Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Preparing to head back to Kenya

As my flight to Kenya is just a week away, I figured it was time to start this blog back up again!

I will be in Kenya for 3 months again this summer-- leaving June 6, returning Aug 28.
My labmate Blair will be flying over with me this year, and staying the whole time I am (plus a little longer). So that will be awesome.

This will be my first "real" field season for my dissertation work. I will be doing most of the same things I did last year. Last year was sort of a chance to test out my methods and refine my study design. Now this year, it really counts! I will also be adding one new element-- camera traps.
My advisor Dan has about 50 camera traps (already in Kenya) that I will be using to determine the distribution and densities of my various focal species in relation to cattle and predators across my study area.

Blair and I also just learned that an undergrad guy named Youngin will be coming with us this summer. He is doing a senior thesis project sort of related to both of our work. So he will be riding along in one of our cars each day, collecting his own data, and hopefully helping us gather ours as well.

I will try to update with lots of pictures and interesting stories again this year. Thanks for reading!