Last stop, Namibia. A much drier climate and arid/desert landscape this time. The country reminds me somewhat of Western Australia, with its vast open spaces, seemingly never ending vacant roads and beautiful canyons. As soon as I arrived, I couldn’t wait to explore more.
After a relaxing day at Chameleon Backpackers and grocery shopping in town, I was ready to embark on my next adventure: volunteering with the charity organization N/a’an ku sê, which was founded by conservationists Marlice and Rudie Van Vuuren and is apparently sponsored by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. The Foundation consists of the main Wildlife Sanctuary, located about 45 min drive Northwest of Windhoek, three Carnivore Research sites (Mangetti in the Northeast, Neuras & Kanaan in Southwest Namibia), and a Lifeline Clinic in East Namibia. I only spent one week at the sanctuary, in between going to the various research sites (which I will talk about later) as I am most interested in the conservation work. As soon as I arrived, I realized this volunteering experience would be very different from the previous two since at least 60 volunteers were busying about. The majority of them younger than 20 and on a gap year, which on occasion made it feel more like summer camp and to be honest, quite often made me feel old J. All the volunteers at N/a’an ku sê come from different backgrounds leading to interesting conversations, but this also means most of them are simply in it for the fun adventure, cheap “safari”, to party or for the sake of volunteering instead of a genuine interest in working in wildlife conservation. N/a’an ku sê is a clear example of volunteer tourism, especially compared to the previous two projects I volunteered with.
When I first arrived, the sanctuary was infested with hairy caterpillars and everyone was covered in extremely itchy rashes, driving them crazy and sometimes even to the hospital. Thanks to the fact that I did not spend much time at the sanctuary and was lucky enough to stay in a room instead of tent, I only felt a bit itchy and got away with just one rash on my stomach. But even now that I’m writing this, about 1.5 months later, the hairs and cocoons are still around causing havoc. Hopefully not for much longer.
The majority of the work at N/a’an ku sê revolves around human-wildlife conflict mitigation, particularly related to carnivores. The sanctuary provides a safe haven for animals in need, and permanent home when rehabilitation is impossible. This is often the case when animals have been held in captivity for too long (and/or from a very young age) and have become habituated to humans. Basically this means they have lost their fear of humans and associate them with food, so they could pose a severe risk to themselves and humans if they were to be released. Currently there are a number of wild dogs, cheetahs, leopards and lions in permanent captive care at the sanctuary, which need daily feeding (mostly horse meat) and this is one of the volunteer activities. Many of them were brought to the sanctuary as cubs, after having been caught by farmers and used as bait to lure and kill the parents, who may or may not have been responsible for livestock killings. It makes you sad hearing some of the stories. Although N/a’an ku sê always strives to release the carnivores they rescue, many challenges need to be overcome first such as finding a property where they can be released since most of the land in Namibia is privately owned by farmers, as well as obtaining a release permit from the Ministry of Environment. During my short time at the sanctuary, I was very fortunate to witness one of the success stories. A leopard that had been caught at young age by a farmer was finally being released after having stayed at the sanctuary for more than 1 year. Marlice, Rudie and a camera crew came down for the occasion and we were able to see the leopard get darted and collared before being released on another farmer’s property the next day. Collaring of the leopards generates important information about their territory, behavior and predation pattern. It is also a way to get the farmers involved by sending them regular updates, and to prevent interference with livestock. Afterwards, about half the volunteers (including myself) joined the vet to dart two younger leopards who were being moved from their smaller temporary enclosure to this newly available larger one. An interesting experience as we were able to stand next to the vet while she was examining the leopards and even lend her a hand. It was truly a privilege to be so close to these beautiful animals!
