Sopa! My name is Laura, and I’m a new intern here at Save the Elephants (STE). I’m originally from Canada, but have been living in England for the past year. I have a background in ecology and mathematics, and am looking forward to using both sets of skills during my time here at STE. In addition to regular intern duties, I am going to be using the skills I learned in my Master’s thesis on graph theory and animal behavior to help analyze both spatial and social elephant data.
I arrived about two weeks ago, and time has sure flown. As you may know from Georgia’s blog, camp flooded a few days before I arrived. Things were more or less back to normal by the time I moved in, but I’ve since witnessed the power of the river on more than one occasion and am starting to get an understanding of how thing can go from bad to worse very quickly. Topped with stories from the camp staff about the horrific flood of 2010, and a smaller but still damaging flood in 2011, I am now on full guard for a potential flash flood at any moment. I have a small bag packed with essentials just in case.
Although a lot of the work that I will be doing here is computer based, I am taking every opportunity I can get to be out in the field. Field time is really important for putting the data and results into perspective. Plus, it’s fun! And I want to make sure I help out in any way I can while I’m here. David and Jerenimo have been wonderful in including me with the fieldwork. I’ve been out to help with both the long-term elephant monitoring (LTM) and the mammal census several times already.
Last Saturday was my lucky day – STE did a last-minute GPS collaring of an elephant named Roman. I think this deserves a blog all on its own, so stay tuned for the next one. All I will say for now is WOW!
Finally, before I let you go, I quickly want to comment on camp. It’s wonderful! There is so much wildlife right here. This morning I was sitting outside of my tent when a monitor lizard wandered by. Yesterday I worked in the office while two greater kudu grazed just outside. A genet cat visits the dinner table every night, vervet monkeys play hide-and-seek with me, elephants crash around in the dark, and there is a naked mole rat colony! It doesn’t get much better than this.