Mambo everyone!
Today was one of the best days of my life! It was our first expedition of the semester in which we spent about 12 hours in a safari at Lake Manyara National Park! We were observing and trying to identify all the animals at the park, both in English and Swahili. Some of the wildlife we saw that day included, elephants, giraffes, zebras, hippos, wildebeest, impalas, different species of monkeys and gazelles and much more!
The main reason for our visit, other than seeing all this wildlife, was to conduct a research project on olive baboon’s activity patterns in the wild. My friends and I learned, identified, and recorded different behaviors of targeted baboon troops. After collecting their behavior, we wrote a research paper regarding this data. It was interesting to analyze our results and find out why baboons displayed movement and foraging as the two most frequent activities. Some of the reasoning behind these activities is their location, resource availability, season, distribution, and individual traits such as the sex, age, and hierarchical class of the troops observed.
Enjoy the pictures!
It’s our first time doing a safari
Olive baboon posing for the picture and eating palm tree nut
Mama and her baby on a mission to find food
Baboons right above our safari… a little scary but super cool!
Zebras and wildebeests running behind me
Pictures do not do zebras justice, their beauty is so detailed and hard to explain!
The zebra family showed up… the baby is so cute!
Spending 12 hours in the safari with these lovely people made my experience even better!
Hippos! Lazy as can be : )
Enjoying the beautiful views with these ladies at our mini break at the park
Vervet monkeys chilling by the trees
Grant’s gazelle
Our next expedition is at Tarangire National Park, cannot wait for more wildlife!
Baadaye!