Wildlife
Limpopo Reserve is located on the north end of Kruger Park in South Africa. It borders Mozambique. The Big 5 are located in this area. The Big 5 are lions, leopards, rhinoceros, elephant, and African buffalo. The border between Mozambique and South Africa had many years of war which hurt the wildlife. Thus the area is still recovering. This area had a number of poachers which rangers still work on catching to protect the wildlife in this area.
GVI Teen Program Limpopo - Learning Field Research in South Africa
During my time with working with GVI Limpopo I learned how to search for animals. We used wildlife cameras to track animals and see what is in the bush. By participating and using wildlife cams we were able to identify many different species of animals, such as giraffes, hyenas, honey badgers, impalas, water bucks, and many more wildlife.
After viewing the animals we saw on the wildlife cams, we made observations to determine where they inhabit. We learned that the best place to put wildlife cams is by troughs, which is a watering hole. During winter months in South Africa there is no rain so water is scarce. This means that there are few watering holes and all the animals have to go to the same watering holes. This makes it easier to locate animals and observe them.
Some ways you can get involved in participating in research is research sites such as zooniverse.org. You can as a citizen look at wildlife cams and identify animals that you see on it and the characteristics researchers are having you help idenitify. By identifying animals on this website, scientists are able to use citizen science. Citizen science involves community members getting involved in research to help them have less work and complete more research. I have participated in many different project on zooniverse.org such as identifying wildlife in the African Savanah and polar bears in Churchill, Canada in the Arctic environment. This website is free to use and majorly benefits conservation movements and allows anyone to participate in this research and in the end help with conservation and protecting our wildlife.
