The Succulent Karoo Research Station
New Developments at the Research Station 2006

by Carsten Schradin

It is the 15th of September 2001 when I arrive in Goegap Nature Reserve, Namaqualand. I want to spend five months here to study the social organization of the striped mouse. In captivity I observed that males intensively participate in parental care, i.e. they take care of their offspring. Now I want to see if paternal care also occurs under natural conditions.

Enrico, the second reserve managers, welcomes me. He gives me the key for my home for the next five months: A little hut like building next to the rubbish dump of an old mine. The way to the bathroom is 20 meters away from the house. Theoretically, warm water is provided by a boiler that runs on gas. Practically, the wind always blows the gas flame out before I can get to the shower. The boiler is situated inside the toilet through which the wind blows, making it easier for the slightest breeze to extinguish the flame. However, I had a plan: I decided to put some toilet paper into the boiler, light it with a match and quickly run to the shower to open the hot water tap. The result was that the gas flow in the boiler increased dramatically, which, together with the burning toilet paper, resulted into a little explosion. When I was lucky, the boiler was working and I had my hot water. When I was unlucky the explosion was too strong and blew out the gas flame.
The equipment at my new home is sparing: a desk, shelve and a gas stove. I brought my own camping bed and bought a second hand kitchen table: Finally a place to have dinner at! Even more important is a fridge, because summer in Namaqualand is very hot: up to 49° C. I was somewhat shocked to discover that a gas fridge is twice the price of a normal fridge, but I have no choice. At least now I have a new home and I can start to work at my field site.
Twice a day I drove with my VW Golf to the field site, in the morning and in the afternoon. This means 30kms a day on a very bad road. In the field I set traps, mark the mice and determine their weight, reproductive status and whether they are adult or juveniles. After three weeks, all the mice at my field site had color markings that enabled me to recognize them individually. Now, I can start to observe their natural behavior in the field. The mice are active during the day, the habitat is open and they soon got used to my presence. So I can study them in a way that is normally only possible in large mammals.
In the beginning of January I left Goegap and drove back to the university in Johannesburg. In the car were lots of scientific data which showed that the striped mouse is group-living in Namaqualand. I also had good evidence that even the wild living males participate in parental care. But I realized something else, maybe an even more important thing: Goegap is worldwide one of the best places to study behavior in wild living small mammals. Whereas other scientists studying small mammals see them normally only in the trap, I can observe them in the way Jane Goodall studied her chimpanzees. A new world is emerging, the social live of the striped mice (see title in the next FSM-TIMES).
Thus, it was no surprise that I was back in Goegap the next September. On my arrival, I was told that I won’t be able to use the house I made my home last year. First, I was shocked, but then happily surprised, as Enrico told me that I can use the old farmhouse directly at the field site. Formerly this house was used as a guesthouse, but it was not often booked. The house was in a rather bad state and it was not worth to renovate the house. Thus, the department in Kimberly decided to close this guesthouse. To avoid further costs, they wanted to break it down. Luckily, the management of Goegap had a better idea: Why not use it as a research station? Researchers can use the house free of charge. However, the reserve will not contribute anything to its maintenance. This had to be done by the researchers themselves.

I happily agreed. The new research station had several advantages. Most importantly, it was directly at the field site. This saved a lot of time and money, as I did not have to drive 30km a day. Of course it was also much more convenient. After setting the traps I could go into the house and have a coffee before checking them. Nowadays we start working in the field at 6 in the morning and stop at 8 at night. This is only possible because in the meantime we can quickly go to the research station and have a break. With the old house I used in the first years, most studies of the years to come would not have been possible.
Another great benefit was that I had much more space available: Three sleeping rooms, two offices and a big kitchen. Enough space for 8 people staying permanently here, which enabled me to establish a small research group over the years.
Apart from benefits there were of course also costs. The house was really in a bad state. Melanie Schubert, my field assistant in 2002, and I started renovating the bathroom. But the entire house needed some paint, inside and out. Furthermore, the ceiling in the bathroom was coming down, and some walls had frightening big holes. However, with several buckets of paint, new ceiling boards, cement and the help of the workers from Goegap, the state of the house was restored into an acceptable condition.
Another problem was furniture: Except for a few desks, my kitchen table and gas fridge from the year before, there was not much. First we bought a kitchen shelve second hand. And over the last few years, we bought more and more furniture, mainly cupboards and shelves. But there is still a lot missing, especially good beds. The beds here are bunk beds welded by the workers from Goegap, with some very soft mattresses. It was not good enough for my back and from the beginning on I preferred to sleep on the floor.
We have no connection to a power line. Instead, we use solar power. This is good enough for the light in the house. However, a scientist is only as good as his computer, and at the moment we are using 6 computers in the research station. The solar panel we have cannot provide enough energy for all of them. So we have to use big car batteries and inverters that invert the power from 12 to 220V. Several times a week we have to drive to the office to charge the batteries.
Batteries and computers are also important for one of the few ways of relaxing at the research station without thinking about mice. The computers cannot be used only for work, but also be abused as a TV. In the meantime we have a small collection of DVDs at the research station and watching movies is an important social activity. Our first DVD was “Walking with Dinosaurs” and many more documentaries and movies came later.

