INTREU PROGRAM FOR 2004-2005

Working with Revaz Machaidze and Zura Patarashvili of the Georgian Faunal Protection Association and three other Georgian colleagues from the Center for the Conservation of Wildlife, John Carroll carried out his INTREU site program April 11-27, 2005. This ambitious program involved one graduate assistant and five undergraduates, all from the University of Georgia, as well as several local Georgian scientists, guides, interpreters, cooks, and drivers. Most of the program was devoted to field work conducted from a base camp in the Alazani River valley, in northeastern Georgia along the border with Azerbaijan. Students carried out surveys of native pheasant populations in defined quadrants near their camp. The challenges were numerous, to say the least. Language difficulties were addressed through the use of interpreters who also had ecology expertise, and cultural differences also had to be managed. Extremely poor road conditions, aggressive dogs and other wildlife, and primitive camp living conditions presented further obstacles. At one point, Carroll was bitten by a dog and had to undergo rabies vaccinations at a local hospital, and on one field survey expedition, the students and their guide were briefly taken into custody by Georgian border patrol officers who suspected them of being drug smugglers. Fortunately, that situation was quickly resolved and the students continued their work.

Despite all these adventures, both Carroll and his students rated the program as highly successful. On the research side, two of the students are continuing to work on data sets from the project, and Carroll expects to be able to publish joint articles with them on their results. The Georgian research experience also helped other students to focus on future projects they might want to undertake. Two of them are applying to master’s programs on wildlife ecology at the University of Georgia, and two others have been hired as part-time research assistants working with the graduate assistant on this INTREU program. Furthermore, Carroll reports that he intends to submit a full NSF REU proposal for the August 2006 deadline. That project will focus on the natural history and ecology of grassland fauna relative to land use in eastern Georgia.

For most of the U.S. students involved in this program, it represented their first opportunity to do field research and their first chance to travel outside the United States, especially as most of them, according to Carroll, come from families who would not have been able to afford the cost of an overseas program if they had been required to pay. Their program evaluations contain many moving comments, including the following: