Tag: wildlife conservation holiday

Posted on

Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)

Everyone passed their Reef Check tests and we have not looked back since. Checking those reefs already seems to be working like Swiss (or German?) clockwork, plus or minus a few air, weighting and underwater overtaking issues. We’ve had lots of HC, some SD, RB, RC and very few SC, OT and SP. Those in the know will know what I mean.

The weather is balmy, the landscape (above and below the waterline) stupendous, the water reminiscent of a bathtub and the company entertaining – especially if and when Kathy and Alison manage to take a breath when talking to each other. Rita seems to be happy, but tired, and making her happy (by feeding her lots of data) is what we are here for after all.

We will spend the next two days doing more of the same. Thank you everybody for contributing your time and money to researching these Musandam reefs in order to get them protected. I think we all agree that they really deserve it.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Continue reading “Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)”

Posted on

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

The sun now rises at 06:15, so on Tuesday we left camp at 06:00 for our vehicle game counts. When group 2 passed box trap 4, there was a young male hyaena in it, this time one we had caught three weeks earlier. This was the sixth hyaena capture within five slots. It seems there are at least four individuals roaming on the farm.

Sunrise

It gets pretty hot during the day now and we observed that even the elephants are now taking a siesta. Our “man power” group 1 volunteered to cut thorny bushes on Monday afternoon and Bob came back looking like he had been in a serious fight. Thanks for the effort!

Yesterday morning we changed the SD cards of most of our camera traps and in the afternoon Anja, Suse and Susanne will have the pleasure of looking through at least 3000 pictures.

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

Posted on

Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)

Day two of our coral reef research expedition and the team has left Dubai, crossed the border into Oman and installed itself on the liveaboard.

Research team
Research team

Rita, our scientist, is in full teaching swing, has us hanging off her every word and our heads reeling with groupers, snappers, banded-coral shrimp, bleaching averages, black- and white-band disease, and more! When you read this, most of us will be sweating it out in our first exam (on fish). Only those who pass are allowed to collect data. Luckily Rita is a very good teacher.

Rita in full teaching swing...
Rita in full teaching swing…
...with students hanging off her every word ;)
…with students hanging off her every word 😉

The diving has not been bad either. Coral Gardens is as beautiful as ever and with over 90% hard coral cover still more than deserves the name. Anyone here who knows a site anywhere in the world with higher hard coral coverage?

Coral gardens

Continue reading “Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)”

Posted on

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

The juvenile hyaena we have caught in a box trap twice already seems to like them. Last caught on Tuesday, she was in the box trap again Wednesday morning. We let her go and then decided to remove the trap from Bergposten.

Anja and the two Susannes found an emaciated kudu at one of our waterholes on Wednesday. By Thursday nature had taken its course and the kudu had turned into a carcass, already half eaten by predators. We decided to set up the box trap next to it (see below), but no action so far.

Stephanie, Eva, Michael and Julia were very lucky when surveying the waterhole on Thursday. A honey badger came along, but realised after a few seconds that human eyes were watching and disappeared. On their way back they also witnessed a Southern pale chanting goshawk catching a snake…another great sighting!

Goshwak & snake
Goshwak & snake

Bob had the job of cleaning a box trap yesterday; to make up for it we went out for a night drive after dinner 😉

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

Posted on

Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)

Have you ever wondered what an expedition packed up looks like? Probably not. And yet the answer is below.

Musandam expedition boxed up and ready to go
Musandam expedition boxed up and ready to go

Adam (my sidekick) and I have arrived in Dubai and spent the morning going through the kit list and checking everything is there. It was, so our shopping list for this afternoon is simply a laminator, HP 121 printer cartridge, bungees, Nurofen, zinc oxide tape, nasal spray, antihistamine cream. Exciting – not!

Our scientist Rita has also just arrived at our hotel and as I type this, she is going through the emergency numbers and procedures with Adam, updating things as necessary. It’s all the usual pre-expedition fun and games.

The weather? Have a wild guess. Blue skies and temperatures of around 30 degrees Centigrade. Welcome to the Middle East.

See you tomorrow in the lobby at 09:00 and let’s go check those reefs!

Continue reading “Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)”

Posted on

Update from our snow leopard conservation expedition to the high mountains of the Altai Republic in Central Asia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/altai)

We thought you might all like to see a piece of news from the Wild Cat News of the International Society of Endangered Cats (http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Wild-Cat-News-Newsletter.html?soid=1101677680798&aid=crQ7iXapKRQ#LETTER.BLOCK17)

Volunteers Find New Data on Pallas’ Cats

Last month, Biosphere Expeditions returned from another successful wildlife conservation project in the Altai Mountains of Asia with some very exciting findings.

