If a goldfish had arms and legs....

      So this is the blog for Friday's class - we worked on project proposals. It was a good workshop, I learned several things to add to my project to improve it. I wasn't really sure what to blog about this workshop though, so I have turned to "If a Lion Could Talk" for inspiration. The first chapter is entitled "Who is the smartest of them all?" Something I found really interesting was the idea that started with Darwin's theory of evolution that evolution is like a stepladder and that organisms are trying to progress up that ladder, say from insects to the top, humans. Humans were considered the "most evolved" and "most intelligent". In reality, all organisms are equally evolved. All have evolved to their niche - their habitat, lifestyle, etc. Another problem is how one defines intelligence - how do you measure it? How do you fit a bird's abiltiy to fly or a spider's ability to weave a web into a human idea of intelligence? Tests for intelligence are often biased - even among humans. So try testing hundreds of different species! A different test would need to be created for each species, perhaps even each individual. "Animals differ in temperament, perceptual abilities, social behavior..."
       Another point I really like is this - "we say a dog or horse is smart when it does what we want it to do" - humans have projected themselves so much onto animals....it is hard to separate our perceptions of the world in order to think about how animals might perceive the world. Something else to be aware about when judging an animal is their input and output ability. The author talks about how we judge animals that can see and do things readily as being more intelligent i.e. a monkey that can sign with its hands or an owl that can see great distances. But just because a golfish has limited eyesight and no limbs does not mean that it is dumb. So monkeys and owls might have greater ability to demonstrate that they are taking things in (greater input and output ability) but that doesn't mean they are the smartest animals around.
        So how does all of this apply to my project? I think it is really important to be aware of all these things before I go out and work with animals. I am really curious to see what kind of biases and stereotypes exist against animals in the zoo. Do the same biases that apply to intelligence apply to relationships? I mean do keepers not even try to develop relationships with certain species because they think it is impossible to have a relationships with them? Is it impossible to have relationships with certain species...probably yes, it would be hard to have a relationship with a snail or a butterfly, but I wonder.....I want to be careful to not assign intelligence to certain animals just because they behave in a human manner or have greater output and input abilities.

Anthropomorphism

     Dr. Smith is one of the professors that I am made a course contract with - he teaches the wildlife behavior classes on campus. When I was in his office talking to him about my project he suggested several books to read, books with the fun side of animal behavior, or the stories rather than the science. I recently started reading one of these books. It is called If a Lion Could Talk. In the introduction it talks about anthropomorphism - giving inanimate/non-human objects or animals human characteristics. This is something we do with animals all the time. It is interesting that we compliment or appreciate animals more when they behave like humans. We are extremely self-centered. But the author points out that animals are doing this too - dogs treat humans as they would other dogs. Some guy Xenophanes wrote this: "If cattle and horses, or lions, had hands, or were able to draw with their feet and produce works which men do, horses would draw the forms of gods like horses, and cattle like cattle, and they would make gods' bodies the same shape as their own." So I guess we humans can't really be blamed for treating animals like humans. The author also brought up the point that sometimes it is just easier to describe something as if it had intention - a human characteristic. For example it is easier to say that giraffes grew longer necks to reach higher up in trees rather then going into the details of evolution and natural selection.
       Anthropomorphism is something I wanted to look at a little in my project - do zoo keepers give the animals in their care anthropomorphic traits? If they do, is that a bad thing? Or does it somehow help improve relationships? Does the zoo discourage giving human traits to animals? I mean we have already captured these animals, confined them, and forced them to act in ways that benefit man and not necessarily animal....So, we give animals human traits - partially in an attempt to understand them better. Animal conciousness is something that has more recently begun being seriously studied. A big motivation for these studies is a better understanding of animal welfare and animal rights - how should we treat animals? Thinking about it, I realize that my project anthropomorphizes animals right off the bat - they are developing relationships with humans. Aren't relationships a largely human realm? Maybe not, wolf packs and lion prides have hiearchies and relationships...so there is something that humans and animals share, the need for relationships, the need to work with other individuals for survival.
     Anyway, I want to be very aware of how I treat and talk about animals and see where I tend to anthropomorphize them...and if zoo keepers do the same.

Inquiry Conference

     For my second hour of conference attendance, I went to presentations given by Sarah, Averyl and Nick, who are all in the prep class currently. It was great to hear some presentations given by people who have experienced a field study. Nick talked about his time in Tonga, which sounds like a really lovely place. One thing that he talked about that could be applicable to my field study was an issue he had with an interview question. He would ask people why they designed their yards the way they did and would always get one answer - "for the beauty." He changed his questioning method a little and was able to get better responses. It is important for me to remember that in South Africa the way people understand or express things might be different then how I understand or express myself. So interview questions might take some tweaking.

