Tag: Volunteer elephant

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Thailand: Done

Update from our Elephant conservation volunteer holiday Thailand

The Thailand 2024 expedition has now ended and all citizen scientist have left base with a little sadness, but also a spring in their step and plans to join future expeditions. It’s suddenly gone very quiet here without them. Just the sounds of cicadas, children, chickens, dogs, a passing buffalo and the calming gurgle of the river.

The last few days saw us continuing to observe the elephants and record their behaviour, adding to the impressive dataset. The final day in the field was hot, but fortunately for us the elephants headed for the shade of the forest and the cool of the streams for most of the time and we all had a wonderful few hours watching elephants forage, explore, dust bathe, drink and interact: simply living the natural elephant life.

Over the course of the expedition, we collected 142 hours of records of elephant activity, calf development, types of plants eaten and association between individual elephants. We also completed two biodiversity transect surveys near to base. Scientist Laura is really happy with what we have achieved and in due course she will write up the results and conclusions from our data in the expedition report.

Our final hike back from the forest was great. We passed and greeted the locals sharing the same trail, by foot and motorbike, to get to the rice fields. We enjoyed the sight of butterflies, lizards and praying mantises.

I would like to thank the excellent team at KSES – Kerri, Laura and Cris – who hosted us, oversaw the science and gave us an insight into the world of captive Asian elephants released into their natural habitat. Thank you to Kanda, our young local guide who kept us safe and was always so warm and smiley. Thanks too to the villagers of Ban Naklang who fed and accommodated us in their home stays: Baw Eh, Tawahmoh, Nee, Jadee, Lujet and Seeva. And a big thank you to Neele, Anette, Stephen, Brandon, Jim, Rachel and Ed, the expedition citizen scientists who made this conservation research expedition such a success. You were a great team: hard-working, punctual, cooperative, appreciative of the value of the work we do here and altogether had a great attitude to the expedition. I hope to see you again on a future expedition.

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Thailand: Rain, sun and elephants

Update from our Elephant conservation volunteer holiday Thailand

We have settled into a good routine now. A one hour hike to the forest, setting off sometime between 06:00 and 10:00, depending on which period scientist Laura needs data for that day, followed by two or three hours of data collection with the elephants.

Once we find the elephants, we split into teams – generally one citizen scientist per elephant plus a team of two who will record where each visible elephant is in relation to the rest. If the elephants drift away from each other, we have to decide whether our teams should follow them or if it is more useful for us to watch from a distant vantage point. We need to be adaptable. On two days we have had to spend our time fighting through the jungle, following the elephants as they trample their way through thick vegetation. There is a real art to choosing where to go and when, in order to get a good view of your target elephant so you can record its behaviour, while keeping our distance for safety reasons (and to avoid annoying the elephant). It keeps you on your toes (or sometimes off your toes when you trip over terrain that the elephants find effortless to traverse).

Laura, the scientist is happy with the data we have collected so far and the team are operating well, whatever the time of day, weather and conditions.

The rain has stopped now and we are being reminded how hot it gets here when the sun is fully out and the air still. A good day for drying out. Tomorrow is our last day of data gathering – likely to be in the forest as the elephants will probably retreat from the open grass field when it gets too hot. But in the meantime, we have another bio-hike to do this afternoon: a transect survey of a path near our base, recording the numbers and diversity of insect life. After that – large helpings of good Thai food for supper, with perhaps a cold beer to celebrate another successful day completed on this expedition.

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Thailand: Elephants and insects

Update from our Elephant conservation volunteer holiday Thailand

Our first two days of research have sped by. The core activity involves hiking out to where the six elephants that we are studying live and observing them for a few hours. Working on different methodologies, we record each animal’s behaviour, how the elephants associate with each other and what plants they eat.

On both our research days, the elephants have been foraging in a large sloping field of tall grass, rather than in the nearby forest. Our best vantage point to watch them is on the opposite side of the small valley. This has the added benefit of a large shelter we can stand under when it rains. It rained incessantly all day today, but with that shelter, use of umbrellas and the upbeat attitude of our small team of citizen scientists, our spirits were high.

