This term, we have taken on the exciting role of Wildlife Conservation Officers for the Sheevadweepa Eco Village. Our mission: to help protect, monitor, and learn about the incredible wildlife that lives on Sheevadweepa, an island in the Indian Ocean.

We began by learning about the responsibilities of conservation officers. We decided that our duties needed to include patrolling the island, recording animal sightings, guiding tourists on nature walks, and ensuring wildlife habitats remain undisturbed.

During one of our “patrols,” the team received an urgent message about a problem on the beach. When we arrived, we discovered unusual track marks leading from the sea to the centre of the sand. Working together, we recreated the track marks and followed the trail to a small dip in the sand. It appeared that something had been carefully buried there…

The team concluded that they had found a turtle nest—an exciting but delicate discovery, especially on such a popular tourist beach. We discussed how best to protect the nest without closing the area, suggesting practical solutions such as creating a  protective fence, setting up cameras and adding signs to inform visitors they needed to be very careful when near the nest.

Once we had solved that problem, another challenge came up. While answering a visitor’s question about civets, one of our Wildlife Conservationists realised the animal records were disorganised and hard to find. As a team, we decided we needed a better system for organising information about the island’s wildlife.

We learned about scientific classification (taxonomy) and explored different animal groups, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, amphibians, and vertebrates and invertebrates. We practised sorting animals into these groups and then used what we had learned to make all our information easier to find.