We have completed three full survey days – writing this four teams are headed out in different directions for their last surveys of group 1. Wolf scat samples are piling up in the scat fridge downstairs, two of which appear to be good for DNA analysis. We’ve been blessed with perfect weather conditions, only some of us got wet on Monday during an afternoon downpour – but that’s what makes an expedition.
Even though almost every day teams “forgot” to pack different pieces of equipment – a printed map of the area, a tablet (!?), and who knows what else… they all managed and brought back from the field perfect recordings. We definitely have to work on that with group 2! Here are some field work pictures:
Intensive surveys make for interesting findings: One team found a handbag in the shrubs and dropped it at a police station nearby for further investigation. Two days later we were informed by the police, that the owner confirmed that it was stolen in 1990! She didn’t want it back … Let’s see what you will find, group 2. 🙂
With six intensive days behind us, we’re all pretty tired in the evening but have planned a bonfire for our last evening tonight before leaving NaturCampus on Friday morning. You will hear from me again tomorrow, when Lotte and I have wrapped up this week’s results.
We have successfully assembled and are currently making or camp. The team are in good spirits.We look forward to bringing you updates from this year’s Kyrgyzstan expeditions.
After two training days the first group is all set to go on proper survey walks from tomorrow on. We met up at Bremen airport on Saturday morning and from there went straight to visit the Wolfcenter Doerverden for a guided tour and close encounters with our study species.
We arrived at our lovely NaturCampus base in the afternoon. As usual everyone’s head was filled with more information about safety, procedures and equipment, wolf distribution & history in Germany, how to identify, measure, collect and record wolf scat and tracks.
This afternoon we finally went out on our first practicing survey walk. Unexpectedly we found two wolf scats one of which is fresh enough for DNA analysis. What a success!
Writing this it’s still early in the evening but the noises of people chatting outside have stopped. I guess everyone’s gone to bed early. Well done, group one – you’ll be well rested for four more days of intensive surveys and scat sampling. 🙂
Greetings from Bishkek. Expedition base is now ready for our first group of participants. At an altitude of almost 3000 m, the weather at camp is much cooler at night, around 4 degree celcius and warm during the day, the air is clear and snow is thawing from the surrounding peaks. There has been some rain making for a more interesting approach by vehicles (especially the truck).
Emil, Johnny and myself (Darran)- expedition scientist and both leaders are back in hot and hazy Bishkek collecting the last of the supplies. There will be ample wildlife spotting opportunities from the vehicle as we a approach camp, on the drive out we had a pair of Hoopoe follow the vehicle!
We look forward to meeting the first group of expeditioners in Bishkek tomorrow morning and traveling to the remote Tien Shan mountains. The drive will take approximately 10 hours, a packed lunch will be provided. In the meantime, don’t forget to grab any last minute supplies today before meeting 8am sharp tomorrow morning.
Lotte, Peter & I have arrived at NaturCampus Bockum and are setting up our wonderful expedition base for the next two weeks. We have just retrieved a wolf scat sample from the fridge downstairs collected by a former team member a week ago. Labeled properly it’s in the freezer now for later DNA analysis – thank god, the smell was unbearable!
!! Here’s an important update for all team members: There won’t be an overnighter activity this year for a very simple reason: the former far away study site is actually not far from our actual base at NaturCampus so that we can easily survey all areas within our regular time schedule. Please do not bring a sleeping bag, sleeping mat or tent with you – you won’t need it. !!
Other than that we have unpacked boxes, went throught timetables, lists and pieces of equipment. We’ll have it all sorted by tomorrow night – at least that’s the plan. 😉
We are looking forward to meet team 1 at Bremen airport at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday. Have safe travels & see you soon!
This is the start entry for the Germany diary. I am your expedition leader Malika and I will be making my way to the expedition base soon, a few days ahead of you.
After the 2024 sabbatical of the scientist, were back this year in search of wolves and their sign. I hope you have studied your dossier and your preparations are going well. On our side, all’s well and I will be taking most of the research gear up north (I live in the south of Germany) with me next week.
I will write again when I have arrived at our beautiful Manor House base. Until then…
Bishkek is hot, dry, sweaty, noisy and oh so Central Asia. On a clear day the views of the mountains are beautiful.
We’re shopping, meeting, talking with partners, doing paperwork, printing out datasheets, filling gas bottles, withdrawing cash, charging up and testing radios, sat phones and GPSs, and doing all the umpteen things that need to be done before an expedition can head out into the field. We have a few days of this still ahead of us until we can head into the mountains on Wednesday to set up base camp for you.
A couple of household points for the team:
There is a Globus supermarket a few minutes walk away from the Futuro assembly point hotel. It is open 24/7, takes cards and has lots of drinks and sweets and more. There will be plenty of food, tea, water and coffee at base, but no shops anywhere around. If you simply must have a can of lager in the evening or are addicted to Mars bars or similar, we recommend you stock up there before assembly (don’t be late tough!). Good luck with reading the labels 😉 Remember we are at base and away from shops for 12 nights.
I hope you have swatted up on the 2024 report, field guide and dossier. If you want to be ahead of the curve (the first two days of training will be tough, with lots of information thrown at you), then have a look at all the documents here, which I suggest you read at some stage or on your flight to come extra well prepared.
Welcome to the 2025 Tien Shan snow leopard expedition diary. I am Matthias Hammer, expedition leader for group 1 and the founder & executive director of Biosphere Expeditions. I am already in Bishkek, where it is hot and stifling (35 C yesterday). It will be different in the mountains – cooler and fresher.
