Wildlife Internship: Carnivore Conservation

I have just come back from 4 weeks on the project in Namibia. My first week was spent at Naankuse sanctuary. This includes a variety of different tasks such as enclosure cleaning, animal feeding, a research day (with a talk on human/wildlife conflict and the chance to try radio tracking), walking with baboons and footprint ID skills. Accommodation ranges from dorm rooms to tents. Food includes hot meals cooked for you. Next I chose to go to the Neuras Wildlife Estate (although you can choose to do the sites in any order). This was one of my favourite weeks where we went on hikes, learned to track wild animals, went to neighbouring farms to help solve a human/wildlife conflict situation and assisted with the practical work of an actual research study. During this week you will also get to go to the famous Dunes in the Namib, have the chance to go to the Namib Naukluft National park and even do an afternoon wine tasting (all for a small extra fee). Accomodation here is tented and all meals are cooked for you. I then went to the research site in Kanaan where there is the opportunity to go horse riding, mongoose walking, sand boarding and sleep out under the stars. You will also look at camera trap images and search for wild animal tracks. I found that this week did not have the same amount of research work as other weeks and included lots of 'project work' (building/destroying fencing, buildings etc) however. My final week was in the North of Namibia at the Mangetti wild dog and elephant research project. The landscape here was completely different and was a whole new experience. We were lucky enough to see kudu, steinbok, warthog, mongoose and were one of the only volunteer groups to see a wild elephant! We also got to visit the MANGETTI National Park where we also saw wildebeest and eland. Living in this project is more simple and you help to cook your own meals. Overall I have had a great time abroad with my favourite sites being Neuras and the Mangetti. Eko Tracks were a good company to book with as emails were answered promptly and my Visa was dealt with as part of the service. I also found the project was good value for money. I would recommend this project for anyone who enjoys wildlife