Hi everyone! My name is Ian Hustwick and I have had the privilege of being an intern at Save the Elephants for the last six weeks. Time has gone really fast and I can’t believe that I have only three weeks left here in Samburu. I am here representing the University of Queensland, Australia and am currently in my second year of a Masters of Environmental Management majoring in conservation biology and sustainable development. Home seems such a long way away when you spend your days watching elephants in the wild.
Since being here I have helped with numerous projects, some excel based and some field based. I am currently assisting Dr. Patrick Chyio collect dung samples from elephants for a pilot study in parasites in elephant social contexts. We spend most of the day in the car out in the reserve identifying individual elephants and waiting to collect their dung. The days are very hot and exhausting but very rewarding. The dung samples are used to analyse E-coli and to determine the role that social relationships play in the spread of parasites among elephants.
Additionally to helping Patrick, I have also been out on several long-term monitoring assignments with David and Chris, as well as numerous mammal censuses with Jeronimo. The rains have almost completely failed this season which means the river has dried up unusually quickly. What was a full-flowing river when I first arrived is now just a wide strip of sand. We have been watching the elephants come down to the now dry river to dig holes and jostle for water. Occasionally I am woken at night to the sound of an elephant breaking branches outside my tent. This is usually one of the well-known bulls Yeager or Weird Tusk. They seem completely calm in our camp and don’t seem to mind being watched from a short distance.
The next three weeks will be very busy and will no doubt go way too quickly. Already I have had many sightings of all the large predators in the reserve including a pack of wild dogs. Two days ago while out with David and Jeronimo we came across a huge herd of Grevy’s zebra, we counted eighty-six individuals as well as a couple of common zebras who seemed to be accompanying them for the day. It was a very special sight as they are so endangered and are completely restricted to small pockets of northern Kenya.
I have learnt so much since being here and will surely learn so much more in the next three weeks before I go back home to Brisbane. It has been great to interact with some of the Kenyan interns and learn a little about life as a young person in Kenya. It makes you realise how lucky you to have the opportunity to travel overseas to undertake such exotic assignments such as interning at STE. A word of warning to any future intern: zip up your tent every time unless you want the vervet monkeys to raid your tent! I learnt that lesson the hard way.