We happily watched and recorded the elephants as they foraged, explored, dust-bathed and interacted with each other. The two younger females tend to hang out together along with the 18-month old calf. The two adult bulls usually stay apart although one of them (father to the calf) does readily join the trio. The old matriarch tends to keep herself to herself.

With some spare time this afternoon, we carried out an extra research task. The appealingly named ‘Biohike’ is a transect survey of insects contributing to a long-term study of biodiversity in the area near our base, including habitats affected by elephants, which have a significant and long-term ecological impact as they trample, break up and uproot the vegetation as they pass through.

This evening we will be eating dinner with our homestay hosts and tomorrow it’s back to watching and recording the elephants. The expedition team is doing well.

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Thailand: Elephants

Update from our Elephant conservation volunteer holiday Thailand

The expedition has got off to a cracking start. The team assembled in Chiang Mai and travelled to base camp, all present and correct and on time: always a relief at the beginning of an expedition.

Day 1 was pretty full-on, simply with settling in, familiarisation with the base camp and the village, safety briefing and a lecture about the elephants and the work of Kindred Spirit Elephant Sanctuary. We even managed to squeeze in some initial training in the research methodologies we use on this expedition.

Most of the team managed to get some good sleep that first night, despite the unfamiliar nocturnal noises of dogs and geckos and the bustle of the village waking at dawn. We set off after breakfast to find the elephants. This involves a good hour’s walk over the bouncy suspension bridge, through the village, along the river bank, past rice paddies and corn fields and up towards the forest. There were plenty of insects, lizards and plants to distract us en route until finally we spotted the elephants half-hidden in a grassy field. It was a special moment to see five Asian elephants free-roaming and calmly foraging in front of us. The sixth elephant was the calf, ‘Junior’ who would have been somewhere near his mother or aunty – they tend to stick together as a trio – but hidden from our view in the tall grass.

We followed the herd as they wandered into the forest and at the first opportunity we paused and watched them from a safe distance so that scientist Laura could give us training in the field, putting into practice what we had learnt in the classroom the day before. It was very helpful for us to get a feel for how to carry out the research tasks when faced with the realities of observing elephants wandering around the forest, half hidden by the trees (or each other) for much of the time. It was a good reality check: conservation research is rarely neat, tidy and simple to do. And of course, it was an utter thrill to be up close with semi-wild elephants showing their fascinating natural elephant behaviour.

We returned to base for lunch, tired, hot, sweaty, but happy, ready for lunch and some more classroom training. Tomorrow we will return to the elephants and begin the research tasks for real.

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Thailand: From base

Update from our Elephant conservation volunteer holiday Thailand

I have made it to the expedition base: in the small village of Ban Naklang, west of Chiang Mai. The village is nestled by a river surrounded by forested hills: this is where the elephants live and where we will be hiking to carry out our research tasks every day. We stay in homestays in the village: wooden huts on stilts to keep them above any floods and
any unwelcome animals. The village life bustles with people, dogs, chickens, goats and the occasional motorbike. I was woken up this morning by the distinctive loud call of a tokay gecko living in my bedroom – somewhat startling if you don’t know what it is. 

Our base is simple, rustic , practical and comfortable. The main area is on stilts, with good views of the river, the village and lush vegetation. Colourful butterflies flit about and  lizards dart about the walls. The weather has been warm rather than hot and the occasional rain storm has passed through quickly. A small suspension bridge crosses the river to connect us to the village. It is excitingly wobbly but perfectly safe. 

The team here – myself as expedition leader along with the KSES staff: Kerri (manager), Cris (deputy manager) and Laura (scientist) have been busy preparing for the expedition: checking kit, reviewing protocols, printing documents and getting the base set up just right. Tomorrow we plan to go up into the forest to find the elephants so I can get the lay of the land. And on Monday – the expedition begins!

