Wildlife ACT & Me

The sole purpose of this blog post today is to share my experience in South Africa with Wildlife ACT that I carried out after I finished my first year at the University of Gloucestershire. I figured that I needed to obtain some field experience early to make my chances of employability higher after I graduate and decided to go overseas for the summer. I searched endlessly for a reputable project in South Africa which will enable me to work with endangered species, especially with carnivores such as the African wild dog. I failed to find projects that particularly prioritised on those species and many of the projects I did find carried out bad practices with animal species such as lions where volunteers from overseas were bottle-feeding lion cubs, petting them and walking with them. I quickly decided that doing such things doesn’t at all contribute towards conservation and made sure I narrowed my searches to target the right sort of projects. With a little help from some friends and a lecturer from the university, I ended up finding an organisation called Wildlife ACT which stands for Wildlife (African Conservation Team).

I decided to join their ‘Volunteer with Endangered Species’ project located in KwaZulu-Natal, Zululand. This project was brilliant because Wildlife ACT doesn’t only prioritise on African wild dogs, but other species of animals such as Lions, Cheetah, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and Vultures too. The whole idea of coming out to South Africa was not only to get some more experience but to see if fieldwork is a career path I am likely to pursue as I continue with my studies. It is very easy to say you want to do something because you like the sound of it, but it is a whole other story when you end up doing that very thing and find out that it didn’t meet your expectations and become very disappointed. This project was perfect as it had a variety of different project locations which all had something unique to offer, These locations included: iMfolozi, Hluhluwe, Manyoni, Mkhuze, Somkhanda and Tembe Elephant Park.                                                                                            

At each project location, each of the camps only maintained six volunteers at a time and required the volunteers to stay at two-week intervals. What this meant is that after my first two weeks at the given project/camp, I would transfer to another one for my remaining two weeks.

For my first two weeks volunteering with Wildlife ACT, the Somkhanda Game Reserve was my first project location. Somkhanda is a relatively new project location for Wildlife ACT, and it had so much to offer. The group of volunteers what I was apart of were the third set to ever volunteer there at the reserve, meaning that whatever extraordinary things we accomplished for the conservation of the animals – we would have been making history.

Let me just put this straight to you people reading this right now – Fieldwork is NOT easy at all! There are early wakes in the morning and little to no sleep at times, the work is tiresome, there will always be a load of data input depending on the species you are working with or the project you are conducting, and it, unfortunately, will not make you wealthy. Let me assure you though that my four weeks with Wildlife ACT during July has been entirely worth it and despite all of the setbacks – the rewards are and have been plentiful!

Us volunteers had to work seven days a week primarily, and each day we were up around 05:00am to go out into the bush to monitor the animals. Morning monitoring sessions were about six hours long where we would return to camp at 11:00am to rest or input the data collected from our observations or footage on the camera traps. At 15:30/16:00, us volunteers would head out for our evening monitoring session where we would observe the priority species of animals which weren’t as active during the day and catch them when they were during (dusk). The evening monitoring sessions were also an excellent opportunity to observe the nocturnal species of animals.

Volunteering at the Somkhanda Game Reserve was a game-changing experience for me as I had the opportunity to see my first wild pack of African wild dogs, Lions, Elephants, Rhino and Vulture in the wild. Every other species of animal observed was a bonus too, and I made sure that I was like a sponge and soaked up as much of this experience as I possibly could. The monitors at Somkhanda were terrific, and they made my experience memorable and very special. There were only two monitors per reserve and the two which were at this camp where called Pippa and James. Pippa stood out for me as a monitor, as her passion, enthusiasm and knowledge of the bush and its wildlife was contagious.

