Are there short-term volunteering opportunities for wildlife programs?

January 3, 2018 3:34 AM

I am interested in short term, say 4-6 weeks, volunteering opportunities with wildlife scientists in locations such as Africa, South America. Are there any such options?

Unfortunately, I am not trained in specific wildlife science skills, although I think I would be competent in some of the support activities in such projects. What I can/am willing to do:

1. Data entry operations into computer programs/databases from all the field observations
2. Helping scientists track wildlife using radar equipment
3. Provide Photography support (I am fairly advanced in photography skills)
4. General purpose help such as building fences, camera traps, campsite help etc

I can do all this in exchange for lodging (I can cook my own food) and mainly, the opportunity.

Is anyone aware of such opportunities or do they not exist usually?

posted by theobserver to Science & Nature (8 answers total)

I spent awhile looking into these types of programs, and often you have to pay. So there are places like Earthwatch etc. A lot of other organizations require specific skills/qualifications. However, I will be watching these replies to see if there are any I missed!
posted by bquarters at 4:26 AM on January 3, 2018

I went here ten years ago and it was a good experience. Mefimail me if you want more info.
posted by aetg at 4:51 AM on January 3, 2018

Best answer: I did a few of these around ten years ago, and can vouch for them being incredible experiences and full of physical labor. Unfortunately, they almost always cost money, and often way too much. If you're alright with that, the terms I would use to search are "voluntourism" and "gap year" (even though you aren't looking for that long). I found these aggregate sites, as the sites I used to use are defunct.

Sometimes these kind of projects post listings on Texas A&M's wildlife job board, sometimes without requiring a fee, though they tend to want someone with a bit of a wildlife background. If you want to sound fancy, say "radiotelemetry" instead of radar, and hype your photography skills! Not every researcher/conservationist has time/interest in photographing their work, but they sure need some photos for powerpoints and websites.
posted by Drosera at 5:32 AM on January 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Best answer: They cost money because youare not really contributing value. It is a feel good holiday experience that helps from a fundraising perspective. Unless you have specialist skills and a lot of pre trip prep, 4-6 weeks is not enough time to contribute more than a basic local volunteer could for far less hassle or a paid staff member.

See it as paying for an exciting holiday with access to an environment you wouldn't otherwise get the opportunity to learn about, not a genuine volunteering
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 5:36 AM on January 3, 2018 [20 favorites]

Go to the ecolog archives, and consider subscribing. Not infrequently they have postings for low/semi-skilled internships in exotic locales.
I saw one for interning for a few months at a remote SA field station a few weeks back.

https://www.listserv.umd.edu/archives/ecolog-l.html
posted by SaltySalticid at 7:59 AM on January 3, 2018

Best answer: What dorothy said. Even for local folks helping me with my research or talking to my colleagues who do fieldwork in and around my university, none of us wants to take anyone on for less than a year unless they already come with extensive wildlife handling or scientific measuring skills. In my line of work, which is wild rodents, this would constitute being experienced with handling wild rodents, knowing how to check traplines, being comfortable and effective at doing dissections in the field at least generally if not for the specific tissue of interest, and being pretty good with tissue saving protocols. Photography is not usually a highly sought-after skill in my experience--those PIs who care about it for purposes of publicizing their work usually just buy a camera for the lab and either encourage a lab member to develop some skills with it or simply do the best they can on their own.

Even for undergrads who are absolutely free to us when it comes to working with them--room and board nothing!--no one will take someone as green as you describe for 4-6 weeks. Like, to do fieldwork in my local area with minimal travel beyond an hour or two's drive out to the country, we would not take someone who could only work with the lab for a semester--and that's eighteen weeks, three times the span of time you're talking about. It takes much longer than that to train an effective research assistant with basic skills to be genuinely helpful, and data entry can be done with free, untrained undergraduate labor back at the home university. There's no reason it has to all be done in the field.
posted by sciatrix at 12:18 PM on January 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

If you can narrow down what, exactly, you're hoping to get out of the experience, I think we might be able to advise you better. For most university-based researchers, bringing someone out to your remote field site is a liability in a lot of ways, and your skills aren't so unique that there aren't undergrads, grad students, or collaborators already doing them. For a month, unfortunately, it's really not worth the hassle of getting permits for someone, shepherding them through the visa/vaccination/travel process, getting them to your field site ... However, you will occasionally see a short-term volunteer project advertised on places like Primate Info Network. These are generally projects where you must pay to volunteer.

If what you want is to do science somewhere exciting, there are a lot of places where you pay to "volunteer" for organizations - I'd say Earthwatch is the most reputable of those organizations, and has the infrastructure such that you'd actually be doing something moderately useful for a short period of time. In all honesty, the real utility for a lot of these projects is the money you pay to the project to participate, but some projects need a lot of eyes doing relatively simple things for a short time. I did an Earthwatch project in high school where I was taking behavioral observations of captive chimpanzees.

If what you want is to volunteer for the scientific enterprise, you're much better off finding out what research is being done by professors at local universities, and get in touch with professors to ask if they need a volunteer to help with data management or whatever. I don't think you'll find a lot of people who are looking for those sorts of volunteers - for this sort of charismatic exotic science, there are often undergrads who volunteer in labs for the experience as a step to going on to grad school - but you may find someone who is interested!

You may also find something of interest in the realm of citizen science! For example, there are a lot of projects using camera trapping and drones; your experience with telemetry may come in handy there.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:02 PM on January 3, 2018 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Just to clarify, I am happy to pay my way as well for the opportunity. I also realized from the responses here that it would be a burden for scientists to just take some volunteers on.

I am exploring a couple of options suggested, but may end up taking a more conventional tourist route instead.

Thanks all.
posted by theobserver at 7:58 AM on January 4, 2018 [1 favorite]