Eden The Conservationist

Eden Plummer, Wildlife Conservationist. A collection of my experiences on my career journey  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/edenplummer Twitter: @eden_plummer  Main project: Trainee at London Wildlife Trust

[edenplummer]

Another Door Opens...

I was accepted into a 3 month Traineeship with London Wildlife Trust and have moved to London! I’ve finished my first week and it’s going well.

The first picture is a fox that I snapped a picture of through the blinds of my work desk at home. I’ve never seen a fox out in daylight before, I was so shocked!

The second picture is of some beautiful swans at Woodberry Wetlands on my way to do some media training with Headliners UK. 

Keep checking back for some behind the scenes of my Traineeship and follow my journey!

[edenplummer]

One Door Closes...

It’s been a few years since I last updated my blog, unfortunately I hadn’t been up to much in the way of conservation, especially with COVID hitting everyone so hard. But with times in isolation comes silver linings. Since we were stuck at home, I decided to volunteer with Bat Conservation Society and volunteer at their Out of Hours Helpline! It ended in September and we surpassed the number of last year’s calls about 3/4 of the way through the season. I’m excited to see the final results and if any research findings come from the increased number of calls. Is it because people were home more, or the increasing heat from climate change that raised the numbers, maybe both! What are your theories?

I had planned to go to Zimbabwe this summer for a course on How to Be a Field Biologist, however it had to be rescheduled to next year due to COVID travel restrictions. I look forward to it as I will be able to do actual research on mammals which is my career goal.

[edenplummer]

Wildlife Sense - Day 14

Taking over the Essex Abroad instagram was fun! I enjoyed it, unfortunately because of the weather there wasn’t much to show when looking for tracks in the morning but it gave a look into a day at the project. If you want to take a look, go to Essex Abroad and watch the Wildlife Sense highlights.

The days after that I was on the harbour, or it rained so my shift was cancelled. On my last day I had a harbour shift where I stopped a man from fishing as it is illegal to harm the turtles and fishing could harm them. I also talked to lots of lovely people interested in what we do and talked to them more. My last day was a busy one packing and saying goodbye to everyone. I would definitely consider going back as my illness stopped me from completing everything.

If anyone is wondering whether they should go then I definitely recommend but you do have to remember, you’re there for the turtles first and foremost. Also you have to know how to ride a bicycle and have some practise because some of the hills are hard but you get more used to them. Other than that, take in the beautiful Kefalonian beaches and meet great, like-minded people!

[edenplummer]

Wildlife Sense - Day 10

I've mostly been busy recovering from my illness. One of the most recent days, a turtle came to nest on a beach at sunset and the team, some tourists and I were lucky enough to witness it. Unfortunately in the rush I wasn't able to pick up my phone so I have no photos to show you but it was a truly amazing experience, I couldn't believe my eyes! Then I was able to witness a nest relocation and how the orientation and order of the eggs are kept.

The next days after that were spent recovering and on harbour shift. I've noticed that the males are aggressive and fisherman are more likely to feed the turtles when there's tourists there which saddens me and makes me want to do something but that would be detrimental to the relationship built between the organisation and fishing community here.

I was also able to do a beach profile where the beach was measured to assess how much space there is for the females to nest. I've noticed that many of the beaches aren't as wide as the English beaches here, I wonder if that's to do with climate change or the currents.

Yesterday we had a flash flood and it's almost been raining non-stop since then which is a shame as we cannot work in the rain. I also had a day off today and our plans were halted due to the weather.

I hope it clears up tomorrow as I will be doing an instagram takeover for Essex Abroad (@essexabroad) and I want to show everyone how great Kefalonia is! If you're interested in that go to the Essex Abroad instagram story and I'll be there to greet you.

[edenplummer]

Wildlife Sense - Day 3

Unfortunately last night I had to go to hospital because I was very ill. We found out it was a gastrointestinal virus. As a result of this I've been sleeping all day and missed my shift and presentations so I could recover. I still feel a like I'll but miles better than I did before. Let's hope this makes for a speedy recovery.

[edenplummer]

WILDLIFE SENSE - DAY 1 & 2 Day 1 I travelled to Kefalonia, Greece and met with some of the team. Today was about orientation and training. We learnt about the harbour shift where we are looking at turtle interactions at the harbour. We also learnt about the beach shift, how to identify tracks, nests and dig them to see if they need relocating. Day 2 I had my first shift at the harbour. The first turtle I saw was Danielle and she is gorgeous. I didn't think they'd be that big. Pictures and videos don't do justice for their size. Unfortunately it rained that day so we had to keep taking cover and couldn't complete the whole observation time but we recorded most of the information we needed. After our shift we had a presentation on beach profiling where we measure the width and elevation of the beach. This is so we know how much space is available for nesting due to climate change and humans changing the environment I'm enjoying my time here so far. Everyone is lovely and I really feel like I'm helping the turtles. I wonder what else I'll be able to do in the future!

