Learn And Practice Zoo Research Skills…From Anywhere On Earth
Loop Abroad is proud to offer remote research fellowships to support on-going research at the outstanding Lory Park Zoo in Johannesburg, South Africa. Even if you’re stuck at home, you can be learning the real-world research skills needed to objectively measure and improve animal welfare in any captive situation.
As a team, you will be contribute to the following research projects:
Black-footed cat husbandry. Black-footed cats are the smallest African cat and are endemic to Southern Africa, but very little is known about how to care for them properly.
Black-footed cats unique to Southern Africa
Observe cat behavior and other health indicators to improve care for this vulnerable species. Also, help analyze data that will be part of new leopard and serval husbandry manuals!
Improving welfare through enrichment. Working with servals, leopards, siamang gibbons, and/or Southern ground hornbills, you’ll learn how to do enrichment! Test new ways to enrich the animals’ experience through new food, toys, puzzles, new smells, or other creative ways to engage the animals. Collect behavior data before and after to make a scientific case for how your intervention does or does not improve animal welfare.
Fellows will be supervised and mentored virtually in group and one-on-one settings by the Lory Park Zoo Park Manager. You will learn the exact skills used every day by field researchers, and zookeepers to understand and support captive animal welfare.
You will start by learning to how to closely identify each animal’s behaviors, what it means, and how to analyze footage from movement-activated camera traps. Analyzing footage is time-consuming and will take up most of your time as a research fellow. It’s time well spent: your analysis will provide the objective evidence to answer the research questions and prepare the project’s findings for publication and sharing with other zoos.
6 week fellowships require 100 research hours
3 week fellowships require 50 research hours
All students who successfully complete the fellowship will earn a Certificate in Captive Animal Behavior Monitoring and Enrichment from Loop Abroad. University credit is not included. Work expectations are similar to an on-campus undergraduate research fellowship.
Students may apply from anywhere in the world.
You must be fluent in English, have internet fast enough for video calls (minimum 1Mbps), and have a computer with video playback, microphone, and sound. No experience with zoos or veterinary medicine is required.
