Where did you go for your fellowship?
My research is in the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park in the northeast corner of Botswana. The Makgadikgadi Basin is made up of large salt pans that flood during the summer months and provide a huge amount of water and food for a diverse array of wildlife.
Why did you choose this location?
I chose this location because the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park borders the ephemeral Boteti River. While the river used to flow throughout the year, drought and over extraction have led to the riverbed temporarily drying up. This occurred twice in the late 1900’s and the river hasn’t flowed since 2022. Wildlife and livestock rely on this river for drinking water, so it provides a unique environment to study the water requirements and behavior of African wildlife and to address human-wildlife conflict.
What problem were you investigating?
I was investigating how herbivores move to and from waterholes in the Boteti Riverbed. Waterholes will fill during the wet season rains and can last until the next dry season if supplemented by groundwater recharge. We are using approximately 60 waterholes along the Boteti Riverbed to determine if differences in water quality affect wildlife movements and behavior.
Why does this question matter to you, and to the people you work with?
Our work was done in collaboration with the University of Botswana and the community of Khumaga. This work matters because water scarcity drives human-wildlife conflict in the region, as wildlife move farther into nearby community rangelands to find drinking water. Sometimes this means they destroy wellheads which provide potable water for humans, other times this means wildlife will come into conflict or depredate livestock as they compete for water in pastureland.
What are the critical challenges facing your research site and the communities that are involved?
I am so grateful for our research assistants and collaborators at the University of Botswana and in the Town of Khumaga. I will not share specific peoples' names here, but our main challenges were preventing the theft and tampering of our camera traps—both by wildlife (hyenas like shiny objects) and by people. There is a completely fair distrust of researchers in the region. This is compounded by the justified fear that camera trap images could be used punitively. Our research assistants were instrumental in sharing and continuing to communicate that our research is only used for scientific purposes and limiting future human-wildlife conflict.
Why do you love it?
Makgadikgadi Pans National Park is a biodiverse and incredible environment to work in. There is so much you can see during a day, and sometimes you witness truly incredible events in the bush. More importantly, the community we work in is incredibly kind and we worked hard to hire local community members and students. These assistants were the heart and soul of our field season, making sure that we completed a safe, ethical, methodical project!
What do you think is needed to understand or improve the situation?
There is not a great understanding of how specific species of wildlife make tradeoffs between water quality, quantity, and other ecological variables. More needs to be done to determine these trade-offs as they have serious implications for conservation and human-wildlife conflict.
What challenges did you experience in your research?
Our study site was extremely remote, over two hours from the grocery store. The amount of coordination that was required by the lead PhD student on this project to get supplies into the field was phenomenal!
How do you think your research may be used?
Hopefully this research can be used by the community of Khumaga and local environmental managers in Botswana to determine the deployment and distribution of artificial waterholes and fences to help nourish wildlife and protect local communities.