Introduction and Orientation

Welcome to Nicole Adventures in Africa, my travel blog for my up coming field research in Kenya (and hopefully some other countries)!

The goal of this post is to provide you with all the necessary information to navigate this blog as well as give an introduction to the contents of the blog.  Don't know what you're doing or how you got here?  Keep on reading! Know what you're doing and want to get on to the adventures?  Check out the post archive to the right.  Navigation info is provided near the bottom of this post, and an introduction is below.

About Nicole
I'm Nicole Sharpe, a second year graduate student in the Animal Behavior Graduate Group at UC Davis.  I'm pursuing my PhD in animal behavior, specifically primate behavior.  I am also working with the Oakland Zoo and my colleague Darren Minier to run a behavioral observation program on their chimpanzee colony.  Through the Chimpanzee Behavioral Observations Team (ChimpBOT as we like to call it, although my recent addiction to Battlestar Galactica makes me want to put "cylon" in the name somewhere) I have had the chance to work with a whole bunch of awesome keepers and volunteers.

Nicole Adventures in Africa
In March 2011 I took a trip with my major adviser, Dr. Brenda McCowan, to Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya to check out Sweetwaters Chimpanzee Sanctuary as a potential site for research.  We had an amazing time at the conservancy, and my research proposal was approved for research over the academic summer (June-September) 2011.  Since then my life has been a whirlwind of preparation and planning as I made the necessary arrangements for three months in "the field."

Ol Pejeta Conservancy is a working cattle ranch that boasts an impressive population of African wildlife, with a large population of the endangered Black Rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis), four of the world's last Northern White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum cottoni), and a great conservation program for these species and others.  They also have a magnificent chimpanzee sanctuary, with 250 acres of woodland habitat for their rescued chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) to live and play in during the day, and spacious night-house facilities for the chimps' safety at night.  The sanctuary is home to 43 chimpanzees, all but four of whom were rescued from often deplorable conditions as privately owned pets, tourist attractions, or company mascots.  The last four chimps were born at the sanctuary and, although unplanned, have provided great joy to the chimps and caregivers alike.  None of the chimpanzees at Sweetwaters will ever be released into the wild; many of them have experienced serious psychological trauma (very early separation from their mothers when their wild group was killed for bushmeat or captured for black market trade) which is only compounded by the poor conditions most of these animals experienced at the hands of their former owners.  This has made them unfit for release into the wild, and Sweetwaters is their "forever" home.

My research is non-invasive and all of my data will be collected through behavioral observations of the chimpanzees as they go about their daily business.  I will be collecting data 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday, spending half of my time with each of the two groups of chimpanzees.  Sundays I will get a day to relax (ha!), do data entry, write in this blog, or ride around with my colleague Kim as she looks for giraffe (essentially a safari for me).  I am sure that the majority of my blog posts will have to do with the chimps, since I do have quite a love for primates.  And let's be honest here: monkeys (and apes) are always entertaining, especially for me.  Even more honestly: I like to talk about them, a lot.  Just ask my friends.  I am sure I will also write about the other animals that I see, the friends that I make, and all the antics I am sure to get myself into.  (Premonition: I'll fall in at least one river, get my car stuck in the mud at least once, and be forced to change my tire in the middle of the bush.  Just a couple of guesses before I actually depart.)

Stay tuned, and get ready for my awesome African adventures!

Orientation and Navigation
You can always get back to this post by hitting the "introduction" link in the Notable Posts box to the right.

Below that is the Blog Archive which will give you all of the posts that I have published in this blog, in chronological order (from newest to oldest).  I will try to make the titles somewhat informative, but if you just can't see what you're looking for in the titles, try the Search box right below that.

I will also be labeling my posts, when I remember to, and those labels will be listed in the Labels box below the Search box.  Labels are keywords of what I think is important in each post and might be a specific chimp's name, an animal that I mentioned in the post, or... probably those things will be labels.  If you're interested in all the posts that mention a certain label click on that label (very label is a link) and they'll be listed chronologically in the main post window.

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If you want to get back to the most recent posts you can click the Home link at the bottom of the blogroll at any time.