I learned so many useful skills at Somkhanda such as telemetry skills, tracking skills, the set up of camera traps, making species-specific ID Kits, communication skills, observation skills, the ability to work in a diverse team and problem-solving skills also. There are probably tons of more skills which I have forgotten to mention here, but you will probably understand what those were if you experienced something like this too for yourself. One of the best highlights that I have experienced here at this camp was the opportunity to dart and collar/re-collar an African wild dog. One of the alpha dogs from the pack needed to get a new collar and the Wildlife ACT team called in a veterinarian to come to dart the dog so that Pippa could fit the new VHF collar. We carried out habituation procedures where we tied up meat for the wild dogs and played wild dog feeding noises. This process allowed the wild dogs to associate the vehicle as food and let the wild dogs trust the monitors and volunteers. In a realistic setting, this is of course not okay, but the veterinarian can only dart an animal at a particular range and bringing in a veterinarian costs extreme amounts of money. Wildlife ACT as an organisation isn’t the type to waste money and would instead do things the most effective way which benefits the animals from what I experienced with them already in my short stay at this reserve.

Having the opportunity to see such an endangered animal up so close and personal and assist in this process has been such a privilege and is by far the highlight of my career. Each day in the bush was never the same, and there were days where we saw none of the animals which we were searching for and monitoring. That is the reality of the field, and I guess it is something one has to understand. By the time I knew it my two weeks at Somkhanda had already passed and it was time for transfer where I will get dropped off to my next project location. 

African wild dog darting/collaring/re-collaring

For my remaining two weeks here in South Africa, I travelled to a new project location called Manyoni, which was a private game reserve. This project location was pretty decent as they focused on a variety of animal species that Somkhanda didn’t. For example, here at Manyoni, they monitor Cheetah as this reserve is much bigger and has more space/right habitat for them. At the Somkhanda Game Reserve, the Wildlife ACT team consider African wild dogs, Lions, Rhino, Leopard, Elephant and Vultures their priority species, whereas here at Manyoni they have at least 25+. These species of animals included:

• Wild dogs
• White rhino
• Black rhino
• Cheetah
• Lion
• Elephant
• Serval
• Leopard
• Spotted hyena
• Brown hyena
• Caracal
• Buffalo
• Grey duiker
• Red duiker
• Reedbuck (common and mountain)
• Red Hartebeest
• Blesbok
• Rock hyrax
• Aardvark
• Porcupine
• Spotted genets
• Leopard tortoise
• Honey badgers
• White-tailed mongoose
• Black-backed jackal
• All vulture species (white-backed, lappet-faced and hooded)
• Rare bird species (secretary birds, martial eagles).

As you can see from above, there was far richer biodiversity here at this reserve and chances of seeing these animals were at a much higher probability than it was at the Somkhanda Game Reserve. My monitors here at Manyoni were also very inspiring and knowledgeable of the bush too, and they were called Dani and Nico. What I loved most about my experience here at Manyoni was the opportunity to see African wild dog pups in the wild for the first time. The wild dog pack here at Manyoni isn’t big at all as it only contains the alpha male and female with their three pups making them very vulnerable indeed. The wild dog pack at Somkhanda had five individuals making them a much stronger and advantageous pack of wild dogs. Observing these wild dogs and carrying out habituation processes which were similar to the process carried out at Somkhanda which lead to the veterinarian coming in and dart the dogs was such a thrilling and rewarding experience.

A female cheetah was darted and collared/re-collared on my third day at the reserve which was a pleasant surprise for us all. Having the opportunity to be up close to such a vulnerable, yet spectacular species was a treat indeed. Coming out to South Africa and experiencing field work first hand has allowed me to see that there is so much to wildlife conservation than I knew. One of my lectures at my university called Prof. Adam Hart told me to ‘soak up the environment and the experience and the approaches of the many different people you’ll meet. Conservation is a broad church once you move into the wider world and what seems obvious and simple tends to reveal itself as something much more complex.’ As the days went by in the bush and I continued to observe these spectacular animals and carry out all of this fieldwork, I began to notice that everything that Adam said was entirely accurate.                                                              

The world needs great people like you that are willing to make a change for the conservation of species and the preservation of our beautiful planet!

Check out Wildlife ACT's website for information on how you could contribute towards the conservation of endangered species of animals HERE 

You can also check out my BLOG to view the images associated to this blog post. For some particular reason the format of The Outbound is not compatible to my style of writing.