We have just started our Directed Research (DR) projects. I am in the Wildlife Management DR where we are looking at the ecological and economic viability of wildlife sanctuaries. These are areas that either groups of people or individuals own and have been set aside to protect wildlife and attract tourists. They are not National Parks because the people own and manage the sanctuaries to generate income, and they are allowed to graze and/or water their livestock inside the sanctuary during the dry season. It would make a lot of sense if people ecologically assessed areas to see which habitats have high concentrations of wildlife or which areas need to be set aside so that they are not over grazed, and then made them into wildlife sanctuaries. But there are not the resources to do this for the sanctuaries, so they just get set up wherever people think might be a good place and can set aside the land. So our job/project/thing we are interested in is what is the ecological viability of the sanctuaries. Within that broad question we are looking at the densities of wildlife within the sanctuaries, the densities of livestock, and the way these are spatially overlapping and if they are competing for space. To do this we go into the field and do walking transects (1 km long) where we gather GPS points of all of the species and numbers of wildlife and livestock we see. Yesterday (our first day) we began by mapping one of the sanctuaries because we are the first people to be allowed to do any research there. All of the other sanctuaries that we are working in have already been mapped by previous students, so we will only take animal GPS points in those ones. Today (day two) my group walked four transects and gathered GPS points for every animal we came across. This included lots of Grant’s and Thomson’s gazelles, impalas, zebras, wildebeest, and warthogs, as well as, one giraffe, a group of elephants, and three buffalo (the elephant and buffalo were super scary, but really exciting as well). The coolest part of this whole project is that at the end we get to share our results and suggestions for the future with all of the community members in the area. These people really want to know what we have to say and they come back every year listen to our presentations.
Aside from all of this we also drive around through areas that have no roads for the most part and when they do have roads they are in such poor condition that you are better off not driving on them… as we found out. We finished our very first day of field work and were heading home when we went crashing into a puddle that was a bit more than a puddle and our professor said “I think I made a blunder” as our wheels spun and mud flew everywhere. We were at a 45 degree angle with the back wheel in a giant hole. We ended up hooking up our land rover to another land rover with a cable that they have (just for this purpose I guess) attached to the front of the car. We pulled the car out after about twenty minutes of working on it and ripped off the hook on the back of the other car, but at least we got it out! It was an incredibly amusing event all in all, and definitely warranted an afternoon nap.
Off to a third day of fieldwork! More adventures to come,
Sara
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