[edenplummer]

Pint of Science

This week I attended 2 nights of the first Pint of Science event ever in Colchester. It was immersive, inviting and I learnt so much, even on topics I am knowledgeable in! Well done to Shellie Wall and her team for organising, hosting and delivering a great night. It was a huge success and it was due to your amazing work. I was excited to see people from university and locals in attendance. It was a place that people from different walks of life could come, learn and discuss things that are of interest to them, it was lovely to see a mix of these two worlds together in harmony. I wish it happened more often.

The first evening I attended was Our History of Tomorrow: Superhumans or a Dead End? The first talk was by Jordi Paps, one of my evolution lecturers, discussing the question “are humans still evolving?” spoiler alert: yes, in a way. Much of the beginning was from my 1st year lecture but as the talk went on, new examples were used and an answer to the question was given. It was an insightful talk for biologists and the public and I would happy listen to Jordi talk at an event again. The second talk was by Greg Brooke, one of my cell biology lecturers, discussing cancer. This talk reminded me about what cancer is, but I also learnt that cancers can become therapy resistant, the ongoing development of personal cancer treatment options and testing on animals vs individual tumours. This showed me an insight into the world of cancer and reminded me that information/papers on new developments take a while to come out and it’s better to talk directly to researchers as you will be more up-to-date on the current technology, methods, problems and outcomes. It was a shame that I had to leave early, I wanted to stay as long as I could. This was held in the Three Wise Monkeys in Colchester and I didn’t realise how tall the building was, it really put things into perspective.

The last evening of the series I went to Queen St Brewhouse (I recommend the cherry ale if anyone goes there, it’s quite fruity, I wonder how it’s made?) for a night on Inner and Outer Space, which was quite a rollercoaster in the sense of settings of each talk but the variety was great and they complimented each other beautifully. The first talk was by James Ormrod, a sociology lecture, on Outer Space as an Environment. He talked about the different ways that we should look at space, how every human owns space and what people are doing with it, whether we should interfere with other planets and lots of different questions that made me broaden my mind to think about how vast human’s influence goes because we no longer affect just our planet, we are also impacting our universe. As James said in his talk that an asteroid the size of a peanut was on a collision course with a satellite which made the astronauts have to go into emergency mode. It made me think how something so small can have such a huge impact but be insignificant at the same time. Similar to how Greg taught me that a tumour the size of 1mm needs to have blood vessels attached to it to survive which will give it a way to move through the body. Even though it’s so small that it cannot be detected in a scan it is still a huge problem to the body system but in the grand scheme of things, that little 1mm tumour is nothing compared to the universe. It really put things into perspective, especially the duality of things which seems to be a recurring theme in my life currently, which actually leads onto the next talk. The second talk was by Louise Nash, a management and marketing lecturer, who talked about A Tale of Two (or More) Cities: Researching the City of London. I loved that even though she wasn’t an official scientist, the branch she is part of at University of Essex is part of a science department and we was still welcome to speak and teach us and wasn’t treated differently at all. That’s what I loved about this event, the vibe at each venue was great, everyone was happy to talk to one another and learn. Louise’s talk was on looking at London as a place of work and how the environment affect the view of work and relationships between people. It was very informative of the duality of two cities physically and metaphorically on how the architecture affect the dynamic and status of people that work there. The final talk was by Anna Di Ronco, a sociology lecturer. Her talk was on Representing environmental harm and resistance on Twitter: The case of the TAP pipeline. Since ecoactivism via social media is something I engage in it was interesting to see the ways different/alternative media try to counteract the main stream news and whether it works or not. It was informative on the case study and the details from an outsiders perspective. I was happy to also add some comments on how to improve and my experiences. The talks went from thinking about the whole universe to one city to the whole world of social media interacting with one town in South Italy so even though they were different there was, purely by coincidence, a theme that ran through the night that truly tied things together, and a band at the end. I learnt a lot of things those two evenings and look forward to doing it next year. Pint of Science website | Twitter | Facebook

[edenplummer]

2018 Update

Sorry for being MIA, I forgot my email to this account.

What have I done since going to UmPhafa?