Research at the sanctuary consists of a number of things including setting up and checking camera traps. Camera traps are motion-triggered, non-invasive (compared to capture-release methods), easily allow you to monitor nocturnal animals and identify individual carnivores based on spot pattern analysis (unique to each animal, similar to our fingerprints), and they provide information on density, diversity, movement and social structures. The only annoying part is that you often get hundreds to thousands of moving grass images, not quite as exciting J In the area surrounding the sanctuary, 6 marking trees are currently being monitored for leopard, hyaena and cheetah activity. After an initial monitoring period of 6 months to obtain a baseline idea of their presence, three of them will be treated with lion scat and its potential as deterrent will be evaluated. This is based on the fact that lions are a top predator in the food chain and have been known to kill other carnivores so they tend to scare them off. If proven affective, lion scat (which is mixed with water and allowed to ferment to create a paint-like mixture) can be distributed to farmers and used as a non-invasive method to protect livestock enclosures. Another important research topic is the development of a cheetah footprint identification technique. A special software has been designed to identify cheetahs based on their back left footprint. The software is currently being optimized and will not only be able to identify individuals but also determine their sex, age and genetic relatedness simply based on their footprint. Pretty cool. To train the software, footprints from known individuals need to be collected and the tame hand raised cheetahs at the sanctuary are perfect for this job. In order to collect the footprints, a sandy patch is slightly wetted and raked. The cheetah of interest is then led across the sand using a piece of meat. Back left footprints are identified, loose sand particles are blown away to obtain a clean print, and a photo (with ruler) is taken to feed into the software program. New footprint images need to be taken every couple of weeks/months as the cheetahs are still growing. It was interesting to learn about this process and its potential use, and a surreal experience to stand alongside these stunning animals. They even purr like kittens when you enter the enclosure :p
Baboons are another important group of animals at the sanctuary. There must be over 50 present and they too cannot be released due to their association of humans with food. A popular activity, which I unfortunately did not have time to do, consists of taking the teenage baboons for a walk or playing with the juveniles in their enclosure as animal enrichment and exercise. Baboons also need to be fed and unfortunately I did have to help out with their food preparation multiple times. Baboon food consists of millipap (corn-based) mixed with our food leftovers from the days before, including animal products. I know it is a good thing not to waste food, but this was definitely my least favorite activity of the past 4 months as it not only smells revolting and feels disgusting but also poses a potential health hazard, in my humble microbiological opinion. On the other hand, a very special baboon activity is the sleepover. During my time at the sanctuary there were 4 orphaned juvenile baboons in need of extra care overnight. The idea is to take over the role the mother would play in the wild and tasks involve bathing them, feeding them and taking them to bed so they have someone to cuddle with and don’t feel scared. I’m not naturally crazy about monkeys and although I hadn’t spent any trial time with the baboons yet, I decided I couldn’t miss out on this once in a lifetime opportunity and decided to volunteer to take care of Mr. Dawie for the night. And what an amazing experience it was! You typically pick up your baboon around 6:30 pm and feed them straight away while taking them back to the room/tent to settle down. Funny thing is, they fall asleep almost immediately, some even while they are still drinking their bottle. They will also hold on to their bottle and suckle it all night for comfort. Since the baby baboons pee and poo all around their enclosure during the day, they tend to smell and it is advised to give them a wash before putting them to bed, especially as they sleep with you in your bed. Since they cling on to you and become stressed when being detached, it is easiest to just take them with you in the shower. However, easiest does not necessarily mean easy 😀 but we succeeded. I took Mr. Dawie out to the communal area for a little while but spent most of the evening just relaxing with him on the bed. Sleeping was another challenge as I didn’t want to accidently roll over and crush him 🙂 He also stirred a couple of times whenever he lost his bottle at night, and was wide awake around 5am, so I didn’t get much sleep but the times he came to snuggle up in my lap (sometimes pushing his feet and hands in my face :p) made it all worthwhile. After his bottle in the morning and peeing on one of the beds, he was goofing around jumping from the closet onto the bed and rolling around in the sheets. It was adorable. So even though I ended up being covered in baboon shit and peed on, I’m very happy to have had this experience. Especially the moment he was being fed by my roommate Marcia so I could go to the bathroom, and leapt straight into my arms the moment I came back, my heart melted 🙂
Food preparation luckily does not only consist of baboon food but you also need to prepare vegetables , fruits and meat for the other animals. As I enjoy being sous-chef (and left the meat cutting to someone else), I didn’t mind this task. In the afternoon you get the chance to go out and feed all the animals: the baby zebra, mongooses, vervet monkeys, genets, tortoises, warthogs, goats, and my favourite, the meerkats. They are so darn cute and photogenic 😀
One morning our activity was snake awareness with Francois, the local expert. Although he is still quite young, his knowledge on snakes is impressive as is his confidence with handling them. He showed us how to measure snakes by demonstrating it on two snakes that had been collected from urban areas around Windhoek the day before. One was a green boomslang (tree snake, venomous) and the other a small sand snake (non-venomous). They then travelled with us in the car back to Windhoek where we met a friend of his who is a snake-enthusiast himself and had two zebra spitting cobra snakes that had previously been rescued. Part of the research Francois is working on with the university is to develop an anti-venom for this type of snake and therefore it had to be milked. Fascinating to see. Afterwards we drove down to a release site and released all four snakes into freedom. Let’s hope they learned their lesson and stay far away from urban areas this time.