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Thailand: Chiang Mai

Update from our Elephant conservation volunteer holiday Thailand

It’s not long now until the start of the Thailand elephant conservation research expedition. I have now flown out to Chiang Mai on my way to our expedition base at KSES to get things ready with Kerri and scientist Laura there.

Chiang Mai at night is bustling and busy and there are no obvious problems from the floods a few weeks ago. Kerri tells me that the weather at our base  is cool in the mornings and hot in the day time. The clothing and kit listed in the expedition dossier will be fine. The elephants seem happy wandering around in the forest whatever the weather. 

A couple of practical things: Please make sure you get a ‘True’ SIM card with plenty of data on it, before you leave Chiang Mai (available at Chiang Mai airport) . And download the KoboCollect app on your phone. We will use this to collect data in the field. Also bring any old Android phones you have and download the app to this too before leaving.

I’ll send another update when I reach our expedition base. 

Roland Arnison
Expedition leader

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Malawi: 2024 wrap-up

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

Biosphere Expeditions has continued its long-term partnership with Lilongwe Wildlife Trust, researching and monitoring wildlife populations in Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve.

The Malawi expedition has a particular focus on surveying elephants and hippos, as well as camera trap surveys of other wild animals. Analysis of elephant dung was also carried out to assess whether elephants had been eating crops grown in fields outside the reserve. The 2024 expedition also continued the process started in the earlier expeditions of identifying individual matriarch and adult bull elephants. Building this database of individual elephants will help greatly in mapping the demographics, movements and health of the elephant herds in Vwaza.

The 2024 expedition counted 296 elephants over 34 sightings, 339 hippos over five complete lake-side transects and collected and analysed 24 elephant dung samples (yielding 1743 seeds). The expedition also identified or created 17 ID profiles of elephants, with at least one re-sighting. Seventeen camera traps throughout the expedition provided evidence of hyaena, civet, genet, two species of mongoose and honey badger, amongst other species.

Expedition Leader Roland Arnison, who also led the 2022 and 2023 expeditions in Vwaza, said that “this was another successful expedition, carrying out field research tasks that, practically, can only be carried out by a team of hard-working citizen scientists. I am confident that the results gathered from this expedition will make an important contribution to the conservation of endangered species and biodiversity in Vwaza”.

Head of Research at LWT, Dr Leandra Stracquadanio, who was the expedition scientist, said “the data that we collected during this expedition is invaluable for us to continue our monitoring of elephant and hippo populations, as well as the overall biodiversity within Vwaza. The team did an excellent job and produced high-quality data that will inform ongoing and future conservation planning.”

Citizen scientists feedback:

Roland and Lea and the team really made this entire experience incredible.
Kathy H., USA

It’s a great experience and I really felt us being here was useful.
Sanne W., Netherlands

Really enjoyed that each day had a different combination of activities. Really positive leadership by Roland and Lea.
Pam G., UK

The expedition was well set up and organised and there was not a day that I felt like something was out of place.
Glory M., Malawi

This is my fourth expedition to Vwaza Marsh with Biosphere Expeditions. Another wonderful experience, finished off with a very special visit from the elephants and their babies coming right past our campfire as we were having dinner on our last night.
Janet B., UK

Selection of pictures:

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Malawi: A last night to remember

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

The 2024 Malawi expedition has now finished and it ended in style. With our last research tasks complete, all the data entered and kit packed up, we enjoyed a well deserved sundowner on our last evening on the shores of the lake, watching the glorious red sunset. Back to camp for a farewell feast prepared by the expedition cook, Luca, which was interrupted by a startling loud noise coming from the dark very close to us. Elephants! A herd had quietly crept in and was calmly feeding on the trees only 10 meters away. We unpacked a red spotlight and watched with fascination and joy as the elephants spent the next hour or so wandering around the edges of our camp, utterly unfazed by us watching safely from our communal area. It was a magnificent and pretty emotional ending for the expedition.

Some headline achievements of the expedition are shown below.