The water supply for the research station is from a spring next to the house. Using an old diesel water pump, we fill up the tanks once or twice a week. We have two big tanks at the house, each for several thousand liters. Another tank solely for the bathroom is on top of the hill behind the research station.
Living at the research station means that you have to do without several luxuries that are part of normal life in a city. There is no TV, no phone, and no dishwasher. You also have to wash your clothes by hand. But we have some luxuries you will never find in a city: The silence and peace of the nature around us, observing the exciting social life of free ranging animals, living in an area surrounded by astonishing scenery, with a clear night sky sparkling with stars like nowhere else in the world. I am working here in my office, but I have only to go a few steps to get into the natural environment of my study species. Actually, I do not even have to do this. Just in front of my window, in a little shack for the solar energy system, is a striped mouse group living, and I can observe their social life from my desk. The Acacia trees behind are used as nesting sites by mouse birds. And the bird bath in front of my window is visited by several species each day. We might live in the wilderness – but we enjoy it!

The Succulent Research Station was established over the last years. Its equipment improves from year to year, and more and more students are coming. The scientific value of the research station is also demonstrated by several researchers that visited us, from South Africa, Europe and the USA. Let us hope that this research station will continue to develop and provide us with much more fascinating information about the wonderful nature of Namaqualand.

New Developments at the Research Station 2006

The Research Station improves from year to year (see FSM-TIMES No. 1). Starting from an old farm house that was very much in need of renovation and which lacked most infrastructures such as furniture, we renovated and improved the house every year a little bit. This year the improvements were much more than a little bit, as funds from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University if Zurich and funding from different foundations made it possible to invest much more than in the previous years.

New Ceilings

In one room and in the student’s kitchen there was the real risk that the ceiling was falling on our heads. Every week another piece was found on the floor. So it was time to replace these ceilings and Brigitte took over that difficult task in February with the help of some casual workers. She also used the opportunity to install a ceiling for the first time in the part of the house where she and I were staying. We use a corridor of about 2 by 8 meters that was added to the house approx. 30 years ago as a garage for the farm vehicles. However, in this part there was no ceiling between the corrugated iron roof and the room. As a result, it was getting very cold in winter, as there was no insulation. In our area it was up to 10 degrees colder than in the student’s kitchen next door. But not so in summer, when the sun was burning all day on the corrugated iron and we had the feeling to live in a frying pan. Work was impossible except when I could retreat to the much colder student’s kitchen. But now even we have a ceiling and it really helps. Through this July, which was much colder than in the last years, we did not feel so cold in the house.

Painting of Rooms

Removing the old and installing the new ceilings made quite a mess. Thus it was a good time to paint the rooms after the clean up. The student’s kitchen got a warm yellow while our area a nice blue-green. In July, Ivana also painted the large student’s sleeping room in a soft violet. Furthermore, the gangway to the student’s rooms now shines in a fresh white and the guys painted the bathroom in a warm light blue.

New Furniture

All the years the students had complained about the beds. It was true, that the self made beds from Goegap were not comfortable at all, as they did not meet standards. It was better to place the foam mattresses onto the floor, but also these mattresses were getting old. But now the research station has four new nice beds for students. And this, hopefully should last for a while as I did not buy the cheapest ones, but good quality. Other new furniture includes one cup-board for the students, a shelf for the student’s kitchen and two book shelves for the research room.

Solar system: Now we have power in every room!

So far we nearly had no power at the research station. Ok, we had and still have a small solar system that (normally) provides enough power for the 12V lights and in summer even for a computer. But what about the computers in winter/spring, when we do most of our work? We had to run them with large car batteries. These had to be charged at the office in of Goegap. When carrying them around they were not only very heavy, but often leaked some battery acid creating fashions holes in our clothes. At the research station we connected a small inverter to the batteries, which changed the 12V to 220V. In this way we could run the computers, at least for several hours, before we had to run to the office again to recharge the battery. And it became apparent that the batteries were suffering some form of wear as each time they were recharged they provided power for shorter periods. And often there was no power at all to work.

But all has changed this July. Now we have four large solar panels in front of the house. These charge eight solar batteries on the veranda of the research station. A solar regulator makes sure that the batteries are not getting overcharged. The batteries are connected four in a row, and two rows in parallel, such that they provide 24V. A cable goes from the batteries through the wall into the research room. Here it connects to an inverter that changes the 24V to 220V. From here the cables go into every room of the house, as every room has now one regular power plug with 220V. Here one can easily connect the laptops to the power. This is such a big improvement for us, though for all of our readers it is of course normal to have easy access to power. What will the students of the future think when we tell them how we had to use car batteries?

