30th January 2020 – (by Jennifer D’Agostino)

Day 3 of the Interventions in Wild Animal Health course and it was a very full day!  We started off the day by walking into the reserve to learn about animal signs and how to interpret them. Who knew you could gather so much information just by looking closely at the signs around you?  We even saw more tiger tracks which was very exciting. The rest of the morning was spent discussing the various methods used for population surveys, particularly camera traps (very useful for monitoring difficult to find wildlife).  The afternoon was probably the best part of the day, spent out in the field setting our own camera traps to see what sort of wildlife activity was happening around the hotel.  After trekking across a dry river bed and fighting our way through various thick vegetation (most of which was very thorny!) we found some excellent areas along a wildlife trail to place our cameras.  After setting our cameras properly (and taking multiple photos of ourselves in the process) we took our GPS waypoints and headed back to the hotel eagerly awaiting the results we would receive later in the week.  So far, the course is fast paced but very interesting.  We are really getting to know fellow classmates through practical course work and it is so great to meet people from so many parts of the world and with such varied backgrounds.  It is shaping up to be an excellent three weeks!  I can’t wait to see if we catch a tiger on our camera trap!