The last activity I had a chance to do was the carbon footprint reduction, aka recycling. Our job consisted of filing down the ends of cut beer and cider bottles which will be converted into wine glasses. Perhaps not the most exciting job but I enjoyed doing a bit of DIY crafts. A good idea as well, potentially something to try at home. Other recyclable materials will be turned into coasters etc and these will be sold to generate additional income for N/a’an ku sê.
This gives you some idea of what N/a’an ku sê sanctuary is all about, but as mentioned before, I spent most of my time at the different research sites (2 weeks at each location). Volunteer groups here were also smaller which I definitely prefer, and it makes your contribution feel more valuable.
First up, Wild Dog and Elephant Research at Mangetti. The Mangetti Complex consists of two main areas: the Kavango Cattle Ranch (KCR) which is a government farm conglomerate in the Kavango region of Northern Namibia, and the nearby Mangetti National Park (MNP). The total study area comprises more than 2000 km2 and is by far the largest of the N/a’an ku sê research sites. The research is focused on human-wildlife conflict mitigation with respect to the African Painted Dog (or wild dog) and African Elephant, both of which have suffered a lot from habitat fragmentation, hunting and persecution. Wild dogs are one of Africa’s most endangered carnivore species and their numbers are rapidly dwindling. It is estimated that only ~1400 remain in the wild, however this number varies largely depending on who you ask. It is therefore important to establish accurate population numbers and help protect this species through conservation efforts. Many of the farmers in the KCR complain about losing livestock to wild dog predation, and will capture and kill them as a result. N/a’an ku sê aims to better understand the conflict situation by talking to the farmers, determining the number of wild dogs and their movement in the area, and investigating livestock killings, whether perceived or actual. Elephants also roam through the cattle ranch and can be very destructive towards farm infrastructure, fences and crops. N/a’an ku sê has fitted two elephants with GPS satellite tracking collars to track the movement of the herd, warn farmers when they are nearby, and identify possible conflict situations.
