Andrei Snyman lives in a near perpetual state of winter.
A graduate student in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources, Snyman spends the school year in Lincoln and May through August in Botswana – when the Southern Hemisphere experiences winter.
Before coming to UNL in Fall 2013, Snyman spent nine years as head of research for the Northern Tuli Predator Project in the Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana. The project focuses on the conservation of carnivores, primarily lions, by collaring them with GPS trackers and following their movements in and out of the game reserve.
Population pressure presents a major challenge to the conservation of these carnivores.
“There’s less and less space, and now there are just islands of wilderness in the sea of humanity,” the South African native said. “The population of big cats was crashing because of this, so we collar them to see where they go and how they get from point A to point B.”
In 2011, Snyman met John Carroll, who at the time was a natural resources professor at the University of Georgia. Every year, Carroll took students to Southern Africa to study abroad.
“About 5 years ago, we moved across the border into Botswana because the area offered a bit more flexibility for our program as we wanted to begin introducing some formal research projects,” Carroll said. “There I met Andrei who was head of research for the Mashatu Reserve and studying both leopards and lions.”
After their second year of taking students there, Snyman called Carroll and asked about the possibility of attaining a Ph.D in the United States.
“Of course, I said yes, and the rest is now history,” Carroll said.
After one semester in Georgia, Carroll was appointed the Dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources, and both Carroll and Snyman moved to UNL.
Carroll and Snyman return to Botswana every year as part of a undergraduate education abroad program opportunity. Students are able to study the importance of conservation and the relationship between people and animals.
“I love taking students to Botswana to have a chance to see the real bush but also the challenges facing the continent relative to wildlife conservation,” Carroll said. “They also come back realizing that Americans don’t have all the answers and in fact we need to go to places like Botswana to learn how other cultures view common problems quite differently and often arrive at quite different and creative solutions.”
Before his stint at the Mashatu Game Reserve, Snyman’s goal was to be a professional hunter. He studied game and ranch management at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. His professor at the time, a big cat biologist, needed a field technician for tracking lions. Snyman took the job.
Now he is doing his Ph.D. research on lion conservation in the 21st century.
“I’m using resources at UNL to map out the region to predict where they’re going, and where are the good and bad spots they travel through to get from point A to point B,” Snyman said.
Snyman’s research with UNL and the Northern Tuli Predator Project has helped to maintain lion populations in and out of the game reserve. By tracking the lions’ movements as they travel through farmland or villages, the Mashatu game reserve can call locals to warn them a lion is in the area and to shelter their cattle until it passes. This prevents locals from killing the traveling carnivores and helps to build relationships with the people living around the game reserve. There’s a lot to lose if you’re a cattle-owner living side-by-side with lions.
“There’s the human awareness factor you have to work with,” Snyman said. “I like working with animals, but you have to work with people, engage them. You have to see it from the point of view of the villager because it’s a big matter to lose cattle.”
Now Snyman is working toward becoming a professor himself and said he hopes to expand his research on lion conservation while in the U.S.
“I’d like to teach and manage projects from a university,” he said. “I want to take students out for study abroad and open up opportunities and connections to facilitate research in Africa.”
source
A graduate student in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources, Snyman spends the school year in Lincoln and May through August in Botswana – when the Southern Hemisphere experiences winter.
Before coming to UNL in Fall 2013, Snyman spent nine years as head of research for the Northern Tuli Predator Project in the Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana. The project focuses on the conservation of carnivores, primarily lions, by collaring them with GPS trackers and following their movements in and out of the game reserve.
Population pressure presents a major challenge to the conservation of these carnivores.
“There’s less and less space, and now there are just islands of wilderness in the sea of humanity,” the South African native said. “The population of big cats was crashing because of this, so we collar them to see where they go and how they get from point A to point B.”
In 2011, Snyman met John Carroll, who at the time was a natural resources professor at the University of Georgia. Every year, Carroll took students to Southern Africa to study abroad.
“About 5 years ago, we moved across the border into Botswana because the area offered a bit more flexibility for our program as we wanted to begin introducing some formal research projects,” Carroll said. “There I met Andrei who was head of research for the Mashatu Reserve and studying both leopards and lions.”
After their second year of taking students there, Snyman called Carroll and asked about the possibility of attaining a Ph.D in the United States.
“Of course, I said yes, and the rest is now history,” Carroll said.
After one semester in Georgia, Carroll was appointed the Dean of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln School of Natural Resources, and both Carroll and Snyman moved to UNL.
Carroll and Snyman return to Botswana every year as part of a undergraduate education abroad program opportunity. Students are able to study the importance of conservation and the relationship between people and animals.
“I love taking students to Botswana to have a chance to see the real bush but also the challenges facing the continent relative to wildlife conservation,” Carroll said. “They also come back realizing that Americans don’t have all the answers and in fact we need to go to places like Botswana to learn how other cultures view common problems quite differently and often arrive at quite different and creative solutions.”
Before his stint at the Mashatu Game Reserve, Snyman’s goal was to be a professional hunter. He studied game and ranch management at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. His professor at the time, a big cat biologist, needed a field technician for tracking lions. Snyman took the job.
Now he is doing his Ph.D. research on lion conservation in the 21st century.
“I’m using resources at UNL to map out the region to predict where they’re going, and where are the good and bad spots they travel through to get from point A to point B,” Snyman said.
Snyman’s research with UNL and the Northern Tuli Predator Project has helped to maintain lion populations in and out of the game reserve. By tracking the lions’ movements as they travel through farmland or villages, the Mashatu game reserve can call locals to warn them a lion is in the area and to shelter their cattle until it passes. This prevents locals from killing the traveling carnivores and helps to build relationships with the people living around the game reserve. There’s a lot to lose if you’re a cattle-owner living side-by-side with lions.
“There’s the human awareness factor you have to work with,” Snyman said. “I like working with animals, but you have to work with people, engage them. You have to see it from the point of view of the villager because it’s a big matter to lose cattle.”
Now Snyman is working toward becoming a professor himself and said he hopes to expand his research on lion conservation while in the U.S.
“I’d like to teach and manage projects from a university,” he said. “I want to take students out for study abroad and open up opportunities and connections to facilitate research in Africa.”
source
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