Melako’s message: are you tuned in?

Born just one month before the Werribee Open Range Zoo launched a new audio element of its safari tour in December last year, Melako, a Plains Zebra, has quickly become one of the Zoo’s most popular stars.

Along with mum Shani, he is also helping deliver an important conservation message, which could make all the difference for his critically-endangered relatives (specifically the Grevy’s Zebra) in northern Kenya.

His namesake – the Melako conservancy in Kenya – is the production home of the Beads for Wildlife program, an initiative conceived by Zoos Victoria and the Northern Rangelands Trust. Through the creation and retail sales of bead handicrafts it aims to alleviate pressure on both the local Melako people and wildlife, and help create an environment where the endangered Grevy’s Zebra can strengthen in numbers.

It’s an important message, and certainly the safari tour is providing a new method of delivery, but is it getting through?

That’s the question Gillian Kamp, Safari Co-ordinator at the Zoo, and a team of University of Melbourne PhD students are hoping to find out.

“The safari tours are our primary means of communicating the Beads for Wildlife message to visitors, and until December that message was delivered only by the tour guides,” Ms Kamp says.

“We found the messaging could vary depending on who was delivering it, and while everyone was still having a wonderful time, feedback demonstrated a rather low recall of the conservation message.”

A new audio project was developed and launched on Christmas Day last year, which is played at key stages of the tour, highlighting the plight of the Grevy’s Zebra and the impact of the Beads for Wildlife program.

Now, nearly six months into the audio initiative, the student team is working on an evaluation project to determine the level of message recall. 

The five-member team has been drawn together from all corners of the University as part of the Graduate Certificate in Advanced Learning and Leadership (GCALL), an advanced interdisciplinary course for doctoral candidates and early career researchers offered by the Melbourne School of Graduate Research.

Team member Sally Davis (pathology and cancer genetics) says the program has already had some great results for Kenyan villagers, such as reduced reliance on livestock as a primary means of income (and resultant loss of wild animal habitat), increased school attendance and education accessibility. This next step in program evaluation and development hopes to find ways to increase awareness and action.

“We’ve come into the project now to evaluate this pre-recorded audio and see if it’s actually impacting visitor recall and if that correlates with a call to action, which is represented in the purchase of beads,” she says.

“Over the past few weeks we’ve visited the Zoo a number of times and connected with a range of academics and specialists around the University to see if they can provide some insights into our approach – people who have expertise in writing surveys, analysing surveys and marketing.

“We’ll be gathering data from visitors on the Safari Tour over the coming weeks to begin to map out how effective the current methods of delivery are.”

The student team – Matthew Bliss (Earth Sciences), Sara Ciesielski (Languages and Linguistics), Tahnee Kennedy (Physiology) and Hossein Mokhtarzadeh (Mechanical Engineering) and Ms Davis bring diverse expertise to the project and highlight the relevance of the GCALL program. 

Mr Bliss says it’s an opportunity for PhD students, who would rarely interact with people from non-related departments, to think, work and act together.

“The major focus of the GCALL is its interdisciplinary nature, and the transferable skills which we wouldn’t otherwise develop as part of our own research,” he says.

“Post-PhD surveys have identified that students were being thrown into roles they didn’t have skills for. People assume that if you’re a PhD you can do most things – but leading a team of 10 people or developing those teamwork skills aren’t necessarily part of the doctoral program.

“The GCALL is integral to helping us build these skills.”

Mr Bliss – who readily admits to enjoying the project so much he forgets it’s an assessed university subject – and the team are keen to establish strong partnership ties which will continue to grow after the project wraps up in June. 

Already they have sparked connections which will see post-graduate architecture students work with the Werribee Open Range Zoo team to recommend design improvements to the safari tour station and surrounds.

In the meantime, Ms Kamp and her safari team are keen to see what the evaluation project reveals and recommends.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing the output from the project, because I think it will be relevant and very useable,” she says.

“It’s wonderful for Werribee Open Range Zoo to be partnering with these intelligent and creative students and to share our excitement for this project with a wider audience.”

Beads for wildlife are available at Zoos Victoria’s three zoos and online at 

shop.zoo.org.au/shop

http://www.zoo.org.au/get-involved/act-for-wildlife/beads-for-wildlife http://gradresearch.unimelb.edu.au/gcall/