Just when you think university is over and your dissertation is behind you… It comes back to haunt you, though maybe in a good way (is there a positive way of haunting?).
After doing my third year dissertation on the impact of visitors on Ring-tailed Lemurs (Lemur catta) at West Midlands Safari Park I never really thought I would be doing follow-up work.
After my dissertation was submitted WMSP (West Midlands Safari Park) asked if I could prepare a poster for a poster presentation at this year’s (2012) BIAZA Research Symposium, unfortunately I was unable to be there in person. My work didn’t stop there, soon WMSP asked for me to carry out a shorter follow-up study. This had benefits, threefold; a second set of results could check the validity of last year’s work, they can see whether visitors do impact the behaviour of their lemurs, it was also a alpha test for using undergraduate students to carry out research they want doing. It did have benefits for me too; it gave me more practical experience to put on a CV, I may have actually helped the husbandry of these lemurs at the park, I may have help establish many future long-term research projects at the park, and finally it gave me something to do for a month so while I was looking for more long-term work.
Having only just finished my follow-up research for West Midlands Safari Park my work still isn’t finished. I now have to prepare for a presentation I am part giving with the research officer at WMSP, and a fellow researcher who helped with observations, visitor questionnaires (seemed to be his forte) and many other aspects. That is still not all. After this I have statistically analyses and some write-up. At least there is a hope of this study being published in the near future (a year or so), hopefully get my name on a scientific document.
Yet, more busy days to come.
Ta Ta!