Tag: volunteer Malawi

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.

Continue reading “Malawi: Elephants galore”

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!

Continue reading “Malawi: Elephants, hippos and pelicans”

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

The 2024 Malawi expedition has started! The team of elevencitizen scientists arrived late on Sunday, a little delayed by inevitable bad roads and a misunderstanding by the fastidious guards at the Vwaza Wildlife Reserve gates. But they arrived in good spirits. It wasn’t long before the team were settled into base camp and rewarded with a good supper after their long journey from Lilongwe.

We have now completed day 1 of two days of training in how to operate safely in this environment and how to do the scientific research. The day’s training ended with a hike along the lakeside, accompanied by an armed ranger, to practice the hippo transect methodology and also to get a feel for our research area. We came across plenty of hippos including the sight of a bull hippo chasing off an interloper in the lake, dramatically splashing through the water like clumsy dolphins. The team successfully recorded the information they needed to for the hippo transect. We also spotted the clear tracks of a hyaena in the sandy vehicle track by the lake – a significant discovery as hyaenas are rarely seen here in Vwaza.

Crocodiles were spotted on the edge of the lake, along with egrets, ibises and spoonbills. We saw impala and kudu in the distance along with a trio of warthogs. By the time we walked back to base camp, we came across a massive troop of yellow baboons in the warm evening light and as the sun set, some of the hippos were beginning to venture out of the water to head off to spend the night wandering through the bush, browsing the vegetation.

This evening some of the team have headed off in two off road vehicles to place the remaining camera traps, armed with spotlights to see what nocturnal animals are out there.

Tomorrow will be focussed on the elephant research methodologies. I am crossing my fingers that some elephants will make an appearance, to help with the training.

Continue reading “Malawi: Training”

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

Chimwemwe (one of our two field assistants) and I have arrived at base camp at Vwaza Marsh, as an advanced party to get it ready for the expedition. It’s looking good. We will now get all the expedition kit and systems sorted before you arrive on Sunday. Before then, we expect the arrival of expedition scientist Lea, field assistant Wanangwa and cook Luka, some time tomorrow.

It’s great to be back here at Vwaza. The weather is hot: our new digital weather station reports a maximum of 32 degrees, but breezy. No problems with mosquitoes or tsetse flies so far. The baboons are prevalent at base camp – I had to chase a cheeky big male out of our living area just now. We have also seen many hippos and kudus and many birds (heard and seen). I haven’t spotted any elephants yet, but the guys here tell me they are around and have even come through base camp recently.

Chim and I are setting off soon to place some of the camera traps and I fully expect we will see some more wildlife on our evening excursion – maybe even our first elephant encounter.

Continue reading “Malawi: Vwaza”

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

Less than a week until the expedition starts, and preparations are going well for the Malawi expedition.

I have arrived in Lilongwe and Malawi has welcomed me back as an old friend! It’s good to be here again. It’s pleasantly warm – comfortable T-shirt weather.

I am enjoying listening to distinctly African bird calls even here in the city.

I am now checking kit and reviewing plans with expedition scientist Lea and the rest of the LWT team, before heading up to base camp at Vwaza in a couple of days.

I even had enough time to pop over to LWT’s wildlife rehabilitation centre in Lilongwe and meet some of the wildlife species we will encounter (yellow baboons) or might encounter (spotted hyaena) at Vwaza.

Robert from LWT is already at Vwaza making sure the camp is ready for us.

I will send another update when I get to Vwaza.

Continue reading “Malawi: Lilongwe”

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

The Malawi 2024 expedition is fast approaching and I’m really looking forward to leading it again this year. I will be heading out to Malawi and to our base camp in Vwaza a week or so before the expedition starts, working with our partners to get everything ready.

We will be continuing the same research tasks we have carried out in previous years, with a big focus on elephants and hippos. But we also record other wildlife of interest, including the wonderful, colourful, lyrical birdlife. To identify birds and to record miscellaneous wildlife on the expedition, it will be very helpful if you could install two free apps on your phone before you get to Vwaza. You can find them on Google Play or the Apple App Store on your phone, or click the links below:

iNaturalist: iPhone I Android
Birds of Africa: iPhone I Android

After you have installed Birds of Africa, you will need to create an account, and then tap the ‘Countries’ button and download the Malawi dataset. This is a pretty big file, so best do it when you fast internat, and allow some time.

Apart from that, just read the the 2023 report and the expedition dossier (again), including the kit list and start getting excited! More updates to follow from Malawi in a week or so.

Roland Arnison
Expedition leader

Continue reading “Malawi: Ready, apps, go”

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

Biosphere Expeditions have continued their long term partnership with Lilongwe Wildlife Trust (LWT), researching and monitoring wildlife populations in the Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve in Malawi.

The two post-Covid expeditions in 2022 and 2023 have had a particular focus on 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 2022 expedition also included a project to identify invertebrates in different habitats, as potential food source for pangolins. The 2023 expedition began the process of identifying individual matriarch and adult bull elephants. Building this database of individual elephants will greatly help in mapping the demographics, movements and health of the elephant herds in Vwaza.

