Volunteering as an undergrad in the South Australian desert

One of the most exciting things about being an ecologist is getting the opportunity to visit cool new places to collect field data. I was fortunate enough as an undergraduate student to participate in several field trips as part of my coursework and separately as a student volunteer. I intend to create a series of blog posts after this one, detailing each field stint.

One of my very first instances of volunteer fieldwork was in remote South Australia on a reserve called Arid Recovery, near Roxby Downs in March 2016. We’re talking red sand and no phone reception for a week remote.

I should rewind a bit first. How did I manage to find myself here? Well, I was in my 3rd year of uni and had always wanted to get some volunteer hours on my CV, and I saw an ad on my university’s volunteer page to do remote fieldwork in the SA desert working with plants and animals. How could I pass that up? I contacted the PhD student who needed the extra set of hands and next thing I know I’m en-route to Olympic Dam Airport in a 20 seater aeroplane, which was mostly empty except for a few miners (if you’re not an ecologist you’re a miner out there). I was greeted on arrival at the airport (which could’ve been mistaken for a tin shed) and off we went.

The team at Arid Recovery were so lovely and welcoming, and they were always ready to show you the cool stuff around their reserve. In my one-week adventure I helped to: install fenced enclosures, radio collar some quolls, conduct seed predation experiments, and set up prey naivete experiments.

But my favourite task at Arid Recovery was helping assess the health of a recently reintroduced bilby population. This involved roaming around the fenced, predator-proof enclosure from ~10pm-2am on the lookout for bilbies. Some nights we found none, others up to five! After they were caught with nets, we placed them in pouches and took their measurements, checked for any babies in their pouch and recorded their microchip number (that way the data was specific to each bilby).

Apart from all the planned field work we did, we also encountered the gorgeous wildlife that is home to Roxby Downs.

A highlight for me almost 3 years after this trip was that I got to see my fieldwork leader Charlotte, present her results from the experiments I assisted with at the Ecological Society of Australia’s 2018 Conference.

I can’t thank the Team at Arid Recovery and Charlotte Mills enough for the invaluable skills they taught me. What better way of pushing your city kid comfort zone than having your first field experience in the desert?!