Join our Carnivore Conservation Programme in the Kanaan Desert in Namibia as a volunteer and take part in research on the carnivores in the area, which include leopard, cheetah, brown and spotted hyena as well as other desert-adapted animals - [ Ссылка ]
Video transcript below:
Carnivore Conservation Programme, Kanaan, Namibia
Q: How long have you been a part of this programme?
Nicky Jacobs, Volunteer: ‘I’ve been here just under a week, five days. Very eventful, probably the best way to describe it! There’s been newcomers every day so we’ve done a lot of camera trapping, set a few capture cages out as well, game counts which are really cool because anything when you’re out in the field over here is incredible because the scenery is just…immense, the best way to describe it definitely.
Q: And what have your highlights been so far?
Nicky: 'Highlights so far…the stars! We did a sun-downer on top of one of the mountains here, basically we watched the sun go down. And the food is really good, like really good food. Just go for it basically is definitely what I’d say. There is nowhere like this in the world. You’ve just got to go experience it and you’ve got memories for ever'.
Q: And, any tips for you could give anyone coming on this project?
Nicky: 'Come open minded I think, don’t expect anything because something new happens everyday!'
Q: And, what sort of activities have you been taking part in?
Emily Legge, Volunteer: ‘Well normally it’s supposed to be really research based, but we had an incident with one of the cheetahs so we’ve been doing a lot with that and having the vet come down and be around the areas with the cheetahs making sure everything’s healthy so far. We’ve also done a few hikes, like checking camera traps, looking for hyena scat and spores, that sort of thing.
Q: And, a day in the life? Would you be able to give me a description of what time you get up, how the whole day would go from beginning to end? A typical day?
Remko Klein, volunteer: ‘I try to start at 7.30, and then it depends on the activities. Sometimes a hike, sometimes we do counts in the car, exploring, research, checking camera traps. We set up a trap gate last week, which was really interesting.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
Doug Anderson, research co-ordinator: ‘What we’re trying to do is put out some food which might attract the hyenas and by camera trapping we can monitor how much of a distance they will come, closer or further away from their normal den sites or latrine sites and that allows us to study their behaviour. The whole area here; we have on the North side one clan of hyenas and on the South side we have another clan, so by putting out food sources we can study their movements to see if this is a territory that they come to. If it’s not, by baiting it, we can see if we can start moving them into that territory. So, it allows us to figure out where they like to hunt and scavenge usually, and if this is an area that they don’t just use at all.
‘I mean this is an old one, so a cheetah’s I would say would probably be a blacker colour because they drink blood. So, this is probably going to be a leopard, but you can see in here there’s little bits of bone fragments and there’s a lot of hair so that’s obviously a clear indication that it’s a carnivore rather than an Oryx or anything else’.