The 2022 and 2023 expeditions between them counted 676 elephants over 64 sightings, 1144 hippos over 10 complete lake-side transects and collected and analysed 66 elephant dung samples (yielding 3110 seeds). More than 80,000 camera trap images were analysed, giving evidence of notable species rarely seen directly, including leopards, honey badgers, hyaena and wild dogs. The 2023 expedition also created 16 ID profiles of individual bull and matriarch elephants.

2023 expedition leader Roland Arnison, who also led the 2022 expedition, says “our citizen scientist did really well. They were quick at learning from the research methodology training, worked well as a team, and were diligent and dedicated in carrying out the research tasks every day. I am very grateful to them.”

LWT’s field research coordinator, Benni Hintz, said, “Data are absolutely critical to conservation, which is why we were thrilled to partner with Biosphere Expeditions for another year of wildlife monitoring work in Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve. Thanks to the efforts of Biosphere Expeditions’ citizen scientists we were able to expand our knowledge of the movement, health and composition of wildlife populations in the reserve – particularly elephants and hippos – and had a lot of fun along the way! We’re very grateful to everyone for their hard work during yet another successful expedition.”

Continue reading “Malawi: Round-up 2023”

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.

Continue reading “Malawi: End”

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

Following the drama and emotion of the attempted elephant rescue (see previous blog), our expedition has largely settled back down into its regular research tasks. We have completed several transects along the lake shore now, counting hippos: enough for Benni to get at least an estimate of hippo numbers, locations and demographics. Elephant surveys are more opportunistic and we find herds and loners all around our side of the lake, and often right in front of us at base camp. On one night, a small herd crossed very close to our camp fire (they seemed unconcerned) – and got very close to our tents. With all elephant sightings we do our utmost to record as much detail as possible about the herd, down to noting unique identifiers on individual animals – notches in ears, hairiness of tail and more. This takes time and concentration and works well when we have a few citizen scientists working together, with binoculars, clipboard and a handful of essential gadgets.

The camera traps have already given us some exciting results, along with live sightings of animals we encounter when we visit the camera traps at night. Last night, a large porcupine got a fright when it walked into the track ahead of us: we got a good view of its massive spines as it marched up the track until we turned the headlights off and it wandered off into the woodland. A moment later we spotted an eagle owl, a mouse gripped tight in its talons.

Analysing the camera trap images can be an emotional exercise: flicking through hundreds of photos of waving grass is worth it for the occasional bursts of excitement on discovering evidence of iconic animals. Hyaenas and leopards have been caught on camera alongside the more expected antelope, mongoose, civets and genets.

Tonight a small team will try and record further evidence of spotted hyaenas by playing audio recordings of various animals in distress: a known research technique that can persuade a nearby clan of hyaenas at least until they get close enough to be seen in our spotlights.

We still have a few more days of research before the end of the expedition. If we carry on as we have been doing, we will have a very good set of data and scientist Benni will be happy.

Continue reading “Malawi: Research continues”

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

Our rest day was not as restful as expected. The expedition team visited a local primary school , as planned, to tell them why we are here in Vwaza. Due to the age of the children and the need for translation, we delivered a pretty basic but fun talk about wild animals and valuing wildlife, which the school children and teachers seemed to appreciate. To extend the cultural exchange, we were invited to watch one of the community’s regular dance performances in the school grounds, which inevitably, and to much laughter all round, we all ended up joining in.

The rest day did not end there. We had had reports of a very lame young elephant seen in Vwaza, and one of our research teams had themselves spotted what looked like an injured juvenile, lying immobile on the ground next to its mother, but separated from the rest of its herd. A team of two LWT wildlife vets were dispatched from Lilongwe and leapt into action pretty much as soon as they arrived at Vwaza. Working with vets, and some local rangers, we made a plan to search the lakeside area to try and find the injured elephant (wounds caused possibly from being caught in a poachers snare, a common hazard for elephants) so that the vets could dart the youngster and its mother and inspect and treat any wounds. We searched until dark, and found a herd but no obvious sign of our target elephant.

Our search continued at dawn the next day – with no more success – before the unexpected news that a helicopter was available locally and immediately for our use for this rescue mission. Things happened rapidly after that. The chopper pilot and the two vets flew on a search pattern, while the rest of us formed a ground crew in two 4x4s ready to help as needed. Within ten minutes, the helicopter team had located the injured elephant, separated it from its mother and successfully darted it. By the time we arrived on scene, the anaesthetised animal had been stabilised and checked by the vets. The young elephant had such a bad wound on one foot – and septicaemia caused by the injury – that the vets made the decision to euthanise it, to avoid a slow and inevitable death.

We humans were sad, but this is just one of the many jobs that need to be done in conservation and its endless quest to protect and support endangered wildlife.

As we always say: Expect Plans to Change. And now, its back to our regular research work, probably – but not definitely – without any further dramatic interruptions.

Continue reading “Malawi: Elephant death”