Hey everyone, glad to have you back on my blog for this week. Over this past weekend, a couple of interns and I ventured out to the West Coast Game Park Safari over in Bandon. I was skeptical of going at first, as after doing some research on their website they seemed to be a more for-profit organization than one that is directly tied to conservation and rehabilitation. I went despite this in hopes that it would seem better in person, but was greeted with some visibly distressed animals (chimpanzees, large cats, bears, etc.) in cages that seemed awfully small, although I am not a professional. In hopes of keeping this blog light, I will try and touch on the more positive aspects of the trip. I saw capybaras in person for the first time, and getting to interact with goats, sheep, alpaca, donkeys, and deer up close as they approach you in the petting zoo area was a cool experience. This week was more work focused than anything for me. I continued the trials of my behavioral study, changing its direction in favor of time. I am no longer going to be doing light color comparisons, as we didn’t have overwhelming evidence of the light being attractive to the crabs from the initial trials. Now, I tested each of the three different bait types - LED Lights, Tuna, and Cat Food - in the lab setting using the same experimental design I previously described in order to compare their rate of entry by the crabs. Bait or light was put in one trap, nothing in the other, and the crabs are put in the decision making apparatus for 30 minutes undisturbed, to check which, if any, trap they went into after the time period. From this testing, the crabs went into the tuna trap the most, the LED light trap the second most, and the cat food trap the least. I will be starting the field study on Monday, August 1st (the day this blog post is released)! It will be interesting to see if these lab results carry over, depending on which bait type catches the most crabs in the field. Outside of work a lot of my free time is dedicated to doing Calculus 2 work in order to make sure I can finish the course in a timely and efficient manner, to graduate on time. On Wednesday, however, we had a South Slough Intern potluck. This was a much needed time away from campus, where we had some great food, and I got to interact with the other South Slough interns I don’t always get to see, and the general South Slough staff. There are so many great people working here, and I’m grateful to have gotten to work beside them. These 6 weeks (7 if you include Colleen's and my extra week) so far have allowed me to learn a lot about myself. One of those things that I’ve learned this week is that burnout is very real, and that it sucks. Thankfully I am able to work outdoors this upcoming week. That’s always fun. Talk to you all next week!
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AuthorHey! I'm Sebastian Velazquez, a Biology (Ecology) student from Spring City, Pennsylvania. I am spending the summer studying invasive European Green Crabs under the guidance of Shon Schooler. Archives
August 2022
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