the dossier, we only serve vegetarian food (see http://www.biosphere-expeditions.org/policies > tab “Food” for the reasons) and we’ve recently had support from ethical food provider http://www.ripeme.com, so going to their store with Thaya (second from right) and selecting food was fun. The guy on the right, by the way, is your fellow team member Ben who was here early, kindly helped out and can smile if he wants to ;). The two on the left are Pamela and Carol (sp!) from Ripe (thank you Ripe!). No points for guessing who is behind the camera.

Food shopping
Food shopping

See you all tomorrow at the Permier Inn!

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Update from our desert expedition / working holiday volunteering with oryx and wildcats in the United Arab Emirates (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/emirates)

I am just packing the last bits and pieces and have put a video diary up (as a test of who actually looks at this stuff ;). Enjoy.

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Update from our desert expedition / working holiday volunteering with oryx and wildcats in the United Arab Emirates (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/emirates)

Hello everyone and welcome to the first diary entry for Biosphere Expeditions’ 2013 Emirates desert expedition. My name is Malika Fettak and I will be your expedition leader. You will also meet Greg Simkins, Steve Bell and Pete Roosenschoon, from the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve (DDCR), as well as a host of other people, whom I will introduce to you as things progress.

I am still in Germany getting ready for the expedition and then I’ll be about a week ahead of you arriving in Dubai on 15 January. My number there should be [removed from online post for privacy reasons] and I will confirm this again once I have landed. Remember that this is for emergency purposes only (such as missing assembly). Once in Dubai, I’ll organise the cars, cook, food, camp, equipment, you name it.

Luckily Greg and Steve are very tidy and have created a beautiful storage space for us at the DDCR (see below for the space, Steve, Greg and yours truly from last year),

so my luggage, apart from a few pieces of clothing, looks like this.

My luggage

There’s some paperwork, of course, and in case you were wondering what all the snazzy Swarovski Optik gear is for, here’s a short explanation:

Spotting scope & tripod (the long things) are for looking at oryx bottoms (all will be revealed on site), as are the binoculars. The swish laser rangefinders (squarish things at the bottom) are for measuring the distance between yourself and the oryx bottom in a very accurate, sciency way.

Have you seen the expedition summary video we put together a while ago? Have a look below to get you in the mood. There are a few good-looking oryx bottoms on display too.

But enough of that. Get ready for lots of sand, sun and some tough work with Steve, Pete, Greg and I. You’ll need a break after your break after working with us for a week in the desert 😉

Safe travels and see you in Dubai

Malika

P.S. And as I pack my bags, news comes in of an accolade for our forthcoming expedition, which is named on today’s The Independent’s “Best Desert Adventure Holidays” list.

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Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia)

After almost most of the team took half a day off on sick leave, everyone had recovered by Thursday for the last day of activities.

Hendrik, Astrid and Ariane went out to check the newly set box traps and became the luckiest team members this year when three cheetahs appeared on the road in front of them. Two cubs with their mother, so we think that these were the ones from the picture we discovered three days ago.

When Hendrik, Astrid and Ariane arrived at box trap number 4, they found the gates down and were very excited when Jesaja told them to come close and have a look inside. A tortoise had been captured 😉

Our last full day of the expedition finished with an inventory and packing up before we all went out for our last 2012 expedition sundowner.

Kristina, Joerg and I, and everyone else involved in the expedition this year, would like to thank everyone who joined in and helped us this year. Even though the leopards eluded us on the later slots, we have achieved much and we could not have done so without your help. Kristina and I will stay on for a few more weeks to pack up and try to catch another leopard. The full results of the expedition will be written up by Kristina in the expedition report, which should be with you within the next 6-8 months.

For now we have put a selection of pictures below.

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Please do stay in touch and thank you very much again for your help. You could have chosen to spend it on a beach somewhere, but instead you came to help Kristina and Joerg with their work out here, and we all really appreciate this.

Best wishes to everyone and we hope to see you again on an expedition, some time, some place.

The Biosphere Expeditions team

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Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia)

We spent the last couple of days moving two box traps and then removing lots of thorns from ourselves. The traps are now set up where we spotted the big leopard on the camera trap pictures.

On Saturday we celebrated Gigi’s birthday with a cake in the morning. In the afternoon it was the job of Hendrik, Astrid and Ariane to browse through the camera trap pictures and we were all very excited when they found cheetah cubs with their mother, taken by on of the traps set up in the north east of our study site (see sites below for the picture).

This morning Christian had his first experience of a baboon grabbing his shoes while releasing it from one of our newly set box traps. No leopard so far…

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Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia)

Just in the time with a little rain and the sound of frogs, our seventh and last group arrived, then bravely survived the training and on their second day of activities found two fresh leopard tracks. Even though Joerg, Doug and Jan weren’t on the tracks & scats activity, they also found a fresh leopard and two hyaena scats. Well done everyone.

Have you ever had to change a tyre with elephants looking on? That’s what happened this afternoon. I also just received a text message telling me that we have another juvenile hyaena in our trap at Bergposten. It is probably the young female we caught a couple of days in that spot. Trap 3 is occupied by another porcupine as I write, so we are now busy releasing all these animals.

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Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia)

Apologies for the late farewell to group 6, but after the power party, we had a power cut at base after a heavy storm. Even though we did not catch a leopard during this group, we were all very excited on Thursday afternoon about our findings on the camera trap pictures. Another adult leopard is hanging around in the north and we are now aiming to catch that one with the help of group 7. Wish us luck and thanks for all your help group 6 and thanks for the all the laughs we had in the evenings 😉

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Update from our working holiday volunteering with leopards, elephants and cheetahs in Namibia, Africa (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/namibia)

Saturday morning Kristina, Jo and Mike had one of the rarest sightings you could have in Africa – a pangolin. Although covered in scales and looking like a reptile, a pangolin is actually a mammal. It is mainly nocturnal and feeds on termites and ants.

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Rare too over the last few days are our carnivores. But our box traps are surrounded by hyaena and leopard tracks, so we hope it is just a matter of time – fingers crossed!

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