Herp Workers for Operation Wallacea

This arrived in the one of the listservs I'm on and may be of interest to some in the RAUK forum. I personally have no connection with, nor prior knowledge of, the organisation but the web site checks out.

Ewan


From: Linda A Weir To: PARC@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Sent:
Tuesday, February 03, 2004 8:07 AM Subject: Operation
Wallacea - Honduras, Indonesia

I was asked to post the following announcement to the
PARC listserve. Please contact Dr. Tim Coles if you are
interested in assisting.

Operation Wallacea is looking for herpetologists to help
with surveys this coming summer in Honduras or in
Indonesia. Operation Wallacea (see www.opwall.com) is an
organisation funded by paying volunteers, which
establishes extensive monitoring programmes in remote
areas for assessing changes in factors such as socio-
economics, forest structure, biodiversity (using
indicator groups such as herpetofauna) and population
levels of key species. In Indonesia the programme has
been running for 8 years and has now attracted
substantial funding from GEF. In Honduras we are in the
process of establishing a similar programme and the
results from the surveys in 2004 are being used as a
baseline against which future changes can be assessed.

In Honduras we are operating four camps within the
Merendon Mountains along the northern border with
Guatemala. One camp is in a lowland forest valley, one at
1200m in the buffer zone of the Cusuco National Park and
two at 1700m in the core zone of the National Park. We
are looking for a herpetologist to man each of the camps
for a 10 week period starting 26 June. We are intending
to have an extensive network of pitlines established at
each of the sites covering areas of undisturbed forest
through to highly disturbed and open areas. In addition
there will be a network of cover boards at each of the
sites and the herpetologists will need to complete
opportunistic transect searches each day. These posts are
not funded but on site costs will be covered. This is
however, an excellent opportunity for graduates or
postgraduates with an interest in herpetology and
previous experience of handling poisonous snakes to gain
experience of Central America fieldwork.

There is one further herpetology post that we are looking
to fill in Honduras. This is to complete a population
study of the pink subspecies of Boa Constrictor which
lives only on the two islands of the Cayos Cochinos. This
sub species is protected under Honduran legislation but
there appears to be a flourishing illicit trade in the
sale of these animals to collectors. The objective of
this project which runs from the same dates would be to
obtain an estimate of the population size on both
islands. The snakes are fairly easy to capture and these
would then be pit tagged and released. Given the
relatively small size of the islands it is possible to
search a fairly large part of them for the snakes, which
should give fairly precise population estimates. In
addition this study would also complete an assessment of
the other herpetofauna species on the island from pit
lines and opportunistic searching.

In addition to these posts though we are looking for a
herpetologist with a strong publication record to help
set up the surveys in the field and then to utilise the
information collected for one or more publications. In
this case the costs of flights as well as the on site
costs will be covered. If the herpetofauna project runs
well this season then we might be interested in running
the project in 2005 by funding a PhD student as we have
done for many of the Indonesian marine projects.

In Indonesia we are designing the survey work as a
precursor to a full GEF monitoring programme. I have
attached the GEF project description and the appendix
which describes how the monitoring programme is used to
assess performance against various socio-economic, forest
structure, biodiversity and population levels of key
species criteria. We will be working at 9 sampling nodes
(3 in undisturbed forest, 3 in moderately disturbed
forest and 3 in disturbed forest). The nodes will be
spread right across the Lambusango Forest Management Area
in central Buton Island. The science teams will visit
each of the nodes for a week on a rolling programme
starting 17 July. The herpetofauna work which will be co-
ordinated through the Arthur Rylah Institute in Melbourne
will involve a postdoc (for preference) or a postgrad
with Asia Pacific herpetology experience running pit
traps and cover boards at each of the sampling nodes and
completing opportunistic search transects. This project
will cover the field costs and a -ú500 travel grant. The
successful applicant will need to be on site for a 10 or
12 week period starting on 25 June 2004 in Makassar.

I hope these projects are of interest to some of your
contacts.


Dr Tim Coles
Project Director
Operation Wallacea
Hope House Old Bolingbroke
Spilsby Lincolnshire
PE23 4EX
Tel: 01790 763194
Fax: 01790 763825
http://www.opwall.com

i got back from 3 weeks out with op wall begining of april in Honduras at Cusuco, wish had the money to go back amazing place with amazing wildlife.

Hi there all,

I spent 8 months with Operation Wallacea now over 3 seasons, working with Graeme Gillespie as his assistant for much of that time.

I spent all my time in Indonesia, and so couldn't comment on any of the S. American side of things, but I'm happy to correspond with anyone thinking of going to either place.

Cheers,

Dave Lockie