Hey Everyone!

I know it’s been awhile since my last entry.  I was on expedition in Tarangire National Park (TNP) and Arusha National Park (ANP) all last week.  It was a blast!!  I saw a lot of animals including two cheetahs and a leopard during my stay in Tarangire.  We conducted an elephant survey there with my Wildlife Ecology class and observed at least one hundred and fifty during our transect drive, not even including all those we saw during our game drives (just for fun).  In addition to seeing the two rare cats, I saw a lot of giraffes, ostriches, zebras, wildebeest, mongoose, impala, reedbuck, waterbuck, hyrax, dik dik, warthog, and cape buffalo. In addition to the elephant survey, we also conducted a large mammal count of TNP, practicing the survey technique of distance sampling which we learned in Wildlife Management.

After two days in TNP, we packed up and drove to Arusha National Park.  TNP had very open savannah type habitat while ANP was much more forested and green.  ANP houses Mount Meru and several lakes and is part of the Kilimanjaro-Arusha-Amboseli ecosystem.  We spent three nights camped here doing game drives, animal surveys, and a waterfowl count.  The lakes are utilized by both lesser and greater flamingos of which there were about 4,000 present in the park during our stay.  The forests there are home to chameleons and pythons but we did not see any.  Unfortunately, my camera battery died during our second day in ANP, but I will be getting photos from my friends later.  One of the coolest things we did in Arusha was a hike around the park with two of the rangers.  We were able to get within 20 yards of a group of giraffes and about 100 yards of a group of buffalo.  It was really awesome finally being able to experience Tanzania on foot and it was exciting getting that close to the wildlife on foot.  I also got to see some Colobus monkeys, which are what Arusha National Park is famous for.  One of the more exciting aspects of the trip was the invasion of safari ants in camp the last two nights.  My tent was one of the worse ones and we had to put up another one before we could go to bed.  Thankfully, my stuff was safe.  I was only bit once by the fierce little insects but many of the students were bit more frequently.  One of our drivers has been working for SFS about 15 years and has never experienced anything like it before then, but this is also the first time SFS has stayed in Arusha National Park.  Despite the annoyance, the overall experience was awesome!

Back to reality though.  Have papers to get done for Environmental Policy and Wildlife Ecology.  I have finals at the end of this month then I begin my Directed Research in April!  Really looking forward to it!!

I am really having a blast here and hopefully I will have another post up soon!

Location: Karatu, Tanzania

Hey everyone! 

The internet here at the center has been out for the past three so I appologize for the late entry.  We began working on our first paper for Wildlife Ecology and the server was inundated with us searching for scientific articles so we basically used up all the bandwidth.  Thus no internet at all for the past few days, but we finally got it back this morning.  We all banded together though and shared with each other the articles we did find before it crashed.  Hopefully this will help mitigate any future problems we face with it.

On to the cool stuff!!  Since my last post, we visited Lake Manyara National Park and conducted field observations, dung collections, and vegetative sampling over the course of four days.  It was a lot of fun finally getting to pop the tops on our Toyota Land Cruisers and actually look around at the amazing animals endemic to Tanzania.  Among the species we saw were elephants (“tembo” in swahili), giraffes (“twiga”), zebras, wildebeests, warthogs, Thompson’s gazelle, impalas, baboons, vervet monkies, and blue monkies.  It was really cool finally getting to see these animals in person rather than from a television screen or behind a chain link fence. 

During our non-program day last week, we were able to go into Karatu and look around at the shops and interact with the locals.  Tanzanians are very friendly but you still have to keep your guard up when they are trying to sell you something.  Often times they automatically double the actual price when selling to “mzungus” or white people.  I still have a lot more swahili to learn but living around the native staff should help some.  Looking around at the conditions the locals in town live in on a daily basis is definetly eye opening.  It makes me even more thankful that I am so blessed to live in America. 

It has also been interesting learning about how Tanzania manages thier wildlife as compared to the US. I believe that this additional perspective on wildlife management will be one of the primary things I take away from my experience here.

Sorry about not having pictures yet.  I will try again later on to upload some when the internet has not had as much traffic on it.

Until next time!

Location: Karatu, Tanzania

Jambo!

Today was my first full day of lectures here at the field station.  I had Wildlife Ecology this morning with Dr. Kioko.  It was primarily a review of the ecology class I took at University Park but he also talked about the some of the field experiences coming up this semester that we will be participating in.  My next class was Swahili, so you can probably guess what that funny word at the beginning of this post means.  Although the language is partly based off of english, in addition to arabic and tribal languages, it will definetly require a lot of practice.  Interestingly, swahili uses all the same letters as english except for ‘q’ and ‘x’.  My last lecture of the day was Environmental Policy.  Today we covered a basic review of economics and a historical context of Tanzania as country.  The material may be a bit dry but I do find it fascinating to compare what I know about natural resource policy in America and Pennsylvania to how Tanzania handles thier natural resources.  It was then that it really hit me how heavily culture and other extenuating circumstances affect how natural resources are managed.  I feel this will be one of the most important understandings I take away from this program.

I feel like I am adjusting to life in the field station pretty well.  I share a room with three other guys which contains only two closets, a small table, and a two bunk beds.  The shower is interesting to say the least.  A total of about 5 small streams of water shoot out at obscure angles from a shower head in the middle of the bathroom.  Its definetly going to be an interesting 3 months.  The weather here is beautiful and everyone is really nice.  Internet connection is pretty slow so I appologize in advance for not posting more pictures.  I have not seen a whole lot of wildlife yet but the song birds in camp are pretty interesting.

Looking forward to getting the most out of this trip I can!

Location: Karatu, Tanzania

When telling people that I will be studying abroad in Tanzania this semester, a question I am often asked is “Why do you want to go there??”  My answer, quite simply, is the wildlife.  As many of you may or may not know, Tanzania is home to many of the legendary ecosystems featured in African specials on the Discovery Channel such as the Serengeti grasslands, the Ngorongoro Crater, and Mount Kilimanjaro.  As a Wildlife and Fisheries Science major here at Penn State, I could not pass up the opportunity to go out and experience these unique areas for myself.

I will be traveling to Tanzania this semester with the School for Field Studies (SFS) Wildlife Management Program.  They run a field station in northern Tanzania which does research to help resolve the rising conflicts between the local people and the native wildlife.  As a part of the program, I will be taking the following courses: Wildlife Ecology, Techniques of Wildlife Management, Environmental Policy and Socioeconomic Values, and Introduction to Swahili Language and East African Tribal Communities.  Towards the end of the semester, I will be applying what I learned in these courses by participating in Directed Research to help solve some of wildlife issues in the community.

As the countdown to my departure this Sunday continues, I find myself both anxious and excited.  My anxiety arises from the fact that Tanzania is still a third world country and I will be leaving my friends, family, and culture here in the United States.  Despite this, I am very excited to embark on this adventure of a lifetime and to figure out who I really am by experiencing a country and culture very different than my own.  I hope to learn not only about wildlife and Africa during my experience, but myself too.

Over the next several months, I plan to share with you the unique wildlife I encounter, aspects of Tanzanian culture, and the changes I find in myself as this experience molds my life.

My name is Robert J Ritson Jr.  I am a Wildlife and Fisheries Science major at The Pennsylvania State University.  I am and Eagle Scout, an avid hunter, and a skilled outdoorsman.  I have never been outside of the United States for more than two weeks nor have I been past the Prime Meridian or below the Equator.  This is who I am, for now.

Location: Limerick, PA