• Question: have you ever taken part in dangerous things for your job

    Asked by sluglife to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 8 Mar 2017.
    • Photo: Carrie Ijichi

      Carrie Ijichi answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      I’ve been kicked by a horse during data collection but then that could happen when I’m out working with horses for my hobby so i’m ok with that. It did really hurt though and left a scar!

    • Photo: Ellen Williams

      Ellen Williams answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      No not really – all of my work is designed so that me being there doesn’t affect what the elephant does – which usually means I stand in public viewing areas which are quite safe!

    • Photo: Ines Goncalves

      Ines Goncalves answered on 8 Mar 2017:

      I’ve had to hunt for scorpions and keep them in boxes in my room in the Kalahari. I then tied knots on their tails using fishing rope and dangled them from a fishing rod in front of meerkats (they love scorpions) to try to collect aggressive vocalisations from them. Several times they’ve tried to sting me, luckily they always got my nail and not my finger. Their sting is meant to be quite powerful and painful and last for up to a week!

    • Photo: Rupert Marshall

      Rupert Marshall answered on 9 Mar 2017:

      I worked in the desert in Africa and when I started I was worried I’d step on a snake hidden in the sand, or get bitten by a scorpion. After a while I stopped worrying and was soon on my hands and knees looking the geckos that I was studying

    • Photo: Cedric Tan

      Cedric Tan answered on 14 Mar 2017:

      Well well well! I will say that my job is quite risky, there’s just so many incidents that had happened and they were actually dangerous. Snake bite, pythons, venomous snakes and spiders, boat crashing and sinking, gas canister blowing up, flooding of the rivers in the middle of the night, fire in a make-shift kitchen.

      Yet I love it and its just all part of the job!

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