Biosphere Expeditions is an international not-for-profit organisation which co-ordinates regular wildlife conservation projects where volunteers from around the globe can take part – enabling them to see parts of the world they might not otherwise be able to, while giving something back.

Their latest expedition to the Altai Mountains was primarily focused on gathering information about the endangered Snow Leopard. However, this year they made a rather significant discovery. By laying camera traps and tracking scrapes, they found that the Pallas’ Cat climbs to much higher altitudes than previously thought.

Pallas' Cat camera-trapped by Biosphere Expeditions research team at 3100 metres
Pallas’ Cat camera-trapped by Biosphere Expeditions research team at 3100 metres

This information will enable local conservation groups such as WWF Russia and Arkhar NGO to gain a better understanding of the behaviour of the local wildlife in a mountainous habitat, where many threatened or endangered species live.

The Pallas’ Cat has been classified as “Near Threatened” by the IUCN since 2002, so any new information that can be compiled about them will contribute to better conservation of the species and their habitat.

The expedition to Altai sent five groups of volunteers for two weeks at a time to support Biosphere and the local conservation teams.

Continue reading “Update from our snow leopard conservation expedition to the high mountains of the Altai Republic in Central Asia (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/altai)”

Posted on

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

Eleven people for group 5 have arrived. Poor Bob is the only native English speaker in the whole team amongst seven Germans, two French and a Swiss. But Bob is coping very well so far. I feel like we have made a trip back in time to group 3: the non-driving group (Catherine, Stephanie, Susanne & Eva ) went out Sunday afternoon and activated the box trap at Bergposten while everyone else was busy learning how to drive our Land Rovers.

Then on Tuesday, our first day with research activities after the training phase, the box trap group had to check Bergposten and found a hyaena in it. On our first day! Does this sound familiar,  group 3? If it is, then wait until you hear that it was the same juvenile hyaena we caught and took blood samples of in your group. So we let her go straight away.

Also very lucky were the groups that were on elephant survey yesterday as both groups came across the white rhino family with their offspring. We don’t see them very often!

White rhino family
White rhino family

Another great piece of news was delivered by Christian (the landowner) who rang Kristina on Monday to tell her about two leopards (a female and a male) he observed for about ten minutes not far from his house in the morning. Guess where we set up the next box trap…

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

Posted on

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

The last few days have been very busy. On Tuesday morning we checked the box traps on our vehicle game count and in box trap number 3 (where we caught our big male leopard) we found a small juvenile hyaena. We first thought that this might be the female we had caught at Bergposten three weeks ago, but when she turned out to be a he, we decided to get some blood samples and measurements on Saturday. He was sedated, weighed, measured and then placed back into the box trap and finally released when he was fully awake just before dinner.

Hyaena capture & processing
Hyaena capture & processing

We didn’t expect to find so many different hyaenas in this study area and this is very interesting additional data about the other predators on the farm, thanks to all of you being our constant eyes, ears and data collectors in the field. Yesterday was group four’s last day. We spent it cleaning up, entering data and having a few farewell drinks in the evening. Thanks to all of you for your help and your kind words. Safe travels back home. Roll in group five.

Data entry
Data entry

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

Posted on

Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)

Good news from Muscat, where I have had some high-level meetings with goverment decision-makers about creating a Musandam Marine Protected Area. It’s early days and I can tell you more about it when we meet, but it was an important step forward. The next step is you collecting more data!

Other than that we are pretty much ready for you. T-shirts and Reef Check materials printed, MS Sindbad is being made ready, supplies are being bought and I have done most of my packing.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I’ll be on the A380 from London next Friday. My UAE number (on Sat/Sun 6/7 October) will be xxx and my Oman number (from 7 October p.m. onwards) will be xxx. Remember these are for emergency purposes (such as missing assembly) only.

See you next Sunday.

Continue reading “Update from our SCUBA diving volunteer opportunity & conservation holiday on the coral reefs of the Musandam peninsula, Oman (www.biosphere-expeditions.org/musandam)”

Posted on

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

On Friday morning we had an early start to count prey animals just after sunset. Soon group 1 (Jesaja, Linda, Allyson and I) came across a very fresh leopard track close to where we caught our male two weeks ago. Then, just after we had finished our vehicle game count, Allyson and Linda spotted a freshly killed impala next to the road. We decided to set up a camera trap on the spot straight away. On our way back to camp after setting the trap, we found more fresh tracks: cheetah this time.

The new camera trap yielded great pictures straight away (see below) with two different leopards feeding on the carcass at different times. A female leopard was there first and a few hours later our recently collared leopard male “Omusamani” took over. It seems the kill is the perfect new spot for live trapping. As I write this one trap is already set up. The second one is being set up as I type by our research team, who decided to give up their free day. Thank you.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

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