Today was a "project work day," one of the days where we get to work on the two projects that we have assigned for this internship. The first is fairly simple, learn all you can about an animal that they assigned us, and the conservation efforts that people are making for that animal. Then present it to the group. Then present it to the public at the zoo. On two different days. If you are in Houston and want to come see this project, it'll be in the afternoon on June 7th. I'd love for any of you to stop by! Our other project is much bigger, and much more important. We will be presenting it to a group of Exxon Mobile employees, and if they like it, it has the potential to crawl up the chain of command and hopefully get implemented.
We mostly worked on these projects all day, focusing on the large one at first. What we decided later was that we would like to do a project for (and about) the grey wolf (my favorite animal!). The grey wolf is incredibly important for the ecosystem and community at hand. It has a bad rep because it's a predator, but all predator's have bad rep's. They recently did a reintroduction in Yellowstone, and it cleared up all the over-grazing that the deer were doing, and reestablished the ecosystem's natural homeostasis. It was so successful in fact, that they are starting to reintroduce wolves in other places as well, such as New Mexico and even North Carolina (that's the red wolf though). It's really cool how important a species can be in the food chain and the way things naturally run, and I love learning things like this.
And the wolf is not only gorgeous and majestic, it's ferocious too. They're brilliant creatures, living in packs and forming their own chain of command, they can be very successful in the wild, and have been known to be illusive and smarter than the hunter's hunting them. It's really cool to see their behavior and their natural instincts at work, especially when their instincts help us save them. They're just my favorite animal because they are so incredibly smart and important in the wild.
After a while, we were sent on a scavenger hunt of the zoo (yes, we have fun too), because it was so cold in the conference room. We had 30 minutes to find the answers on a sheet of paper and report back. My partner and I explored primates, and found out about a lot of their behavior, looked at some of the antelope and got to see the aquarium. We were very close to winning, but missed by one. It was really fun because I knew some of the answers. Although rhino's tusks are not used to make ivory, they're used to make spears, and medicine, just in case you were wondering.
When we got back to work, we began working on the smaller project. This project is due fairly soon, and I'm supposed to be working with a partner. Of course I get stuck with the only guy in the group, haha. He seems cool but I just hope he's as enthusiastic as I am about this project. We get to do the Okapi! I just learned about this really cool ungulate in December, and am so excited I get to do a project on it! The Okapi, as I've mentioned a little earlier, is a relative of the giraffe, but is smaller, with black fur, and black and white stripped legs. It is notoriously illusive, so little is known about it's behavior in the wild.
The man who formed the Okapi Conservation Project is John Lukas, and he is involved in all kinds of conservation projects all over the world, he's on the board of practically every one, and he's the president of the International Rhino Foundation. He's build a sanctuary for the Okapi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and has been fighting with the locals (well mostly the police, although he has connections at the capital), to keep it safe for the Okapi. What's ironic about the DRC is that their national symbol of the country is the Okapi, but until Lukas opened his conservancy in 1992, they had no safe land where the Okapi was protected. I get to learn all about him and what he's doing to save the Okapi from extinction(I think they're listed as near threatened on the IUCN red list).
All and all it was a day filled with gathering information, which I love, but next time, hopefully, I can bring my computer, and do more focused research. It was fun, and it made me more excited for the projects we have planned.
Until tomorrow!
(this post was written as if it was Thursday, May, 17)
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