The expedition scientist, Emil, and I have a week to prepare, go shopping, put things in place etc. before two more staff and expedition leaders – Jonny and Darran – arrive from the UK and Ireland respectively and we move out and set up base camp for you, before it all starts.
Matthias (left) and Emil
So this is just to let you know that things are proceeding as planned despite various crises around the world, and that we look forward to meeting you in due course.
At your end, please study your dossier as well as the 2024 report to make sure you come prepared. I hope you are getting excited and that your preparations are going well. I’ll be in touch again before we set up and once we’re back from setup.
Peter Thoem, a retiree from Canada, has participated in six expeditions so far. ‘I have time in my life, the health and the resources – so why not’ is his go-getter attitude in all this. This is why he started with expeditions and what he experienced on them.
‘Back in the day, when I was thinking about joining my first expedition to the Tien Shan mountains to study snow leopards, it was the opportunity to get into a really wild area. I could see that few westerners would ever get to see or experience the Tien Shan mountains and that the expedition might yield exciting results’, recounts Peter, ‘it was simply too good an opportunity to miss.’
And since then? ‘Tien Shan was just so thrilling’, says Peter, ‘and then the year after – in 2019 – there was the chance to do something equally useful in places as fascinating as the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve and Kenya’s Masai Mara. It deeply interested me’. So off he went to the Dubai Desert Conservation Reserve first and then a few months later to Africa for back-to-back expeditions in 2019 and 2020, just before the Covid pandemic brought everything to a standstill for a couple of years.
Peter with local rangers on the Kenya Masai Mara expedition
His most recent expedition was to the Azores archipelago, studying whales & dolphins from a catamaran.
When asked about lessons learnt on expedition, Peter’s answers are swift and precise, showing his enthusiasm. He believes that with good planning, an open mind, health and resources, you can do it, because ‘it’s a fascinating world out there’. And further that even if ‘our western comforts make us think that everywhere else is scary, it’s not. Yes, some places can be risky, even dangerous, but not everywhere else.’
When asked to summarise his experiences, Peter takes some time to think, smiling to himself and then says: ‘Sometimes it’s rigorous – we have work to do and protocols to follow, we have to understand what’s expected. We have to coalesce as a team and appreciate each other’s strengths and not-so-strengths. Then we have to find ways to work with the less committed – some are day-dreamers, others are bloggers who don’t always contribute much.’ But it always works out in the end: ‘We come from all corners of the world, some of us have even met before, because we’re committed to the Biosphere Expeditions ethic. And when I return, I always feel richer and profoundly privileged for having been to places and done things that I used to believe only existed in an Attenborough world.’
Peter’s most abiding memories include standing on the slope of a remote valley in Kyrgyzstan with a clear blue sky. ‘It’s just warm enough to unzip my jacket. I’m surrounded by yellow expanses of spring flowers, there’s rushing meltwater cascading off snow-draped mountains around me and I had to pinch myself. Is THIS really me? Am I really here?’
Or there is the time when Peter was on his middle-of-the-night-shift keeping watch over a waterhole in Kenya’s Masai Mara. There are elephants around and hippos lie in the waterhole, but it’s quiet except for the odd grunt, splash or snuffle. Then from across the valley comes a strange upside-down bark, like indrawn breath ‘EEeeeeYiP’. What’s that, Peter asks the ranger. ‘Hyaena’, the ranger replies and Peter’s spine tingles.
And most recently, in 2024, on the expedition boat off Faial, one of the islands of the Azores archipelago: ‘The sea is lively and we have to hold on white-knuckle tight’, remembers Peter, ‘we’re all doing our tasks as assigned when a blue whale is sighted. We slow down and carefully approach – again everyone does as instructed – gathering data: time, water temperature, sea-state; taking photos, watching, counting and more. And then we’re spell-bound. There in front of us, all but immersed, visible yet almost invisible is the world’s largest mammal. It blows a couple of times, then dives to depths that take it out of the realm of human comprehension.’
A blue whale: a spell-binding animal for Peter
With all those experiences, what impact have the expeditions had on Peter’s daily life, away from expeditions? Again, Peter does not hesitate: ‘I’m seen and known for having just come back from another exotic place. Where are you going next, people ask. I have a greater understanding and appreciation of the value of citizen science’. An appreciation that has contributed to a structured long-term project on bird populations close to Peter’s home (now in its 10th year).
And what about Peter’s connection to nature? Has this changed through the expedition experiences he’s made? ‘My connection with nature has always been strong’, Peter responds, ‘and I feel that I have a reasonable understanding of how the balance of nature all weaves together. The expeditions give me the chance to see some of those interactions and inter-relationships’. And Peter adds an example of this: ‘With Alan, our expedition scientist in Kenya, we watched a small group of impala ingesting mineral-rich soils. Alan was ecstatic, it was, he said, the first known-to-science example of geophagy (animals eating soil, usually for its mineral content) by impalas. My photos made it a publishable observation‘.
Impala geophagy at the Memusi mineral (salt) lick, photo courtesy of Peter Thoem.
The interview ends with the question of what Peter would tell others who are thinking about joining their first expedition. Peter laughs and just says: ‘If it appeals to you, then set aside your fears and just go do it’.
Find an overview of all upcoming expeditions here.
Also see Peter’s birding blog entries for Kenya and Arabia
