Wildlife conservation holidays

Most wildlife conservation holidays involve volunteering. In reserves and sanctuaries the work is usually food preparation, enrichment and maintaining enclosures. Habitat conservation holidays in places like Borneo, where families join tree-planting projects, help to protect and restore the places animals need to survive. Other trips see you taking part in active research projects, collecting data to help scientists and conservation organisations in their decision making. On some trips, animals are incidental to your work. For example, diving in Croatia, your role is cleaning up the marine environment, removing plastic waste and old fishing gear. You may not see huge amounts of wildlife, but the sense of reward is huge.

In the Maldives, our wildlife conservation holidays combine snorkelling cruises with hands-on data collection and study in the company of professional researchers and NGOs. Learn how to identify different manta rays as they elegantly float along the seabed, find out how to measure a whale shark in the water and visit coral nurseries to explore how reefs are being regenerated. In places like Costa Rica and Greece, turtle conservation tours run at different times of year too. You may be tasked with nighttime beach patrols to count eggs and mark turtle nests, so no one accidentally stands on them, or keeping the sands clear so that as many hatchlings as possible reach the sea.

In Southeast Asia, our wildlife conservation holidays are often based in elephant sanctuaries that are dependent on tourism income and willing volunteers. You’ll help with tasks like food preparation, enrichment and cleaning (yes, that does mean scraping up heaps of dung). Most of our elephant conservation holidays in Africa focus on wild populations, helping to minimise conflict with local communities. You may also assist with tracking herds and monitoring behaviours, and perhaps encounter other members of the Big Five on your way.

Our primate conservation tours mostly involve volunteering at orangutan sanctuaries in Borneo. Orangutans are critically endangered, threatened primarily by habitat loss, but those in sanctuaries might also have been injured or orphaned by poachers. Eventually, some may be reintroduced to the wild, but it’s a staggered process and they are often reliant on food from sanctuaries for years. In other countries, such as South Africa, you can also work in monkey sanctuaries, responsible for a different animal every day so they don’t become too attached.

On our wildlife conservation holidays in Europe you might be learning about rewilding efforts in Italy’s Apennine Mountains and how that’s helping bear populations in the region to recover. You can volunteer at a bear sanctuary in Romania, or an Iberian wolf sanctuary in Portugal. Helping with bird and turtle conservation in Greece can be a great way to spend a few weeks in the summer, working at permanent field stations alongside teams of scientists and other volunteers from around the world.