Completed 2nd year of university

Started 3rd year of university

Started my dissertation on feeding preferences of starfish on oysters

Attended the British Ecological Society’s undergrad careers conference

Completed my dissertation report

Launched my linkedin profile

Volunteered at Colchester zoo (more info here)

Confirmed a work experience placement as a zookeeper

Started to crowdfund for Wildlife Sense (more info and how to donate here)

Working on my dissertation presentation

As you can see I’ve been busy and this is only the things I’ve been doing in relation to Biology! Tomorrow is the VTeam Awards which is the group I volunteered at Colchester Zoo with. I will let you know if we won anything. In the next couple weeks I will be writing up some reflections some of the events listed above. I look forward to being more active here!

[edenplummer]

Update:

Currently doing exams and deciding on my research project (basically my dissertation for those of you that don't know). I will get a blog post up after things are settled, sorry to anyone that is waiting

[edenplummer]

Day Fourteen

Today we climbed up the Leopard Gorge. From where the three valleys meet all the way up to where I’m standing. We climbed through rivers, up rocks and boulders and finally up a steep grass slope to see this view. We whilst we were tracking a female leopard we found out there was a male one behind us too so it was very exciting. Next we bought some bush meat and cut down some dead trees for the braai for our last day at UmPhafa!

I’m going to miss it here...

[edenplummer]

Day Twelve

Today we were helping with erosion control by making dirt walls and using rocks to reinforce them. Then in the afternoon we cut down trees (do not worry, they were invasive species and therefore unwanted) and laid the branches on the flat ground near the wall.

The walls should stop water running off the hard, flat ground which washes the soil away which can lead to crevices quickly turning into gorges from the water cutting into the soil. The branches will trap the soil and seeds that is being moved by the rain, allowing plants to naturally grow again.

It was really nice to do some hard labour since I don’t get many chances to push my body anymore, especially using my upper body. It was also nice to see the progress we made throughout the day and that team work really helps get things done. I was happy to find out what my body can do when I push myself and see that I have improved over the time I’ve been here. I hope to try more active things when I get back to England, I miss it.

[edenplummer]

Day Ten

Today we had a discussion type debate on the legalisation of rhino horn trading in SA. It was really interesting to see how complicated this issue is and I can see why it takes the people who actually have to discuss this a long time to decide, we were here for at least an hour and that was just us skimming the surface.

Here’s a little snippet of the conclusion of the discussion, which focused on solutions. I suggest turning the volume up to hear people further away and I will try to put a transcript up later for you.

Afterwards, we had the afternoon off so I stayed and did coursework whilst everyone went to a local South African town to experience some of the culture! I wish I could’ve gone but I am still a student with work to do unfortunately but next time I will go.

[edenplummer]

Update

I’ve updated all my posts on being at UmPhafa since I realised that the wording hasn’t been the best so hopefully you can understand them better now!

[edenplummer]

Day Eight

Today we were given a presentation on anti-poaching and then a talk on tracks & tracking which was really interesting, I even made notes! Then we went on a tracking walk to practise the skills and methods we learnt in the bush. We looked at giraffe, jackal, impala, porcupine, leopard, rat and more! Later on we’re going on a night drive to see some nocturnal animals. I hope it’s not too cold!

[edenplummer]

Day Seven

(Sorry for the dad pose, wasn’t sure if you could see the giraffe in the background). Today we went on a game count which is where you count all the game animals you see on the drive (yes, every single one!). We were rained on at lunch (that didn’t really matter to us since we’re British) but eventually had to take cover but other than that it was an awesome day. We counted over 350 animals so we were very productive, I didn’t know there was so many Kudu!

[edenplummer]

Day Five

Today we went on a Bush Walk for evidence of poachers and to look at tracks. A lot of this was up hill in the heat for 5 hrs but I’ve very proud of myself for doing it because I can’t remember the last time I exercised and even then, my stamina is rubbish. It was cool to see the different ways animals walk around since we follow game trails (the trails animals have made after walking through the bush). We then chopped down some dead trees for a braai (aka campfire and bbq) and it was really yummy! It’s currently storming which is good for Africa because they need water in this drought but bad for the wifi, hopefully it’ll be okay!

[edenplummer]

Day Four

We had today off so I woke up early to get ready since I was excited to explore what’s beyond the reserve. We went to a bird of prey display, reptile house, for a dip in a river, shopping and to a waffle and pancake house. All in all it was an awesome and busy day - I got some great pictures! We had a little party in the minibus on the way back which I DJ’d so that was fun. I also had a cheese toastie this morning for the first time whereas most people had one every day so I was excited for that because cheese is amazing. Now we’re chilling and doing coursework after an awesome day!