Wildlife Conservation – Short-Term Internship in South Africa

Overview

Join an international conservation team, deep in the South African bushveld and experience an internship experience like no other! Wake up to the roar of lions, spend your days out in the reserve tracking wildlife, conducting valuable research and learning a variety of new skills to kick start your career in conservation!

This internship will give you the opportunity to contribute directly to the long term conservation of the wildlife and ecosystems that call this part of Africa home. Alongside your team members, you will be trained to collect vital behavioural data on the local predators and large herbivores as well how to use various pieces of equipment and identify and track various animals.

As with all our Internship programmes, there will be a strong focus on developing professional skills and being able to apply them with a holistic approach to conservation. Participants will also be given the opportunity to undertake additional leadership responsibilities, an assigned mentor who will monitor their progress on a weekly basis and a professional reference on successful completion of the programme.

After a successful internship, qualifying candidates may be given the opportunity to work for us or selected partner organisations in South Africa, or in other countries around the world where we operate. Over 50% of our staff are recruited from our alumni database.

Highlights

Experiencing a unique African bush adventure at the heart of a spectacular game reserve; be woken by a dawn chorus and sent to sleep by the roar of lions; mastering radio telemetry techniques and learning to track animals through the bush; getting acquainted with big game and all the main predators, including lion, cheetah, leopard, elephant and rhino; gaining valuable leadership and teamwork skills and experience; living and working alongside FGASA qualified South African Guides getting constant learning and inspiration; having the chance to sleep out in the bush under the spectacular African stars and wake up to a beautiful sunrise.
Testimonial

“What an amazing experience this has been! Each day here at base is a gift, although the base is rustic and has no electricity or hot water. I found that didn’t matter. The game drives are the primary focus of each day, some days are more fruitful than others but in time the rewards are huge with animal sightings. So far I have over 1600 photos to sort through when I get home!” – Tess Hill (USA).

Life on the Internship

Life on this project will be basic but filled with lots of hard work and rewarding experiences. As you work on the reserve for the next few weeks, camp will be basic but comfortable, with bedrooms, bathrooms and communal areas shared as well as cooking and cleaning duties on a rotational basis.

Upon arrival at the Karongwe reserve, volunteers will be given a short orientation around the camp, an introduction to the field staff, and some formal lectures on African Wildlife Conservation to prepare them for life as much as possible while on the programme.

Before you head out onto the reserve, you will undergo extensive training to ensure that you will be able to effectively contribute to the research on the local wildlife. Some of the training participants can expect to add to their skillset is how to carry out radio tracking and monitoring of all the collared predators, mammal and bird identification, ecology and bush first aid.

Participants should expect some long days, with a typical day involving up to 12 hours collecting data. While out on the reserve, you will be tracking the wildlife and conducting vital research, usually between dawn and dusk when the weather is cooler and the animals are most active. Our main focus is usually on the large predators such as the lions, leopards, cheetahs and hyena but occasionally also involves herbivores such as elephants. When not out on the reserve, your time will either be spent working on data entry, miscellaneous camp duties or conducting educational days within the local communities, highlighting the importance of conservation.

Afternoons and early evenings will be spent with your assigned mentor, where you will undergo extra training and activities in order to further develop your skills. This may involve watching presentations on certain theory topics which you will then need to base an assignment upon as well as weekly written assessments and oral and field discussions with your mentor. At the end of the internship, there will be a final evaluation, which will assess your competencies against the criteria set out as well as a professional recommendation.

Project Details

As well as being prepared for changes in what is an evolving project, exact project details are also always subject to change due to weather conditions, time of year and game movements.

Overall, we have regular contact with our partners, the reserve managers and other members of the broader conservation and research community to determine our areas of focus.

A typical expedition may involve the detailed monitoring of predators (lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena); herbivore sex/age ratio and its effect on predator movement; elephant impact vegetation surveys to monitor the impact on sensitive areas of the reserve; community projects that teach the importance of conservation. Other activities and ecological studies can also include darting/fitting radio collars to predators or invasive vegetation species eradication.

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From a personal perspective, you will increase your knowledge of the South African environment, its importance and the threats to it, and help to increase both local and global knowledge and awareness, while contributing to our overall goals and objectives.

We also try to assist where required with off-site studies or mini-projects that may focus on different biota if we believe them to be relevant in the conservation context of the region. Such studies allow staff and volunteers to get a broader knowledge of conservation research across more than one ecosystem. Examples could include documenting bird of prey nesting sites; Celebrating environmental calendar days. Any such mini-projects are as required, would make up the minority of your time on this program, and only for duration of 4 weeks or more.