Veterinary medicine is a public health profession. I’ll be the first to admit that it took a long time for me to come to this realization. Although I have (pretty much) always wanted to be a veterinarian, the focus throughout the greater portion of my life was on animal health. I wanted to save peoples sick pets, and offer them
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Contrafreeloading puts a smile on my face. As a student of animal behavior, it is one of the coolest phenomena I know of. It has been studied in many species from rats to grizzly bears to humans. It is so incredible because these animals do the opposite of what you would expect, hence the “contra” prefix. Contrafreeloading means, when given
Read moreDANTA is thrilled to announce that Dr. William C. McGrew will lecture in our summer 2015 Primate Behavior and Conservation course in the spectacular Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica. Course dates are June 15 – July 10, 2015. For more information out our tropical biology training programs, please visit our website and/or email us at conservation@danta.info. William C. McGrew is Emeritus
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Why are owl monkeys good fathers? In the (non-human) primate world there are many different social organizations with many different degrees of paternal care. A male can contribute a range of minimal to almost all of the effort. Usually for primates the degree to which the male will help is determined by paternal certainty. This is when a male is
Read moreJoin us in Costa Rica! Join us this winter in Costa Rica for our 2015 Methods in Primate Behavior and Conservation course. Course dates are January 1- January 15, 2015. The registration deadline is December 1, 2014. This course is designed to provide students with field experience in primate behavior, ecology, and conservation. This course will be held at Osa
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Why Study Elephants? [in captivity] by Lisa Barrett As a research assistant at nonprofit Think Elephants International (TEI) in northern Thailand, I helped design and carryout research on captive Asian elephants as part of a small research team. Our mission was to inform elephant conservation efforts through research and education. Above: The other members of the TEI research
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Casseroles are great. You prepare the items, dump them in a dish, pop that dish in the oven, and soon enough you have a meal. I adapted this dish from this recipe that I found on recipe.com. Originally, it had meat in it, but the chicken added so little to the recipe that I actually removed it from the equation,
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Okay, well maybe love is too strong of a word. BUT I will say I was fond of this particular monkey. It all started when I began my internship at a sanctuary in Panama. We were rehabilitating juvenile howler monkeys (Alouatta palliata) that had been rescued from the pet trade. The goal was for these juveniles to eventually disperse and
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A dog sits on cue. Do you give them a half a treat, one treat or two treats? I would probably give one quarter to one eighth of a treat. That isn’t just because I am particularly frugal. There are a lot of variables like breed and age of the dog and the size and quality of the treats to
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It wasn’t until I started traveling that I really appreciated beans and rice. But ever since I spent that month in Costa Rica, things have never been the same. What I love is that I can throw together a big batch at the beginning of the week and keep it in the fridge for future meals! Breakfast? Throw some fried
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