Wildlife Conservation Gap Year Programs

Wildlife conservation gap year programs are a very worthy and rewarding way to spend your gap year. No matter where you end up going you can bet that there is probably a Wildlife conservation gap year programs in the country, that needs your assistance. There is a dilemma to overcome however, and that is what do you want to do and how do you choose?

Decisions decisions… Where to go? Well for wildlife conservation gap year programs the champion is definitely Africa. Africa Gap Year wildlife options are plentiful, as you would expect from a continent blessed with so many game parks and native species. That is all well and good but then you have to decide where in Africa you wish to go, after all it is a large continent with plenty of different projects to keep you entertained in lots of different countries.

When you are sorting out your options, it pays to consider the type of wildlife conservation gap year program that you are interested in. For instance there is a very cool great white shark project in South Africa, however for some, this might be a little bit too scarey as you work very closely with great white sharks.

If the idea of braving sharks is not your cup of tea, what about roaming the plains of Africa on a field guide course? Field guides are the major force behind wildlife conservation efforts in African reserves and play a vital role in education and raising awareness about conservation issues, their role, is very customer facing and they are trained to deal with wildlife in natural settings. Exciting job for sure.

Not every one wants to gain a qualification on their gap year, and this does add extra costs to wildlife conservation gap year programs, so there are other options that are pretty exciting. Like the Namibia wildlife conservation experience programme from Xtreme Gap Year or their South Africa Big 5 conservation project. These get you close to large African animals and are arguably just as exciting as a field guide programme.

Then there is the really big stuff, Whale sharks. For this you need to head to Mozambique and don a wetsuit (and undertake Scuba diving training) but for the Whaleshark conservation project it is really  worth it. Whalesharks are the biggest fish in the sea, they grow up to 18 metres and anyone who has dived with one of these bad boys will tell you, they are seriously cool.

If you want to take a different approach to wildlife conservation gap year programs, look at PADI divemaster training. This is a great way to spend time getting to grips with marine conservation issues, like learning to educate people about wildlife conservation awareness and also doing practical assists with reef clean ups and monitoring work.

If you are interested in any of these wildlife conservation gap year programs you can find them all on the Xtreme Gap Year Website, or contact them on info@xtreme-gap.com

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