Just to let you know, this day was really nice! I woke up at 8 am, had a little bowl of cereal, arrived at 10, and got my first official intern badge.
I was pretty excited.
After that, I talked to my mentor for roughly fifteen minutes, and had him sign some paper work. We both decided that Friday would be my first scientific day, where I'll do some "One Zero Sampling" and record the Gorillas activities. Apparently, instead of studying two species of primates, I will only be studying Gorillas, which is just as exciting.
After talking to Greg, I headed over to the Gorillas' area, where I took some pictures. I noticed the baby of the family, Frank, took more notice of smaller children, who were closer to his size.
He also mimicked their reactions.
After staying around that area, I decided to walk through the “Monkey Trail” where I took some more pictures. I then walked around the rest of the zoo for the day, ate lunch, went to the petting zoo, went to the nursery, had a nice time, then drove home!
In the next few days, I feel like most of my work will be repetitive since I’ll be recording the Gorillas actions everyday. I also feel that I’ll have a hard time identifying each Gorilla, but over time, I think I’ll get the hang of it. I think I’ll do most of the work well, but I just hope that the sampling will get easier.
To succeed in my internship, I definitely will need motivation and the ability to learn at a rapid rate. I’ll also need to be attentive to the animals.
I am really excited to be at the zoo each and every day. Today started out so well, and I feel that I can make the next few weeks really fun since I’ll be outdoors. Some things that make me nervous are learning the One Zero sampling method. I wonder if I’ll do it the right way, and I hope that I do because I really want to impress the Zoo!
My 5 Photos
