April 2009

I have now been a staff member for a month, and the best way to describe it thus far, is as a learning experience. I am enjoying living and working out in the African bush very much and all the challenges that come with. What do I do?
What does a Science Intern do? Hopefully I can shed some light on exactly what keeps me occupied pretty much 12 hours a day 6 days a week (one day to recover from the hangover after party night) within a few brief but enlightening paragraphs.

My job here on base is to keep our little world from falling apart physically, as well as to write inspiring, truly magnificent works that will be cherished for generations. That’s what I would like to believe anyway. Truthfully, the “science” part of this job is very entertaining for me and possibly a select few. The “science” is called spatial population dynamics and feeding ecology. I know, us scientists are cliquey, and we like to use big words to demonstrate how much we know about very little. Anyway, spatial population dynamics is the where, when and what of an animal’s movement. Where are they? When are they there? What are they doing? From these questions we can understand where the animal considers home, and what resources it is utilizing in that area. Feeding ecology is simply what the animal eats, and how what it eats impacts the ecology of reserve. So what does this process all look like? The volunteers (to which I was one from Jan-Mar) collect the data in the field. This is accomplished by tracking down the focus animal’s (lion, leopard, etc) location using radio telemetry. Each “collared” animal has a leather collar on its neck that broadcasts a very specific radio frequency which is the honed in on using a telemetry aerial. Once the animal is found, their position is recorded with GPS, and observations are taken (kills, full rating, behaviour, etc). Volunteers then take pictures and get to sit with the lions/leopards/cheetahs/hyenas/elephants and observe their behaviour (best part of the job). The data that they have collected then comes to me and I enter it into a big Excel spreadsheet from which I and the Science Officer make home range maps using ArcView software, analyze what the animal is eating, and any interactions it is having with other animals (which includes such fantastic conversations on which analytical method best depicts the home range of an animal Kernel home range, minimum convex polygons or local convex hulls – I truly feel for those who listen in). From this we write fantastic reports and articles, which should be read by everyone and their dog, but will most likely end up on a shelf somewhere collecting dust (oh well, at least I find it interesting).
Why is this important? Why go to all the work of tracking these predators? Why not just leave the reserve to function naturally? Good questions Nick. Unfortunately, no reserve or park ever function “naturally”, and in all cases it is there is always one commonality: fences. Fences create boundaries that are impassable to most animals, and prevent the important process of dispersion. Dispersion allows an animal to move to a more favourable location, whether it is for predator avoidance, resources or mating. Fenced in areas can also favour top predators especially lions. Lions excel in fenced areas because their prey is within a limited area, and readily available. Populations of lions can quickly expand out of control, which can decimate prey populations and even cause local extinctions. Lions are also intolerable of other predators, and can cause problems for the conservation of other predator species. For example, the wild dog population on Venetia was reduced from a pack of over twenty to three within a short time frame, almost all due to lion kills. This is just a minor example of how small reserves need to be managed closely to function properly. It is vital that these reserves do function, as most of the conservation in Africa is not through the big parks, but small reserves. These reserves are the last hope for many African species, as humans have divided and fenced most of Africa, and humans, like lions, are also very intolerable of other predators.

“The simple life”
You give up all your worldly possessions, move to the African bush to get away from it all and live the simple life, and no one tells you that everything breaks all the time. Since becoming a staff member I am working on my junior plumbing, electrical and mechanic certificates, as well as become a local expert on rat control. Life here is very rewarding, but it comes with a lot of work. My current project is to figure out why the solar power isn’t charging the batteries enough to run the lights in the camp (I am pretty sure it’s an amperage problem now). From this I have learned some valuable lessons, such as: when connecting batteries in series, one only has to connect the batteries positive to negative ONCE not twice. Just so you know, you can create your own arc welder if you do it twice with the load bearing lines attached, and melt pretty much anything you want.
Since the dry season has set in, food for little rodents has started to decline out there in the wild. So what better for those little guys then come to a nice home with lots of messy humans with all sorts of goodies: toothpaste, gum, shampoo, backpacks, bar soap, socks, and all sorts of other tasty treats. So the “simple” solution is set rat traps, which are murderously effective, when they work. The traps work perfectly maybe 1 out of 10 times. Usually it’s a leg, broken back, or a stunned rat banging around with the trap and pretty much always at 2 in the morning. So the real solution is Nick or Franco waking up, loading the air rifle, and euthanizing the little buggers. This isn’t just our tent, we get the cordial call from next door in the girls tent: “Nick, our trap caught something”. But that’s the job here at Venetia for Franco and I: keep the volunteers happy. Usually this just requires lots of booze and inventive drinking games, or us driving all the volunteers and us to the pool at Mopane Camp, but sometimes it requires cleaning a rat trap.
Rodents also attract snakes. The other day Franco and I had a female boomslang sneak up on us while relaxing on our recently built hammocks. Boomslang are one the most venomous snakes in Africa. A single microlitre of their venom can kill a grown human, and in a most unfavourable way. Their venom is hemotoxic, and once in your bloodstream, prevents your blood from clotting. At first, old cuts and scrapes reopen and start to bleed, and the bite area will bleed without stopping. Then after a few days you begin to bleed from all of your orifices, eyes, ears, mouth, nose etc. After that, internal bleeding takes over, and eventually death. Sounds like fun, eh? Anyway, this little lady was better than a meter long, and once she had seen us, decided to “hide” in between the concrete base and canvas wall of our tent. Franco took the lead and was able to successful negotiate the snake with a snake stick and moved the boomslang into a garbage bin. Boomslang are actually very docile, and this one didn’t strike at us once. We released it across the river bed without harm. Both Franco and I were quite pleased with the result. In the past there have been knob heads here who would rather shoot the snake then try to move it.

Wild dogs
Venetia is a special reserve because of the wild dog research and conservation that occurs here (wild dogs are critically endangered). Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) also works on the reserve with us, and they focus primarily on the dogs. As I mentioned, the pack has been beaten down pretty badly by the lions, and only three remain, an alpha female (Fender), another adult female and young male named Rory. Fender is collared and tracked. To increase the pack, EWT brought in two new unrelated wild dog males, with a definite alpha male. The hope is to increase the wild dog population, and with a recent lion cull last year, there should be more room for the dogs to move.
The dogs were brought in a couple weeks ago and released into a 2 acre enclosed boma. I had the great experience of helping out first hand, and moving the transport crates into position and releasing the dogs. It went all to plan and the dogs left the boxes like a shot. John (wild dog guy) from EWT feeds them impala every two to three days which he has shot on the reserve. We have come down to watch the dogs eat every so often. For such a small body frame they have tremendous grip strength in their jaws, and it is simple awesome to watch them tear apart an impala hind end. They also ‘yip’ happily once they have ripped off a chunk of meat and run off into the bush each tugging at it. The ‘yip’ is nothing one would expect, it sounds much more like a bird, with high pitched short squeaks. I love coming to watch the dogs, and I really hope that their addition to the pack here goes well.

Time rolls on
Time seems to moving faster, the volunteers here are switching reserves in a week. It feels like they just got here. It has been really great to share the staff role with Franco. I can’t really imagine trying to tackle all this work alone, and Franco and I have become really good friends. We joke around here about everyone coming to Africa to “find themselves” and all of the Dr. Phil bs. But in all truth, I have really found a great balance in my life here, and feel the best I have mentally and physically in a long time.

Until next month.