The Importance of Fieldwork in Animal Behaviour & Conservation

I’m very good at finding hidden holes. In fact, during my PhD, I found myself driving a Land Rover into a surprisingly large one while tracking Pavarotti, the one-eared leopard and former territorial male of the Santawani area. As I stood knee-deep in an abandoned warthog burrow with the headlights at head height, a group of cheery tourists found me and shared their sighting of a roguishly handsome one-eared leopard. Then, they happily waved goodbye and vanished into the sunset, leaving me with a wounded ego and a marooned Land Rover. I often tell this story because it was the origin of the favourite research question of my PhD—can we use tourist sightings to monitor and count predators— and because it’s a good example of the intangible value of immersive field biology. 

Fieldwork, observing animals in their natural habitats, has been a cornerstone of wildlife research and conservation for decades. At Botswana Predator Conservation, such immersive experiences have led to numerous research breakthroughs, from serendipitous discoveries of previously unknown African wild dog communication to insights into unusual predator behaviours under climate change. Time spent in the field not only advances scientific knowledge but also fuels the development of innovative conservation technologies. For instance, work on the bio-boundary project has been directly influenced by these detailed, ground-level observations. 

A core component of the research at Botswana Predator Conservation involves using cutting-edge technologies, from camera traps to tracking collars, to monitor animal behaviours remotely. However, in an age where technology has rapidly enhanced our ability to collect detailed data on animal behaviours and environments, fieldwork remains critical for grounding the data we collect to real-world phenomena. Ultimately, you need both technology and time in the field, and you need both immersive fieldwork alongside desk-based studies and laboratory work to accelerate science and conservation. One of the unique things about Botswana Predator Conservation is the focus on using fieldwork alongside these other methods to accelerate wildlife research and conservation. 

Unfortunately, in the incentivised world of research funding and academic tenure, immersive field biology can often be viewed as a luxury and can be difficult for researchers to do. A recent letter published by the BPC team and partners in Science highlighted how systemic issues in academia—such as the pressures for high publication rates and stringent tenure metrics—can discourage essential field immersion. Fieldwork is time-consuming, resource-intensive, logistically complex, and is frequently conducted in remote areas with limited internet and power access. In contrast, academic promotion and funding typically rely on publishing fast and often—a challenging feat when a significant portion of time can be spent searching for elusive animals, working with dial-up speed internet, or mending tyres punctured by wicked thorns. In the paper, we advocated for a seismic shift in how academic institutions and funders value and assess research. In a sentence, it is crucial to move beyond merely counting publications to valuing the rich, nuanced data produced by fieldwork—data that inform effective policies and conservation practices—and the other benefits found through time in the field, including community training and engagement. 

As we try to shift the research environment to this new way of thinking, models like those at Botswana Predator Conservation, where immersive fieldwork is a central pillar used to empower and inform desk-based and laboratory studies, beyond only the collection of raw data, will be essential. These experiences allow researchers and conservationists to deeply connect with the ecosystems they study and protect, driving both personal and scientific breakthroughs that can’t be achieved through other research methods alone.  

Some of our best ideas come when we’re immersed in the thick of the action watching a sleeping lion, and our minds have the space to make unconscious connections to inform research directions, or when we’re knee-deep in a swamp getting first-hand experience on the innovations needed to accelerate the research process. Our team is gearing up for another trip to Dog Camp to continue our work on the impacts of climate change on predator populations in the Okavango Delta. Who knows what new ideas will come from the next hole we find ourselves in? 

From: 2024 Rafiq, K., Jordan, N.R., McNutt, J.W., Neelo, J., Attias, N., Boersma , P.D., Palmer, M., Ruesink, J., and Abrahms, B. 2024. The value of field research in academia. Science, 384:6698 (855-856).