The work at Mangetti mostly involved setting up and checking camera traps at various places in the KCR to see which animals are in the area, with a focus on the wild dogs. Using the camera trap photos, social structures of the wild dogs can be determined and individuals can be identified based on their different spot patterns. For example, one wild dog was named dolphin as he had a dolphin-shaped black pattern on his chest. Some other interesting animals we saw on the camera traps were aardvark, leopard, hyaena, porcupine and the invincible honey badger. Attempts are also made to spot the animals by doing call-outs at sunset using a game caller that broadcasts the sound of wild dogs, jackals and a dying wildebeest. Although it wasn’t successful at luring any carnivores during my time there, the week before they managed to spot a brown hyaena this way. Night drives are another way of checking for carnivore activity or the presence of other nocturnal animals, and allowed us to see a scorpion (fat tail & small claws = highly venomous), bats, jackals, rabbits and some very cute bush babies. To quote our coordinator Marco: “They’re so fluffy I’m gonna die” 😀 We also did a couple of exploration hikes to explore the area (as the name suggests) and search for footprints or dens. As Marco grew up on a farm in Namibia, spent most of his days out in the field and has a passion for nature conservation, he is a walking encyclopedia when it comes to nature facts, especially birds, so he always had something new and interesting to teach us during these hikes. While out in the field, the number of domestic dogs owned by the postmen who live on the farms is also checked. Each postmen is allowed 2 dogs but these numbers are often exceeded. And as these are not your typical cute and cuddly domestic dogs but rather wild and savage, even attacking/killing livestock, it is important to get a correct estimate. Another area of interest is scat analysis, which entails collecting wild dog scat (or poop or shit, whatever you want to name it) and using a microscope to examine the different hairs within the scat and assess which animals they may have come from. This would also allow us to determine whether the wild dogs are truly attacking livestock or feeding on game only. As the microscopy analysis is still in its infancy, we tried out a couple of methods using our “bushlab” supplies, i.e. a straw, candle wax and razor blade. Very basic, but the results actually promising, much to my surprise 🙂 We also got quite distracted looking at ear smear from one of the neighbour’s puppies who seemed to have a yeast infection, the tiny hooks that allow plants to persistently attach to your clothes, and the transect of plant stems which transported my straight back to my first year bio-science engineering at the botany practical. Although not quite related to the research project at hand, it was still an interesting activity 🙂
Wild dog populations in the KCR are compared to those found in the nearby national park (MNP) to see if there are differences between the farmland and protected area. The natural park used to be farmland but a couple of years ago the farmers decided they wanted to transform it back to its natural ecosystem. A very nice initiative. Now the vegetation has been largely restored and various animals including rhinos, wild dogs, hyaenas, eland, wildebeest, sable antelope, oryx, kudu, warthog and zebra have returned. We were lucky to see all the different antelope species, warthog and zebra while we were there, beautiful animals and great to see them in the wild. Various camera traps have been placed near water holes in the park and are checked on a weekly basis. The photos have to be sorted before leaving the park since rhino photos cannot be taken out of the park. This is done for security reasons since the photos contain GPS information and could facilitate poaching if they end up in the wrong hands.
Every day, GPS data of the collared elephants is downloaded to check their location. Since they had been wandering North of the KCR in the Kavango communal land for the past couple of months, we unfortunately did not have a chance to track and see them. However, we did see evidence of other elephants’ presence in the KCR including their tracks (which look incredible) very close to where we were staying and the result of their destructive nature: broken down fences, torn out water pipes, and damaged water dams. The farmers may think otherwise, but I thought it was cool to know they were around, even if we didn’t get a chance to see them.
Community outreach involves working together with the local school and possibly starting an environmental club in the future. Marco and Ashley (intern coordinator) try to attend a class once a week to teach the kids about conservation and other environmental projects, including ‘composting and how to create your own veggie garden’. The latter to promote the growth of vegetables as the kids’ diet is often one-sided with a lack of vegetables. The students were very enthusiastic with a hands-on attitude when creating the veggie garden. We turned it into a competition and the group that created the best ‘double dug bed’ won a bag of sweets. Impressive how big a motivation candy can be :p Other fun activities included making mahangu papa from scratch, which is a type of corn flour cooked with water to a pap-like consistency, and the main food source locally. It is very labour intensive to produce by hand and I am definitely not envious of the house moms who have to produce it weekly for the entire family. We also went on sleepouts under the breathtaking star sky, had a sundowner braai (local term for BBQ), and swam in one of the water dams on the KCR. These are covered in algae and I must admit that the microbiologist in me was quite interested in finding out which other bugs were clearly present 🙂 On the last day, when driving back to the bus station, we stopped by a game farm which had a stunning baobab tree. Since these trees are protected and considered national monuments, they have to be made available to the general public, even if they are on private property. The tree was over 1000 years old and had a 20m circumference. Respect!
My African adventure 