{"id":265,"date":"2025-01-31T15:01:39","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T15:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/?p=265"},"modified":"2025-01-31T15:01:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T15:01:39","slug":"unforgettable-encounters-dice-students-explore-the-durrell-conservation-academy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/2025\/01\/31\/unforgettable-encounters-dice-students-explore-the-durrell-conservation-academy\/","title":{"rendered":"Unforgettable Encounters: DICE Students Explore the Durrell Conservation Academy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week saw students on DICE\u2019s \u2018Saving Endangered Species\u2019 module travel to Jersey for a few days at the Durrell Conservation Academy. The Academy is based at Jersey Zoo and offers training opportunities for aspiring conservationists.<\/p>\n

A short <1hr flight from London saw us land in the beautiful Channel Islands, where there was plenty of sun to greet us (even if the temperature hadn\u2019t quite gotten the memo). We were lucky enough to stay at the hostel onsite and so were sleeping not far from the incredible animals at Jersey Zoo. That evening we braved the cold country lanes and ventured to a local pub for some down time and plenty of funny wildlife tales.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Outside the Durrell Conservation Academy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Day one began with an introduction to Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust from Dr Andrew Heaver. We were given insight into some of their species focused projects abroad and how their strategy informs their efforts. Andrew explained how connections on the ground drive many of Durrell\u2019s projects and this theme of connectivity ran throughout our field course.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Next, we took a tour of the zoo with Daniel Craven and learned about the wide range of species in the collection. We can now boast that we\u2019ve given an Aldabra Giant Tortoise a scratch! This was followed by some much-enjoyed free time in the zoo. Conservation students let loose in a zoo…no exhibit left unseen.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Birds and bats were next on the agenda. We learned about the zoo\u2019s role in combating the Asian songbird crisis and then got acquainted with their impressive collection of Livingstone\u2019s and Rodrigues fruit bats. The bats gave us insight into the science of engaging the public \u2013 Jersey Zoo display their bats in daylight and are working hard to change perceptions that bats are scary.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fruit Bats<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From bats, to birds, to pigs…our next workshop was titled \u201cbig lessons from a little pig\u201d and we learned about the world\u2019s smallest and rarest wild pig species and everything the Pygmy Hog Conservation Programme is doing in-situ. Day one was wrapped up with another tasty meal (and incredible cake!) and the hostel\u2019s mighty DVD collection.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Day two was sadly our last day on the island but we packed in plenty of learning before lunchtime. We discussed our own views on zoos and captive breeding \u2013 the staff were really open to hearing our perspectives and we got to learn a lot about the roles responsible zoos can play in conservation.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Poison Dart Frogs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We then headed behind the scenes at the Herpetology Dept with Tim Wright who is Environment Manager (Biodiversity) for the Jersey Government. He gave us lots of information about biodiversity work from a government perspective as well as showing us all of the cool work taking place behind the scenes for species such as the Poison Dart Frog and the rarest tortoise in the world – the Ploughshare Tortoise (an image of which is at the top of the page).<\/span><\/p>\n

Before we knew it, we were wrapping up with a workshop on translocation and then reflecting on our new knowledge.<\/span><\/p>\n

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At Jersey Zoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

A highlight for me was learning about <\/span>public engagement in conservation \u2013 Durrell work hard to engage everyone, from the children that attend their nursery, to the staff they train on the ground at their projects around the world.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you to the wonderful Professor Jim Groombridge<\/a> for planning such a great trip and making sure we got the most out of our time on Jersey.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week saw students on DICE\u2019s \u2018Saving Endangered Species\u2019 module travel to Jersey for a few days at the Durrell Conservation Academy. The Academy is … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83585,"featured_media":272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[244608,37045],"tags":[6599],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83585"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions\/286"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/dice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}