‘For my thesis I really wanted a subject that would enable me to do field work outside Europe. When the opportunity arose to go to South Africa, I seized it. That’s because I’d been to South Africa once before and thought it was a great place. I wanted to work with the rock elephant shrew (Elephantulus myurus), but when I arrived in South Africa, it turned out that it would be nigh on impossible to this species for my experiments.
At that stage I chose the Namaqua rock mouse *(Aethomys namaquensis)
*. Another interesting animal. I studied the ‘giving up density’ of this species in locations offering various types of shelter. The ‘giving up density’ is the food density remaining at a given site when the animal decides to move on to another food patch. I also had to catch the animals in order to establish their density. I liked that I was able to work entirely independently. The only problem was that it sometimes rained a lot. It was the rainy season and that meant I could not always do field work. Fortunately, I was still able to collect enough data.
While I carried out my research, we spent entire weeks on the Soutpansberg (Salt Pan Mountain)
, leaving only once a week to go food shopping. We were actually in the middle of nowhere and saw few people who weren’t also staying in the park. I have to say I loved that aspect and thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet. There were other students on the mountain as well as a group of volunteers. They were all great people. As well as working on my thesis, I also travelled for three weeks, which included spending one week in Cape Town. I saw a lot of really cool animals, including cheetahs. I saw all of the Big Five except for the leopard. After my three months of field work and my three weeks of travelling, I flew back home. At the airport I ran into trouble because I had stayed longer than my visa allowed. I had previously tried to extend it but hadn’t managed to. I was eventually allowed to fly home but unfortunately South Africa won’t let me back in any time in the next twelve months.’