Of course the solar panels do not provide endless power. But we tested the system and even in winter, when it is often cloudy, we can run laptops for up to 8 hours a day, in summer much longer. The inverter provides only 1000W, so we can’t use the power for a hair dryer or a microwave. But in future there will always be power to run the computers to put the data in and analyze them.

New Lamps

Our small solar system so far only allowed 12V lamps, which are sometimes not very strong, especially when the wire has to go a long distance or the room is large. Thus, though we had a light in the bathroom, which I installed in 2004, it was still very dark at night. Now we have two strong lights with energy saving bulbs that are powered by the 220V system and which make the bathroom one of the brightest rooms. However, the brightest room is now the small student’s room, which was previously the darkest. This room now also has a strong 220V light. And we have a new big light on the veranda, promising relaxed warm summer nights there, having dinner under the stars (and probably with a thousand of moths attracted by the lights, and their accompanying hunters, the geckos of the research station).

New Computers

I also bought two new laptops fort the research station. I chose the cheapest version from DELL without any extras, and we are very happy with these computers. They can do everything we want them to do. The old laptop is now used by the research station manager. One of the new ones is based as station for all field data. The other one is used also for research but also by the students to watch DVDs and for their Emails. Whenever somebody goes to town he/she takes this computer to the internet café and sends and downloads emails for the students. The students can have now the opportunity to read and reply to their e-mails at the research station. This makes it much easier and cheaper.

Wendy-House for Animal Keeping

Wendy House is the South African English name for a wooden house used in the garden. I bought one measuring 3x6m in Cape Town. It was not only expensive, but also stressful to have it transported to Goegap. At first, the transport company forgot the roof, windows and door. Once everything had finally arrived, it proved to be more work to get it standing than expected, but it took just over one day to get it done. The Wendy House now offers accommodation to our captive colony of striped mice. Before we had them on the veranda of the research station, which was not the best solution. Now we have much more space for the colony and the mice have a quieter place to stay, as here they are not being disturbed by people using the veranda at night.

Research Station Manager appointed

The most important change is that the Research Station now has a manager who is appointed for 12 months and stays permanently at the Research Station during this period. This was possible through grants from different societies. The Research Station Manager is somebody with a MSC in Biology or similar, who wants to stay one year in Namaqualand. The Research Station refunds the costs of the flight to South Africa, offers free accommodation and covers the living expenses with a small grant of R 2000/month (250 Euro). The work of the Research Station Manager is hard and demanding: 1. Maintenance and repairs of the Research Station; 2. managing the finances (book keeping); 3. management of the captive colony of mice; 4. keeping track of all mice groups, i.e. conducting field work such as trapping, radio-tracking and behavioral observations; 5. working in and supervising field assistants.

Thus, the job of the Research Station Manager is to keep the station and the projects running while I am away. It is especially important that all the groups are still monitored and that there is a possibility for students to work in Goegap even when I am not there. I am very lucky that I found Ivana, somebody both highly motivated and qualified for the job. She worked very hard the first months and still was full of enthusiasm, proving that she can solve problems of all kinds independently. I would be lucky to have such a Research Station Manager also in the coming years.

Developments in the Future

Will the students of the future appreciate the improvements we have done at the Research Station ort just take it as granted that there is (only) one power plug in every room? They won’t know how time consuming and expensive it was in previous years to write emails only once a week when being in Springbok. Will they instead complain that they do not have easy access to the internet? I hope also in future we will have students that appreciate the loneliness of Goegap and I hope that this place will always keep the flair of being off the track.

Still, we will need further improvements. Especially it might become necessary to build more accommodation for students, when we get funding for PhD projects in Goegap. There are only three sleeping rooms at the Research Station, one for the Research Station Manager, one for my family, and one for field assistants. We might have to erect more Wendy Houses or buy a caravan if more students start working here. We are not allowed to erect permanent structures in the nature reserve. We might also need more power, maybe by a windmill supplementing the solar system.

Most importantly, we would need a decent car. So far we only have a 14 years old Ford Sierra, and my private 10 years old Land Rover. Normally, one of these old cars is in the garage. A reliable new car that can manage the sand roads would be nice, a 2x4 vehicle such as a Toyota Condor, which would offer enough space for students. But the costs of around 33 000 Euro a very high, or do you know a potential sponsor?

The old research station from 2001.

The research station (picture C. Keller)

The backside of the research station: Place to do the washing and to have a BBQ (picture C. Keller).

The water pump

Ivana paints the large student’s sleeping room

The freshly painted student’s room has now three new and nice beds. On the right hand side, outside the picture, there are two more cup-boards

Large solar panels provide the research station with power.

The solar panels charge solar batteries on the veranda of the research station. These are connected to the blue inverter on the wall of the research room that changes 24V to 220V. From here power plugs in every room of the house are powered, such as the white one on the left hand side of the picture that runs one of the two new laptops.

Building up the Wendy House was not so easy. We put some insulation under the roof to avoid it getting too hot in summer.

The mice are doing very well in the Wendy House.

Ivana seems to be ready for the challenge of staying 12 months as Research Station Manager in Goegap.