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I struggled out of bed but I couldn't blame it on the cat this time. I think he's got the idea we don't like visitors in the middle of the night. I pretty much fell into the boma I was so tired. After doing dung (yummy) I helped out Tzayhi with the bigguns' food bowls and then helping him out with Charlotte to help them cross the road. Adding elephant lollipop lady to the CV!
I was taught how to SDB's today. The research is to look at elephant's Self Directed Behaviours. In human's this is tapping fingers, fiddling with hair or biting nails. In elephants there are a range of things that the elephants do with their trunks. They touch their trunk, ear, leg or body repeatedly or twist their trunk, sway and swing their trunks. The research also indicates when they have the most SDB's and normally turns out to be times of stress or excitement or tiredness. The baby ones show it when they are at the Standing Barrier where they get fed the fruit from the tourists. The babies are normally pushed out by the bigger ones and they don't get much fruit so they stand they're sucking their trunk...so cute! The research is taken all day constantly, by different people, and I've just figured that taking 2 hours of data means typing data for 2 hours.
The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. I'm starting to make friends with the guides now which is good and I'm managing to remember nearly all of their names now. I still sometimes have to ask out the side of my mouth "who is that again?!" I ended the day by being elephant lollipop lady again.
We had 3 Italian men arrive at Knysna, "the special guests", and sadly all over 55 and grey! They've come over for a few days to see how KEP run their park and with the research department. They have elephants coming to their already busy reserve in 2014 and want to be ready when they arrive. Hopefully it will mean a friendship between the two parks and more research will be able to be collected in conservation and welfare.
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