Cuddly koalas and meerkats, big cats and bats are among many species that Fionnuala Carvill FCSI has supported in their natural habitat.
Fionnuala is a volunteer for Earthwatch, an international charity that engages people in scientific field research and education to promote a sustainable environment. She has taken part in four expeditions with Earthwatch to Africa, Australia and South America, in often inhospitable conditions.
It’s a far cry from her 25-year career in the financial services industry in Guernsey, where she has worked for many employers, such as Rothschild Bank (CI) Ltd.
Three continents
Fionnuala became aware of Earthwatch when she came across one of its programmes as she travelled in Peru in 2001 and learned that no conservation or scientific experience was needed to take part in its projects. “The idea of getting involved in studying a species through scientific research, and contributing towards conservation efforts, was appealing.”
Her most recent expedition was to Pantanal, Brazil. There she was part of a team helping to conserve peccaries - medium-sized mammals resembling pigs - and bats. With the peccaries, she helped estimate the population and their growth. Her surveys of bats involved investigating their feeding habits and examining their community structure.
Previously, she studied cheetahs in Namibia, collecting data to understand factors affecting the species’ survival and to develop programmes to sustain the population. Her role included radio tracking collared cheetahs, and feeding animals that live on a reserve.
She observed koala ecology on St Bees Island, offshore from Queensland, Australia. “The island provides a living laboratory to understand what keeps an isolated population of koalas in balance and may provide answers to managing over-populated habitats elsewhere in Australia,” says Fionnuala.
She collected information about the koala population, tracking tagged animals, catching and weighing untagged koalas, measuring them and taking tissue samples. “The island was inhabited by one man, electricity was provided by a generator that was on for a few hours daily and there was no plumbing, so rainwater was used for drinking and washing,” recalls Fionnuala.
In the Kuruman River Reserve, South Africa, she studied meerkats. She says: “You get to know the meerkats - they each have their own distinct personality. Part of my job was to work with pups so that they accepted humans and wouldn’t be disturbed by the scientists following them. This meant interacting with them - which included letting them climb up the inside of my trouser leg.”
Creatures great and small
There has been no shortage of scary moments during her travels - from wading thigh-deep through a piranha-infested river in Brazil to a close encounter in Australia with a poisonous Huntsman spider the size of her outstretched hand.
On another occasion she was part of a group stranded in the wild after nightfall during a bat survey, when a tractor pulling the cart they were travelling in sustained a collapsed wheel. “We had no lights, other than torches. We heard a group of peccaries nearby and had to scramble into the cart; serious damage can be caused if you are charged by one, let alone a herd,” she explains.
In Brazil, each night she had to remove hordes of ticks that had attached themselves to her during the day. She says: “One evening, I missed one and I woke up with a bulging, purple mini-balloon sticking out of the side of my neck.”
She says her involvement with Earthwatch has brought her great satisfaction. “The expeditions are hard work but fun. Although I’m spending my holiday working, being involved in something completely different from the day job is incredibly stimulating and relaxing.”
Now keen to take part in Earthwatch projects in Mongolia, Fionnuala stepped up her charity work by signing up with Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) last year. She accepted a four-month placement in China as an organisational development adviser in VSO’s national volunteering programme.
Fionnuala, who has a non-executive directorship with an investment fund in Guernsey, is now also joining a group of businesspeople on the Channel Islands to assist with a new charity initiative.
For more about Earthwatch, visit www.earthwatch.org
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