BU Research Blog

The photo of the week series is a weekly series featuring photos taken by our academics and students for our Research Photography Competition, which provides a snapshot of some of the incredible research undertaken across the BU community.

This week’s photo of the week, ‘Peeping Capuchin,’ is by Aaron Hart, an Ecology and Wildlife conservation student from the faculty of Science and Technology.

Going on the international field trip to Costa Rica as part of my course (Ecology & Wildlife Conservation) was truly inspiring. I found myself immersed in the whole experience, surrounded by an abundance of wildlife of which I took a keen interest to the white-faced Capuchin monkeys that roamed within the forests on Montezuma. Their behaviours and relationship with the local residents  fascinated me and I left wanting to study them further.

This led me to want to base my dissertation on them looking at observed differences found in behaviour between the wild and captive populations and how enrichment techniques can reduce stereotypical behaviour and preserve natural behaviours, essential for successful reintroduction’s. This involves working closely with local zoo’s and implementing a variety of enrichment techniques to test their effectiveness against stereotypical behaviour and then possibly going back to Costa Rica to volunteer in a monkey sanctuary of which I can observe natural behaviours in my time off. This also provides an opportunity to investigate further into the relationship between monkey and man and if their change of relationship over the years has led to a change in natural behaviours.