Many of our elephant sightings have been from base camp. Some of the herds seem to have a tendency to wander down to ‘our’ end of the lake and the good grazing on the land opposite camp in the late afternoon. We often get only a few minutes to enjoy watching them wade through the shallows, drinking and bathing, then up onto the shore before they reach the tall vegetation where they are half hidden. In those precious minutes we need to count and do our best to characterise them by sex and age class. Using binoculars and cameras, we also look for any distinctive identification features such as notches on ears and tusk shape. In this way we can cross-reference with the Vwaza elephant catalogue created from our previous expeditions here and potentially add to the catalogue too.

We also collected all the camera traps and processed all the images. As expected, we have images of hippos and elephants (mostly just their legs, close up) as well as the antelope species we meet every day in the day time. But we also have evidence of quite a few nocturnal species: civets, genets, mongooses as well as a porcupine and a honey badger. All of these are significant, but none quite as exciting as the hyaenas we captured earlier on.

It has been a good expedition, and both myself and expedition scientist Lea are pleased with the quality and amount of data that the team has gathered. I would like to thank our all our citizen scientists who have contributed so much to this expedition and continued our mission of building up a good long-term research dataset on the wildlife at Vwaza, which will be shared with the reserve managers and others and published as necessary. Thank you!

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Malawi: Hyaena

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

We deploy camera traps to monitor which species live in Vwaza – especially nocturnal animals, which we would not otherwise spot. Some of these animals are caught on our cameras every year, but no less exciting to find anyway – civets, mongooses, genets and of course elephants and hippos (both wander the woods at night, feeding). But occasionally we capture an image of a rarer species. Two years ago we found the first ever evidence of wild dogs in Vwaza in this way. This year when we checked a camera we had set up facing an animal carcass, which we noticed had been dragged away, we found the culprit on camera: a hyaena! Interestingly, the images showed the animal investigating the camera rather than scavenging the carcass: hyaenas are known to show much interest in camera traps and sometimes even pull them off their tree and chew them to destruction. Although we have had evidence of hyaenas at Vwaza before (we spotted some footprints in the sand nearby at the start of the expedition), this is still a notable discovery.

We continue to see elephants daily, although there does seem to be a pattern of ‘good ele days’ alternating with ‘bad ele days’.

Our rest day involved a trip to the market town of Rumphi and a cultural visit to the local elementary school. We had prepared a very simple presentation for the children, which was translated by the teacher, telling them what we are doing here and hopefully inspiring them about wild animals. They in turn sang some songs for us. It was good to make a connection with local people like this.

We only have a couple more full days to go on this year’s expedition, but the team are working well and we are getting a lot of good data in. And tonight we will retrieve the remaining camera traps: who knows what animals we will find on those SD cards!

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Malawi: Elephants galore

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

We have been continuing our search for the elephant with the wire caught around her head, but she has proved elusive. In our efforts to find one particular elephant we have found many other elephants instead: a few small groups or solo males, as well as several family herds, big and small. We have enjoyed the sight of two family herds meeting each other at the water a few times. It is common amongst elephant communities to spend much of their time apart, but then meeting up occasionally, greeting each other with obvious interest and joy. Witnessing this, it impossible not to find the sight of excited baby elephants running around enchanting.

And we had two or three elephants visit our camp late last night too. They announced themselves only by the sounds of breaking branches, distinctive chomping, and some low rumbles, wandering amongst our tents. The elephants were amazingly peaceful: they were clearly aware of our presence and were here on their own terms, spending a few hours calmly feeding. It was a wonderful experience for those still awake, peering out of our mesh tent windows.

For those of the team who are at risk of getting bored by elephants – we had more excitement yesterday when a large herd of buffalo was discovered in the woods on one of our regular dawn research drives. Hippos, baboons, impala, kudus, warthogs and all sorts of birds are also commonly spotted.

Tomorrow is a planned rest day, although with a trip to the market at Rumphi and a visit to the local school planned in, there may not be very much resting happening after all.

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