Wildlife Research Internship

June 2022

Limpopo, South Africa

CONTEXT

The summer of 2022 I participated in a 2-month internship based in Limpopo, South Africa as an intern with Global Vision International (GVI) a conservation NGO. The research base camp is found within the Karongwe Private Game Reserve (KPGR) which was once made of separate portions of fragmented farmland. In 1998 a conservancy was formed to create the now 8500-hectare wildlife reserve.

Karongwe is located near Hoedspruit, a small rural town within the Kruger Canyons Biosphere. Although this region only represents ~1.4% of the land in South Africa, it contains 55% of the total biodiversity found on the subcontinent. There is a total of 229 different mammal species in South Africa from large charismatic carnivores and mega-herbivores, to small herbivores, insects and birds.

MY WORK

I worked for two months at the GVI base located within Karongwe Private Game Reserve (KPGR) in the Limpopo region of South Africa. As an intern, I was part of the team helping to track and collect data on the large carnivores and mega-herbivores of the reserve daily, monitoring spatial utilisation, feeding ecology and interspecific interactions.

The information gathered is vital for assisting in reserve management decisions and data is also shared with various conservation research projects, including those run by the Endangered Wildlife Trust and a number of Universities worldwide. Volunteers also work in the community providing support in schools with environmental education aiming to promote and assist with responsible and sustainable conservation of the local ecosystem.

The research that I conducted included:

1) Determining and monitoring predator numbers.

2) Monitoring the feeding behaviour of large predators and how this impacts prey densities and population dynamics.

3) Monitoring spatial utilisation of predators and intraspecific (Same-species) interactions such as competition and relationships.

These factors are all important for the well-being of the ecosystem as predators regulate ecosystems by consuming prey and limiting the amount of grazing on the land. Without a well-balanced predator: prey ratio, ecosystems can collapse. This usually occurs when an 'apex' predator (often a carnivore) goes extinct or has a small population which is insufficient to keep herbivores in check. Overgrazing leads to stunted vegetation growth and lower recruitment of mature/reproducing individuals. Over time this becomes problematic as plants are the base of all food webs, providing the first input of energy for an entire system.

SKILLS

During game drives interns learned to service and sort through camera trap data. This involved replacing batteries every two weeks and the SD cards are swapped out. Back on base the images are sorted through and any frames with animals in shot are recorded on a spreadsheet. This data is all sent to the warden who is in charge of publishing weekly progress reports on the state of the wildlife on this reserve. Some other skills that we learned were:

• Telemetry- Specialised GPS tracking equipment to locate focal individuals from the main species (cheetah, leopards & hyena).

• Vehicle duty/check- Checking the car's fluids, tire pressures, and loading on tools in case they're needed for road clearing (elephants often knock over trees which block the path).

• Spotlight/kill cam- On night drives you are in charge of patrolling the car's surroundings for nocturnal animals and any live hunting activity.

• Data entry- Volunteers/Interns sit in the passenger seat and use a spreadsheet to record the number, age, sex and habitat of the focal species (Large felines, buffalo, elephants, rhinos and birds of prey). These are either observed out on a drive or called in on the radio by other game reserve drivers.