      Sarah talked about her time in Rome studying the Pantheon. The take home message for me from her presentation was that some things cannot be understood in just three months. Regardless even of how much preparation before being in the field, three months is not that long. And that is OKAY! It sounded like Sarah did not really feel that she reached any concrete conclusions about the Pantheon and how Romans view it, but she still had a valuable experience and learned things. Averyl talked about the value of doing a field study versus library research. This is slightly more obvious for my project then it was for hers. I loved that she changed her opinion on "whiney" Queen Elizabeth after visiting some of the places talked about in the play about her life. Anyway, my project kind of requires being in the field. I guess I could do it in the library but it would be boring and it would be harder then being in the field, with the zoo keepers and the zoo animals. And I do not think I would learn nearly as much in the library as in the field. A field study educates in many ways other then academically - Holly and I were just talking about how we are going to come home from this summer completely fearless. We will have spent all summer dealing with people, learning how to talk to, approach, and befriend many different people. I am looking forward to it!

Participant Observation

      In Monday's class we talked more about Participant Observation and all the things that go into participant observation. I want to really apply all of those things to my specific study, so here goes. First I will name some part of preparing for or doing participant observation and then I will discuss how it pertains to my field study.

Learning language - I am not planning on learning any Xhosa or Afrikaans before going, but I would definitely like to learn some while I am there.

Build memory - I liked the exercise suggested in the reading where you walk past a store window and try to observe all the things in the window and then go back to and see what things you missed. Basically I need to become Shawn, from Psych, and become good at noticing and remembering things. This will be helpful in every field study situation.

Explicit awareness - I would like to practice becoming more aware of my own actions and really think before I act or speak,  especially because I can be a little impulsive when I get excited about something. If I am able to go and observe at the zoo, what kinds of things will I need to be aware of? Animal behavior - is the animal active/inactive, shy/confident, excited/bored?  How am I going to tell how it is feeling....I think mostly from its body language. Zoo keeper behavior is another thing I'll be watching for....how they act around the animals, smiling, pet names, touching, playing, etc.

Insider/outsider and hanging out - a lot of my time is going to be spent "hanging out" at the zoo. I want to be comfortable with the people and the animals there, and I want them to be comfortable with me, willing to answer questions, willing to let me help them do stuff.

A huge part of participant observation is what sort of social situtation you are participating in/observing. Ashley talked about several different things that go into your ability to participate...

Simplicity - some parts of observing at the zoo will be hard, others easy. If I just went as a normal zoo goer, but spent a lot more time looking at the animals than normal zoo goers did...that would not be hard, I wouldn't be bothering anyone. But I would also like to observe some of the more behind-the-scenes stuff - cleaning cages, feeding animals, checking animal health etc., and that might be harder to observe.

Frequently recurring - The activities at the zoo will be frequently recurring, so that should not be a problem.

Permissible - Will it be permissible for me to help out with things? I am hoping I will get permission to do some hands on stuff with the animals and zoo keepers, or at least get permission to observe more.

Accessible - Kind of the same as permissible, once I have permission, it won't be hard to get access to behind-the-scene locations. The zoo itself is pretty accessible, if I attend as a normal zoo goer.

Unobtrusive - Depends on the situation too. If I am just standing outside of cages watching things, I am not obtruding. If I am trying to help clean a bear's teeth or get a knot out of a giraffe's neck...that might be a little more obtrusive, both for the animals and the people who normally do those kinds of things : )

"Going Native"

In Friday’s class we discussed how you design a field study project. There is so much that goes into this process! We discussed different problems with field studies; different ways being in the field can limit a study. One of the things mentioned in the reading was the idea of “going native.” With a field study, one must decide whether to become a full participant in whatever is being studied, or to just sit back and observe. These have pros and cons. Joining in with the project can change how people act or how events would actually unfold. And you run the risk of “going native”, of completely adopting the lifestyle or opinions of whatever you are studying, which makes it hard to analyze that behavior. I just liked this phrase, because I am going to South Africa where I am hoping to study wildlife, so going native for me would be like running off with a lion pride to roam the savannahs.

So, field study project! As I’ve been reading more articles, I think I can almost see a project idea emerging. I just read an article about observing captive animals and designing zoo enclosures around their needs. That would combine animal behavior with zoos…in class we also talked about taking advantage of a field study. What is the point of going half way across the world to study something? In my case, what is the benefit of going to South Africa to study zoos? It would just be amazing to say I had studied wildlife in Africa (wildlife biologist’s dream, remember), but how can I tie in the culture of East London with a zoo study? I think one way to do this would be to look at South Africa’s conservation history. Zoos are supposed to be closely related to conservation work, so I could look at the conservation work that has been done in South Africa (which apparently has a good history of that kind of stuff) and see if zoos play into that conservation work at all. Things to think about…