Young Naturalist Camps: Summer '10

 Over the last few years, I have found progressively more children interested in wildlife. The information that many of these already possess is impressive and a lot of them will be able to hold their own in a wildlife quiz contest. Many children are now often glued to wildlife channels and idolize the personalities that they see on screen, doing all the ‘cool stuff’ with various wild animals. Unfortunately, what children lack is the context that goes with knowing which is the biggest, fastest, smallest and (the hot favourite) most dangerous.

This year, your child has the chance to put some context to all that information and to be out in the field working hands-on with people who are established and experts. A handful of children will get the opportunity to attend two very unique workshops run by Gerry Martin.

Both these workshops will span five days and be completely experiential.

The Madras Crocodile Bank Trust

The first will be at the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust and focus on giving children a hands-on understanding of what it takes to work with wild animals in a captive setting. They will get immersed in the day-to-day running of the park as well as assist in research, husbandry and some veterinary aspects. The group will go out with the legendary Irula Snake Catchers who have been doing this for generations upon generations and are conceivably the best at what they do in the world. What they do is track and capture snakes for extraction of venom. There will be some work to do with the crocodiles as well- there always is with over two thousand crocodiles from 14 species at the park.

Dates: 5th to 9th April. (Depart from Bangalore on and overnight bus on 4th night and return on 10th morning)

Activities:

• Working with staff on the maintenance of the animals

• Learning about husbandry and veterinary aspects

• Tracking with Irulas

• Learning basics in taxonomy and biostatistics

• Safety protocol while interacting with potentially dangerous animals

• Snakebite protocol

• Creating additional habitat for various species

• Have a whole lot of fun!

Accommodation and Logistics: Kids will stay in gender specific dormitories and sleep either on bunk beds or mattresses on the floor. There are attached bathrooms and meals are at a common dining area.

The Agumbe Rainforest Research Station

Founded in 2005 by Romulus Whitaker with the intension of studying and protecting king cobras and their habitat, the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station now is one of the leaders in king cobra research and conservation globally. In addition, it is also taking up new projects focusing on ecology of various species, community conservation, public education and awareness and more. ARRS is also the first to take on a radio telemetry study on any snake species in the country and the first to do so on king cobras in the world.

Children will now get to do all this! They will learn the skill of radio tracking, actually create study projects, learn field techniques in wildlife census, go out tracking, learn other outdoor survival skills and get a peek into the world of ecology!

Dates:12th to16th April (Depart from Bangalore on an overnight bus on the 11th night and return on 17th morning)

Activities:

• Assist researchers in the field

• Stream exploration and ecology

• Canopy Access

• Building machaans

• Camera trapping, game tracking, pug mark moulding

• Radio telemetry

Accommodation and Logistics: Kids will sleep in tents in sleeping bags and on camping mats. Meals are at a common dining area and the bathrooms are permanent structures with hot and cold running water.

If you’d like to give your children this opportunity, please write in to gerry@gerrymartin.in OR 

                                                  call Gerry on +91 9845779666.