The St Bees Island Earthwatch Program
Led
by Dr Alistair Melzer and Dr. Bill Ellis, The St Bees Island Koala Ecology Field
Expeditions have now hosted over 150 international volunteers,
from countries
all over the world.
Each field expedition is led by Dr Melzer or Dr Ellis, monitoring the ecology of the koalas on the beautiful island setting of St Bees.
Volunteers learn how to catch and track koalas and follow the population for two weeks at a time. There are also koala and vegetation surveys that add to the body of data being collected on this unique koala population.
The team of volunteers, researchers and postgraduate
students on each expedition live in basic accommodation, sharing cooking and
research duties and enjoying life away from the stresses of television, phones
or even a local store. Several postgraduate students are currently investigating
aspects of the ecology of this population and combined with the research
interests of the Principal Investigators, there is always
plenty of work to be
done.
There are four field expeditions each year and information
about how to book can be found on the Earthwatch Web Page.