BEAM Kenya: Research projects in the Mara

We've been here in the Mara for one day now, and the students are making good progress on their first independent research projects of the trip. They've managed to come up with some pretty interesting experiments, one of which involves a favorite animal of mine - the black-backed jackal. I love jackals because they're tiny little guys who are gutsy enough to dart in and try to steal kills from animals ten times their size (If you want to read a tirade about why I love jackals go here!)

Black-backed jackals being adorable, as usual

The project involves hiding a set of speakers in grass and playing either dying rabbit noises (which a jackal would happily eat) or a recording of lions and hyenas fighting over a kill. It might seem strange that a jackal would come running at the sound of MUCH larger animals duking it out, but they're quite talented at darting in during these competitions and snagging a scrap or two before the larger animals catch on. The students have had great success with their hidden speakers. Jackals have run right up to it and sniffed it, and we're hoping to get some fun go pro footage. We also have lots of other animal noises on the speakers, such as mountain lions and dying elk. We've had a little too much fun with them, and I think there are some traumatized Kenyan cows in the area who are wondering why a car full of people going by sounds like a raging cat.

We also have some students doing projects on giraffes. I promise they're not spending the WHOLE time taking selfies.