Experiences That Will Stay With Me For A Lifetime

“So, did you ever think you’d be disemboweling a dead goat at 3am in rural Africa?”

The short answer to that question is no. The long answer is also no. And yet, there I was,

200km from the nearest town, blearily trying to recall all my previous biology classes to get an idea of where I should cut to remove the colon most easily. It was day four of attempting to call in and collar African wild dogs (hence the dead goat as bait) and week eight of my internship with KAWDCP. Those two months passed in the blink of an eye, but the experiences will stay with me for a lifetime.

Before I arrived in Namibia, I had a certain idea of the internship work I would be

accomplishing. I explained to friends and family that I was going to assist in conservation

research, including a camera trap survey, some community outreach, and attempting to collar new wild dogs. I was right, but I had no idea what truly lay in store for me.

Having just completed three years of rigorous, technical training in Environmental and

Wildlife Management back home at Vanier College, I had developed a systematic and academic approach to most things. I am also someone who thrives on structure. Both of these aspects of my life were challenged from the very beginning, and all I knew was shaken.

I learned quickly that in fieldwork, everything that can go wrong will go wrong, and

usually in the most outrageous way. The terrain is harsh and unforgiving, and by the tenth flat

tire (no, really!), upsets to plans were becoming business as usual. Sudden, impressive

rainstorms would wash out a road and create a river in twenty minutes – in two weeks, I saw

more lightning than I had ever seen in my entire twenty years of life. Being in the field in the

rainy season also meant additional challenges with accessing certain areas, and we had to

rethink our entire approach. I learned a valuable lesson: stop, reassess, and roll with the

punches. You cannot anticipate anything, but you have full control over your reaction.

Another thing I learned more about how to interact with local communities and their

role in KAWDCP’s work. I have a background in ecology, so I understand the natural world, the interactions between living beings, the way they use the resources available to them, and how they coexist. How is it that I missed where humans fit into that equation? I come from a country where agriculture is large-scale, where you don’t see the route that food takes to get to your plate (and where you don’t really want to know the details either). Now I was experiencing the opposite end of that spectrum, with cattle farmers that practice traditional, sustainable seasonal grazing methods, their livestock roaming freely. However, free-roaming livestock is at risk of predation, including by African wild dogs, the very animals I was here to help protect. I remember nervously asking Nadja, “How exactly do we convince the farmers about wild dog conservation when the dogs are such a threat to their livestock?” Nadja chuckled and responded plainly: “We don’t.”

Over the next couple of weeks, as we visited about ten separate farms and homesteads

where I met dozens of farmers of all ages, it dawned on me that conservation isn’t just an

ecological issue – it’s a social and economic issue as well. It was never just about conserving

wild dogs – it was about providing resources to communities that engaged and empowered

them, allowing them to find alternative solutions to human wildlife conflict in order to protect

both their livestock and endangered wild dogs (as well as other predators).

As someone accustomed to the individualistic culture of North America, where you

don’t involve yourself in another person’s business, and they don’t get involved in yours, it was

a breath of fresh air to see people with very different ideologies working together so

collaboratively. Every conservation effort started with a warm greeting, and we would talk

about the rain, treat their dogs for ticks and fleas, and discuss their livestock herds.

Eventually, the topic of livestock predation would come up naturally in conversation, and talk would gravitate toward wild dog activity in the area. Nothing was ever imposed, forced, or structured. When they were ready to share, they would, and we were ready to listen.

I had the good fortune to experience Namibia at a unique time of year. I arrived at the

peak of the rainy season, and where I expected to find a barren, flat landscape I found instead lush vegetation and greenery. Driving through the omurambas (the ancient, dried-up riverbeds and tributaries that make up the majority of KAWDCP’s study site), we were surrounded by chest-high grasses and thousands of brilliant yellow flowers. The only similar valleys I had seen in my life were the result of clear-cutting forests, but these ancient valleys were entirely natural. The landscape was almost pristine… and yet humans had been active there for over

100,000 years. I was able to survey the vegetation and identify some trees and shrubs to

species, marvelling at the differences between the sparse, thorny, fine-leaved Acacias and the tall, broad-leaved maple and oak trees I am accustomed to. It was an entirely different

landscape and ecosystem, and yet I never felt out of place. It was everything I didn’t expect that had the most profound impact on me. I am now intimately familiar with buffalo thorn bushes, sudden cloudbursts, and sand everywhere. I drank omaere (traditional fermented milk), spoke new languages, and drove thousands of kilometres.

I saw countless sunrises and sunsets and parts of the night sky that I have never seen. I

witnessed a young farmer cry with concern over his dog’s wounds and learned to greet every

person I met. I experienced real human connection in a way I never have before and was

welcomed into homes and farms and lives. By the end of my time in Namibia, I hadn’t seen a single wild dog. But under a sky full of stars, I listened to them call to each other in the dark night as they hunted, moving like ghosts around our camp, and I realized how much really goes into conservation beyond science alone.

Fianna Edgerton-Raymond, 2025