It was only 4 am and as soon as I stepped outside from the airport the heat took my breath away. Dr. MohanKumar had warned us it was going to be hot, but nothing could have prepared me for the heat of India. Myself and 14 other veterinary students from the University of Georgia had been selected to spend 7
Read more
By Lisa Barrett You’ve previously read about my visit to Sri Lanka and my project with zebra finches in grad school at the University of Wyoming. This summer I conducted research with elephants at the San Diego Zoo as part of my Ph.D. dissertation with invaluable help from a UW Biodiversity Institute grant. Phase one of my research at the
Read more
By Lisa Barrett Most people now recognize that their pets have notable personalities, and you probably know a timid, aggressive, or social dog or cat. But behavioral ecologists have been studying individual behavioral variation for some time. What once was deemed to be “statistical noise” or the result of inaccurate measurements, individual behavioral type, or personality, is now one of the
Read moreBy Lisa Barrett I recently took a short trip to Sri Lanka to scope out a potential field site: Uda Walawe National Park. I got to see some pretty amazing animals while I was there. Below are the highlights, in no particular order. Photos by: Lisa Barrett
Read more
By Lisa Barrett This summer, one of my goals as a 1st year Ph.D. student was to determine if I wanted to do work with wild Asian elephants. My dissertation will look at personality and problem-solving in elephants, and it is an extension of my work with Think Elephants International in Thailand. After months of planning and discussing with my
Read moreby Lisa Barrett What kind of parental care did you or do you enjoy? Food, shelter, college tuition? How does this compare to parental care in non-human animals? First of all, most animals do not receive any parental care at all. In other words, most animal parents do not invest in feeding, incubating, or defending their young after they are
Read moreby Lisa Barrett In a previous blog post, I wrote about how Asian elephants are endangered and that there are only about 3,000 left in the wild. I discussed how, in reality, the best way to conserve them is through education about conserving (and mitigating the decline) of extant populations while giving current captive populations the best life possible. In
Read moreby Lisa Barrett No Breeding, No Buying At about this time last year, I, along with the rest of the Think Elephants International (TEI) research team, was anxiously awaiting the arrival of a new “family” member. Elephant births are cause for huge excitement at the camp for two reasons. First, female Asian elephants only have four to five calves in
Read more
Although Lisa is the elephant expert on this blog, I share her admiration for their intelligence, grace, and beauty. This picture was taken on my first African safari, in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda, and I was absolutely awestruck to be in the presence of these animals. We were on a tour boat, and before I took this picture all
Read more
Besides the countless hours I spent working on my research in Rwanda this past summer, I had the lucky opportunity to do some traveling when my parents came to join me at the end of my project. First and foremost on my priority list was to trek up to see the mountain gorillas, made famous by Dian Fossey and also
Read more
DANTAisms 