Guardian, UK, 2007

Tracking Namibia's big cats | Travel | guardian.co.uk

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2007/dec/18/namibia.green?page=all

Tracking Namibia's big cats Sue Watt goes in search of endangered cheetah on a volunteer holiday that's a world away from a typical safari Sue Watt guardian.co.uk, Tuesday December 18 2007 11.17 GMT

Keeping watch ... Sue Watt searches for cheetah tracks in the Namibian savannah.

Photograph: Biosphere Expeditions It's 6.30am and I'm sitting on a Land Rover's bonnet, crawling at 3kmph along a terracotta-coloured dirt road in the Namibian savannah looking for cheetah tracks. The cool morning air, a perfect antidote to my lack of sleep, helps me concentrate on the mottled sand ahead. I can see kudu tracks everywhere, as if they'd danced the night away, while baboons, their prints like children's hands, had played in the dust. But the cheetah had clearly had a quiet night in.

Getting up early isn't usually my idea of a holiday, but I don't normally go on holiday to work. Namibia is home to 4-5,000 of Africa's most endangered big cat, a third of the world's dwindling cheetah population. I'm here on a volunteering conservation project run by Okatumba Wildlife Research (OWR) and Biosphere Expeditions, a not-for-profit organisation that links aspiring David Attenboroughs with scientific research projects around the world.

No longer the preserve of gap-year students, conservation volunteering holidays now attract travellers of all ages as growing numbers seek more rewarding experiences than lazing on beaches or joining another convoy of safari jeeps. Online travel directory responsibletravel.com saw bookings for volunteering breaks increase 45% over last year, confirming that the feel-good factor of "giving something back" is becoming a compelling influence in our holiday decisions, with new companies offering new conservation projects and shorter, more accessible volunteering opportunities to meet demand.

Driving to our base, the Land Rover ahead disappeared in a cloud of red dust as we turned on to the 35km gravel road to Okomitundu Guest Farm. Some 160km north of Windhoek, the hunting farm's facilities belied its remoteness: spacious en suite chalets overlooking a swimming pool, a bar and an outdoor dining terrace complete with log fire for chillier evenings – perfect ingredients for a relaxing, yet working holiday. My 12 fellow volunteers, including a corporate lawyer, a Californian chemist and a Swiss mature student and teenage son, were divided into teams for our daily tasks, all hoping to see cheetah as our reward.

Volunteers weren't here specifically to spot cheetah, however. Harald FĂśrster, OWR's scientist, explained. "It's virtually impossible to count cheetah in the bush - they're incredibly secretive and their home territory's huge. But with volunteers helping in fieldwork, we can work out their population density and see trends, whether they're increasing in number or decreasing."

Naturally, we still yearned to see them and our best chance was on box-trap duties.

10/12/2008 15:38

Tracking Namibia's big cats | Travel | guardian.co.uk

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Cheetah leave messages for each other by scratching and urinating on "play-trees", so metal cages, which bang shut when triggered, are positioned nearby to capture them for radio-collaring and monitoring. With just six box-traps on the 180sq km farmland of shrubby savannah, the odds weren't brilliant. My team found a baboon instead, pacing the cage and barking incessantly like a pent-up dog.

Our next trap, a bumpy 40-minute drive away contained a honey badger - sweetsounding maybe but reputed to attack elephants if cornered. Harald jumped on to the cage and released the snarling beast only to see him run under our Land Rover, swinging on the rear axle like a demented acrobat. Several manoeuvres later, churning through the sand, we finally shook him off his makeshift trapeze. If this was work, then cheetah or no cheetah, it beat sitting in the office, or even in a typical safari convoy.

And unlike those safari convoys chasing animals, our game observations involved climbing a rocky mound overlooking a waterhole and waiting for wildlife to come to us.

With views across the vast bush, interspersed by sandy dry riverbeds like giant orange fingers fringed with greenery, we sat for three hours with only occasional squawks of starlings to break the silence. Two steenbok grazed quietly below; 12 male kudus cantered past; an oryx hesitated then ran away followed by a black-backed jackal; and a sickly warthog slumped by the waterhole and fell asleep.

Back at base, tales of close encounters gave us hope we might yet find cheetah. One team walked 4km in intense afternoon heat through prickly shrub following two new cheetah tracks. Another discovered prints right beside a box-trap. And on my final evening, standing on the Land Rover cab listening for radio signals from collared cheetah, I suddenly heard beeps getting louder and stronger as one moved faster and closer towards me.

Only 100 metres away, yet the cheetah sadly remained elusive to the end. But there's more to conservation volunteering than ticking off lists of animals. If you're after a holiday that reminds you of The Lion King, then this isn't for you. "I came to see life in the real wild," Inge, a volunteer from Hamburg, told me.

Fieldwork like this doesn't guarantee sightings but the pay-off is the reward of getting actively involved, of getting closer to that "real wild." Reflecting on all we'd done and on the cheetah's uncertain future, I felt I'd contributed in some small way towards changing that.

Getting there Sue Watt travelled with Biosphere Expeditions. Biosphere are moving to a new study site in the Caprivi Delta of northern Namibia for its next season in September. Using similar research activities, volunteers will also study other carnivores like lions and wild dogs, focusing on human-wildlife conflict and on mapping the region, as well as on population density. Accommodation will be in more rustic bush camps with rooms of reed and thatch. The 14-day expedition will cost ÂŁ1,390pp excluding flights. 0870 4460801; biosphere-expeditions.org.uk For information on Namibia, visit namibiatourism.com.na Air Namibia has direct flights from Gatwick to Windhoek three times a week costing from ÂŁ643 return. 0870 774 0965; airnamibia.com.na.

10/12/2008 15:38