Short-Term Projects

1. Baboon Collaring

• For a PhD project, we are collaring baboons on a nearby farm. This involves trapping and then following the baboon troop to ensure behavioural data is being received from the collars.
• This project will only be running for two field seasons, July 2021-November 2021 and May 2022-September 2022.

2. Baboon Sleeping Sites

• We have been gathering data since March 2020 on sleeping site usage
• On Campfornis, baboons use baobab trees in the absence of sleeping cliffs
• This involves surveying sleeping site data from historical camera trap images, as well as continuing data collection by driving around the farm at sunset and sunrise to monitor baboon presence in baobabs

3. Diversity of Carnivore Species on Campfornis

• This project will aim to assess the diversity and abundance of carnivore species on Campfornis Game Farm
• This project is predominantly computer-based using camera trap images that have already been collected but may involve going into the field to help service camera traps that are still collecting data

4. Presence of Carnivore Species on Campfornis

• This project will aim to establish the carnivore species present on Campfornis Game Farm by producing a map of carnivore recordings to identify areas where they are most frequently seen
• This project is predominantly computer-based using camera trap images that have already been collected but may involve going into the field to help service camera traps that are still collecting data

5. Livestock Guardian Dogs

• We intend to look at whether the use of guardian dogs can be classified as a non-lethal intervention strategy when it comes to reducing wildlife deaths
• This project involves going into the field and monitoring the behaviour of the livestock guardian dogs
• In addition, we want to understand the presence of carnivores near the livestock, which would involve the use of camera traps

6. Rock Hyrax Habituation

• Habituation for “dassies” began before the pandemic, but we would like to pick this project up again for behavioural data collection and dassie biodiversity.
• Experiments using Giving Up Densities.

7. Snare Sweeps in Alldays

• We are trying to prevent wildlife deaths, as well as increase community awareness on poaching, by conducting snare sweeps on local farms
• By doing this, we not only establish connections with local farmers and prevent wildlife deaths, but we can create a database of snare information, such as the type of snares commonly used, the distribution, the success of snares, the proximity of snares to waterholes etc.

8. Herbivore Presence at Waterholes

• Project options include studying the differences between species, seasons, and time of day at waterholes, and can be office and/or field-based

Project Ideas

1. Dump Raiding Mongooses

• We would like to study interspecies interactions between banded mongoose and chacma baboons; both species interact and raid at the dump in Alldays.
• It would also be interesting to study their diet, which would involve surveys of their natural food availability and local dump food availability.

2. Fence Movements in Wildlife

• This project aims to determine what species are crossing fences and how
• This would involve walking fence lines and mapping any signs of wildlife movements (e.g. scat, hair, spoor) to identify crossing sites

3. Giving Up Densities

• We aim to carry out giving up densities experiments, which doesn’t require the dassies to be habituated
• Giving up density (GUD) is an experiment that uses the density of a food source within a patch to determine when an animal will choose to move on to other food patches

4. Baboon Population Density

• This project aims to assess population levels using video cameras to record crossings at fence lines as well as the use of a drone that can capture baboon numbers when they leave their sleep sites

5. Carnivore Presence at Waterholes

• Project options include studying the differences between carnivore species, seasons, and time of night at waterholes, and can be office and/or field-based

6. Herbivore Vigilance at Waterholes

• Does human presence at waterholes influence vigilance?
• What factors influence vigilance at waterholes? (e.g. age, sex, species, number etc.)

7. Elephant Shrew Biodiversity 

• We have small mammal traps that will be used to assess elephant shrew home range and elephant shrew biodiversity.