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Keith & Colleen Begg

Short CV's: Keith Begg & Colleen Begg

For the past ten years Keith and Colleen Begg have been working together and assisting each other on a variety of research projects in national parks throughout southern Africa. In 1996 they joined forces to conduct the first intensive long term study of the elusive Honey badger in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier park (formerly known as the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park). For four years they lived in the central dunes area of the park studying, filming and photographing the behaviour and ecology of badgers. In 2001 Colleen completed her PhD on the Kalahari work while Keith conducted a survey of the conflict between commercial beekeepers and honey badgers for the Endangered Wildlife Trust's Carnivore Conservation Group. This lead to the ongoing Badger -Beekeeper Extension Programme and the Badger-Friendly Initiative . At present Keith & Colleen are working in northern Mozambique in Niassa Game Reserve on honey badgers and their interactions with local honey gatherers and traditional beekeepers. They continue to work closely with Joan Isham, the coordinator of the badger-beekeeper extension programme in South Africa and to collaborate with Dr C. Matthee on genetics research on the honey badger (see at the bottom of the page for more details).

Joan Isham

Joan working with a badger-friendly beekeeper in the

Western Cape, South Africa

Joan was born in 1955, and grew up in an Afrikaans farming community in Calitzdorp, South Africa. In 1978 she obtained a degree in Occupational therapy and initially worked as an occupational therapist before switching to Nature Conservation. In 1999 she completed her National Diploma in Nature Conservation (Cum Laude) and was awarded the Principal's Silver Medal in the division of Applied Natural Science and Engineering, the National Parks Board Achievement Award and the Juta Award for her work. Since 1999 she has been a self employed private consultant in nature conservation with a variety of clients including the Paarl Mountain Nature Reserve and, the Boland Environment Forum . She has also been very involved in various Environmental Education Projects including development of Environmental Education projects for the schools in the Paarl and Wellington area and the training of volunteers and facilitators for Khulu Adventures (a black empowerment company involved in the development of the individual through outdoor-based training) and the Boland Environment Forum.

Joan is currently working as a fulltime extension officer and coordinator for the badger-beekeeper initiative in the Western Cape, South Africa, and also is coordinating the national beekeeper-badger extension programme for the next three years and assisting with the accreditation of badger-friendly beekeepers. Joan is in her third year working on the project and has been very successful at working with beekeepers to find solutions to the conflict.

lThis project is a joint initiative between the Carnivore Conservation Group of the Endangered Wildlife Trust and The Green Trust an associated trust of WWF-SA supported by Nedbank Green, and its project leaders are Keith & Colleen Begg and Gerhard Verdoorn (Endangered Wildlife Trust).

Joan can be contacted at rateldotcom@hotmail.com

Keith Begg

Born in 1970 in Zimbabwe, Keith was educated at Michaelhouse in the Natal midlands, South Africa. As a school boy he saw his first honey badger in 1988 while working during his holidays on Ground hornbill (Dr A Kemp, Kruger National Park). From that brief encounter he became fascinated with this little known carnivore and has collected information about them ever since.

Having completed a National Diploma in Nature Conservation at the Cape Technikon, Keith worked for three and a half years in the Kruger park for the Percy Fitzpatrick Institute of African Ornithology (Prof. R Siegfried, University of Cape Town) and the Transvaal Museum (Dr. A Kemp). He was employed as a field researcher to determine the distribution, density and population dynamics of the "big six" bird species (Martial eagle, Pels fishing owl, Saddlebilled stork, Ground hornbill, Lappetfaced vulture and Kori bustard). This work involved habitat assessment and mapping of the Kruger park; raptor trapping, marking and radio tracking, photographic and road censuses and monitoring the breeding success and habitat choice of these and other large birds.

In October 1994, having raised funds from various corporate and individual sponsors and with the backing of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, Keith completed a six month feasibility study of Honey badgers in the Mana Pools National Park, Zimbabwe. By catching and for the first time implanting a honey badger, individuals were followed on foot at night in the Zambezi valley. After concluding that a long-term study was indeed viable and having raised the necessary funding Keith returned to Zimbabwe to radio mark more individuals. Unfortunately this coincided with political upheaval in Zimbabwe's Department of National Parks and Wild Life Management and resulted in permits for all foreign researchers being suspended.

For ten years Keith has been photographing wildlife in South Africa and Zimbabwe. His images are sold worldwide and represented by the following agencies: ABPL Photo Bank / Gallo Images www.gallo-images.co.za ; Struik Image Library and Corbis Corporation.

In 1996 Keith was trained as a wildlife cameraman by renowned film-makers David and Carol Hughes, and spent three years filming badgers in the Kalahari for the Hughes' documentary 'Snake Killers; Honey badgers of the Kalahari", which was released in November 2001 on the National geographic Channel. In 2000 he investigated the status of honey badgers in South Africa and the conflict between honey badgers and commercial beekeepers and his efforts lead to the initiation of the Badger-Beekeeper Extension programme and the "Badger-Friendly Initiative.

Colleen Begg (nee Zank)

Born in 1969 in Johannesburg, South Africa. From 1987 to 1990 she completed her undergraduate studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, majoring in botany and zoology. During her undergraduate studies Colleen volunteered to work on various research projects which included the translocation of Redbilled oxpeckers from the Kruger National Park to Ben Lavin Nature Reserve (I Whyte, Kruger National Park) ; Wahlberg's eagle breeding biology and siblicide (Dr. R Simmons, Sabie Sand Game Reserve)

During 1991 Colleen completed her Honours degree in Zoology on a comparative study of the non-breeding foraging behaviour of Lesser Kestrels and Eastern Redfooted Falcons.

To gain a broader experience of field research Colleen traveled to the U.S.A. where she assisted work on Chicagof island in Alaska studying Mink and Martens (Dr M Ben David, University of Alaska). In Utah she assisted in an investigation of the influence of forest fragmentation on American Pine Marten populations in the Uinta mountains (Dr T Hargis, Utah State University). In Colorado she studied Big Horn sheep at the Foothills Wildlife Research Facility, Fort Collins (Dr J Gross, Colorado State University and Dr T Hobbs, Colorado Division of Wildlife).

In 1993 she returned to South Africa where she was employed to complete the final two months of study of small rare birds in the northern Kruger park (Dr A Kemp, Transvaal Museum). This lead to a year long position working on vultures (Dr P Benson, University of the Witwatersrand) in the Kruger park. For two years Colleen studied at the University of Harare, Zimbabwe, where she completed a Masters degree in tropical resource ecology. Her thesis on a population viability analysis of Cheetah in the Matusadona National Park, Zimbabwe was awarded with distinction.

Colleen's PhD. was registered at the Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria and supervised by Dr G Mills (Specialist scientist, Kruger National Park) and Prof. J du Toit (Director: Mammal Research Institute). She was awarded her PhD in April 2002 for a thesis entitled "The feeding ecology and social organisation of honey badgers in the southern Kalahari". She is currrently a Research fellow with the Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria, South Africa