2012

I am a graduate of the BSc Wildlife Management programme at Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture.

In August 2009, a month after graduating, I joined a one-year project at Ruaha National Park, as part of collaboration between Sokoine University and UC Berkeley. The project assessed behavioural, physiological and reproductive characteristics of antelopes. My involvement consisted of collecting faecal samples for hormonal, DNA and parasitic analysis, processing-hormonal samples and collecting information on species abundance and distribution from on-foot and vehicles transect surveys.

I joined the Ruaha Carnivore Project in November 2010 as a research assistant primarily to undertake camera-trap surveys of carnivores (lion, hyena , leopard, African wild dog), and I remain a member of the RCP team to date.

Meeting skilled and experienced researchers during the Diploma course will help me learn the research and communication skills needed for a career in wildlife conservation.

Diploma Projects

• Home range sizes, scent-marking behavioural and habitat preference and use of solitary and coalition male cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP), South Africa

• Examining the presence and diversity of carnivore prey species across different land-use zones in Tanzania’s Ruaha ecosystem