Wildlife Monitoring with Stay Wild

Save to Favorites

Wildlife Monitoring

Stay Wild was established in 2016 as a pilot study in the village of Batu Katak, North Sumatra, after the local community made a commitment to cease legal activities on the edges of the Gunung Leuser National Park, which one of the last strong-holds for the Sumatran Tiger. The project is communtiy based, with the help of volunteers and to protect the survival of the Sumatran tiger. Illegal logging, deforestation and monoculture agriculture often result in human - animal conflict and either end up dead or captured for captivity

Forest edge communities can play an important role in protection of the ecosystem. Tigers are the apex predator in the jungles of Sumatra and in North Sumatra they occupy the Leuser Ecosystem. By protecting the tiger we are protecting the whole ecosystem. The project primarily consists of regular jungle patrols and education programmes in the village of Batu Katak and will ultimately be managed by the community members themselves.

We aim to build a lasting engagement that will foster the stewardship of the flora and fauna in North Sumatra, specifically around the Gunung Leuser National Park. The key to saving the tiger and its habitat is through empowerment and education of the local people.

Stay Wild provides resources and opportunities for the forest-edge communities to explore other avenues of income, rather than illegal activies or monocultures, to maximise potential of current forms of income. Batu Katak has huge potential for eco-tourism and the local community can learn and how do this to protect the environment around them in a sustainable way as well as make liveable income.

Volunteering
Volunteering provides outside knowledge and learning for the local village and bring a postive attitude towards collaboration between local and westerners. Activites will include: teaching English, trekking, construction, developing new office, gardening/farming, garbage pickup, teaching about their experience to local students, community involvement

A typical day in the Wildlife Monitoring Programme

Weekdays: After the initial orientation, you will volunteer for roughly 4-6 hours per day. However, the wildlife monitoring programme is dynamic and things may change daily. The start times and daily workload varies but a typical morning schedule is as follows:

8:00 AM Volunteers wake up and have breakfast. Breakfast and all meals are vegetarian and served at the Bungalow. After breakfast volunteers begin trekking.

8:30 AM - 12:00 PM Volunteers will monitor wildlife using GPS, use GPS to map the area, seek out new locations for camera traps, trek to the camera traps and change memory cards, data entry.

12:00-2:00 PM Lunch is served at the Bungalow. After lunch there will be a post trek meeting to discuss the days events and sort out a plan for the next day.

2:00 - 4:00 Some days there will be data entry and downloading the photos, recording data etc.