First of all, welcome to my blog! I don’t know how you found your way here but I’m glad you did. I’ll be doing my best to post here about once a month while working on my PhD to keep you updated on my research and some of the research going on out there in the world. I’ll try not to be technical and drawn out, just finding and sharing some interesting questions and the answers that researchers across the world are finding.
The first question that I should probably answer is who the hell am I? Well, my name is Daniel. I did my undergrad in Zoology in University College Cork (UCC) and graduated in 2019. After that I spent two years as the Clubs President in UCC. I was basically in charge of the committee that looks after all the student clubs and had to make sure nobody got into too much trouble. It was a lot of fixing problems and putting out fires mostly. I’m also an archer, I compete with the UCC team and coach for the club as well. I can’t recommend trying archery enough but be warned, it can be extremely addictive. But there is no better stress relief than shooting something a few hundred times!
Currently I’m working in the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences in UCC doing my PhD. I got funded through the Irish Research Council’s Enterprise Partnership with Fota Wildlife Park coming on board as my funding and research partner. I specialise in researching animal behaviour and my preferred species are big cats, hence the name of the blog…
The research I’ll be doing over the next four years will be focused mainly within Fota. I’ll be looking into how the different elements of the zoo environment influence the behaviour and welfare of cheetahs, giraffe, zebra and oryx. These include things like how animals react to visitors, how animal personality impacts their actions, how animals choose to move around their enclosure and how animals use different types of enrichment.
As well as the work inside Fota I’ll also be working on a project looking at the conservation of a native Irish species, the natterjack toad. Over the past several years Fota have worked on conserving natterjacks in the wild by collecting eggs after spawning season to hatch in captivity and protect the toadlets until they reach a size where they are more likely to survive in the wild. Toadlets are then released back into the wild and I will be responsible for looking at the survival rates of toads and how they move on from their release location.
So yeah, I’ve got a lot of work to do over the next four years. But I’ve been working to get here for two years now and I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can. I’ve always been the curious type so getting paid to spend time around animals and being given free rein to ask as many questions as I want and try and figure out the answers is just heaven.
I honestly have no idea why I ended up being so fascinated with animals as I have no family connection to it or any exposure to someone who worked in a zoo or anything as a kid. It really is a bit random as to why I turned out the way I did. All I know is one of my earliest memories is the black labrador at the corner shop down the road from my grandparent’s house who used to let me pet him and sometimes sit on his back and I honestly think that’s where I first started bonding with animals and wanting to learn more.
From there it was pretty much guaranteed that I was heading in a collision course with an animal science career of some description. I dabbled with the idea of veterinary for a few years but eventually decided I preferred the idea of research and went into the BEES undergrad in UCC. Going into the degree I knew I would like to learn more about behaviour and personality research as I’ve been interested in psychology since I was a teenager and translating this over to animals seemed like melding together two of my favourite things. Looking at the motivations behind people’s and animal’s actions has always been a hobby and doing a bit of ‘people watching’ when I was waiting for buses or hanging around campsites always helped me waste away a bit of time. Now I put those skills to use professionally!
So, there you have it! That’s just a quick introduction to who I am and what I do. I hope you’ll stick around to read more about what I stumble across over the next few years and that perhaps you take away a thing or two from my discoveries. I’d love to hear feedback as well so please reach out and let me know what you think at any stage.
P.S. Enjoy some photos I took of the Asiatic lions in Fota during my undergrad research study.
