Trail camera wildlife survey in northern Mexico's Sierra Madre

Mt. lion at Rincón de Guadalupe; click to enlargeCow . . . cow . . . cow . . . two cows . . . cow nose . . . cow tail . . . mountain lion . . . cow . . .

What? Go back.

Six of us were crowded around our little Canon G10, using its LCD screen to review the images from the trail camera fixed securely to a nearby oak tree. Out of several hundred photos, the majority showed either cows, the single squirrel that—unbeknownst to us when we placed the camera—lived in the tree on the left side of the frame and indulged itself in repeated self-portraits, or just apparently empty creekside landscape, the result of wind, an overenthusiastic camera sensor, or invisible extraterrestrials—one is never sure. 

But between the cows and aliens the Bushnell Trophy Cam had recorded a fascinating cross-section of the life in this remote canyon in Mexico’s Sierra Madre. 

Read the full report here

Professional development workshop, South Rift Game Scouts, Kenya, October 2011

Despite a language and culture gap many would consider formidable, two law enforcement rangers from the U.S. Park Service bonded instantly with a group of 28 Maasai game scouts from the South Rift in Kenya.

During an intensive, ConserVentures-sponsored workshop held at the Lale’enok Resource Center, about 90 miles south of Nairobi, Gary Haynes and Michael Hardin shared their training and experience in tactics for tracking poachers who might be armed and capable of laying an ambush to surprise their pursuers. In return, Gary and Michael were embraced as brethren by the Maasai rangers, who quickly recognized and valued their shared professionalism and similar challenges, and who gave as good as they received in explaining fieldcraft relevant to the African bush. Michael Lenaimado, head of the scouts and fluent in Maa and English, translated throughout the training, but after the first day or two much of the one-on-one interaction seemed to take place more by telepathy than talking. 

Click here to Read the full report  . . .

[For photos and video, see our Gallery and Videos pages]

MABA Expedition, July-August 2011

La Sierra Madre: The Mother Range. It’s fitting that Mexico would give all three of its major mountain ranges the same name, differentiated only by their location—Sierra Madre Occidental, Sierra Madre Oriental, Sierra Madre del Sur. After all, this is a land where devotion to the ideal of the maternal is endemic, where shrines to the Virgin are rarely a stone’s throw apart, and where madres, abuelas, and tias have traditionally ground the corn, dried the carne, and pounded the chile that comprises the life-sustaining triumvirate of Mexican cuisine.  

Click to enlargeThe sierras give life to the country too. Peaks ten thousand feet tall scrape rain from clouds spawned in two oceans and two seas, sending it cascading through pine and fir forests where thick-billed parrots screech at stooping goshawks, down through oak woodlands where moonlight fires the eyes of jaguars and ocelots, and out to water the valleys and plains where corn grows, cows graze, and chiles ripen in the sun.

What better goal for a scientific expedition, then, than to explore and celebrate the life in its myriad forms that springs from the Mother Range? That’s the idea behind MABA—the Madrean Archipelago Biodiversity Assessment.

Click here to download the story in our Terra magazine format, with 16 pages of images, interactive links, and multimedia, or follow the link below to read a simpler version on the website. You can also order a print copy from MagCloud, our HP print partner, here.

Click to read more ...

Communications for conservation

Carlos and Martha Robles of El Aribabi Conservation Ranch needed color brochures for a large event in Tucson, Arizona. ConserVentures donated design and printing for 200 brochures for the event (left), and will be working on a more permanent marketing materials package, including logo, brochure, and ad campaign. Click here to download the complete brochure. Defenders of Wildlife needed assistance marketing a unique trip in central Arizona, a collaboration of the Apache Nation, the non-profit, and a tour company to promote eco-tourism. ConserVentures created materials and marketed the June 2011 trips through its mailing lists. Click here to view the email with live links about the trip.

Skills assistance ~ wildlife tracking

Discussing a deer that had been killed by a jaguar on El Aribabi Conservation Ranch.ConserVentures founders Roseann & Jonathan Hanson helped start the Sky Island Alliance Wildlife Tracking program in early 2001. Since then it has become one of the most respected citizen-science program in the world, with several hundred volunteers over ten years monitoring important habitats in the Sky Island region. Their data has helped create land use plans for Pima and Santa Cruz counties, and Arizona Department of Transportation's first approved over- and under-highway wildlife crossings. Over the ten years of this ongoing program, Roseann & Jonathan continued to volunteer their time as instructors in the program. In April 2011, they joined Cynthia Wolf, Jessica Lamberton, and Sergio Avila at El Aribabi Conservation Ranch in northern Mexico to teach the next nine volunteers. Photo gallery, click here. For more on the program, visit SkyIslandAlliance.org.

Equipment donations, South Rift Game Scouts, Kenya

October 2010: delivered to the South Rift Game Scouts five tents donated by Sierra Designs; and five Garmin GPS units, five pairs of waterproof Bushnell binoculars, and a solar battery charger, purchased with funds donated by ConserVentures supporters. Trip report, click here.

Skills assistance & conservation expedition, Micronesia

Two ConserVentures board members worked with a community in Micronesia to re-invigorate traditional building and canoe-making skills. With a long history in the community (dating to the 1960s as Peace Corps volunteer), Steve Hayden and Diane Boyer traveled to a small, remote Pacific island to work with the natives who wanted to renew constructing and using waharak (traditional ocean-going outrigger sailing canoes), but lacked funds for and access to tools and sail cloth. The pair delivered adze blades and other hand tools, and 90 yards of sailcloth. The team documented the construction of several canoes and the building of a large uut (thatch-roofed boat house). More documentation coming soon, including video, which is being shared with the community this year. [We are waiting until the communication products have been delivered to the community first, before sharing with the world at large.]

Communications for conservation ~ websites

BaboonsRUs.comAmboseliConservation.orgSince 2009, we have donated development of websites for several conservation efforts. At left, a site for Dr. Shirley Strum's Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project, the world's longest-running research project on non-human primates.

We have also creates sites for the Amboseli Conservation Project (right).

Construction assistance, El Aribabi Conservation Ranch, Mexico

Six volunteers traveled to northern Sonora, Mexico, to spend a beautiful fall weekend camping and providing welding and construction assistance and supplies for new guest cabins in a remote canyon. See photo gallery, here. (About El Aribabi Conservation Ranch)

Conservation Expedition: First groundtruthing of South Rift Safari Circuit

Six ConserVentures volunteers spent 2 weeks in Kenya, the first "tourists" to drive the South Rift Safari Circuit to test the concept for the South Rift Association of Land Owners, also known as SORALO (working in collaboration with African Conservation Fund). Traveling self-contained in rented Land Cruisers and lead by John Kamanga of SORALO, the team explored regions of the South Rift's Maasailand little visited by outsiders. After the trip, the team prepared an extensive report and recommendations for developing the route as a tourist destination (report available upon request to groups or institutions looking to complete similar projects). A magazine story about the trip was also released in an international travel publication. Photo gallery of the expedition, click here.