Beginning a year in the chimpanzee forest. Hello from Kibale National Park, Uganda

Who am I?

I’m a graduate student from the USA at the beginning of a year of doctoral research on wild chimpanzees. For the next twelve months, I live in the middle of the Kibale National Park, Uganda, and trek out into the forest daily to study the Ngogo chimpanzees.

I’ll introduce you to my research more later, but first I wanted to set up why I’m here on steemit.

What am I up to on Steemit?

My first goal is to give an on-the-ground look at what field research is like, particularly with chimpanzees. This account will be a documentation of my fieldwork. I will share the adventures of the day, whether that’s chimpanzees hunting monkeys or a close encounter with an elephant.

Posts might offer tidbits of forest life: Why do we wear face masks around the chimps? What do we eat? Where do I get my electricity and internet?

My second goal here is to introduce you to some of the amazing individual animals that have been studied here over 25 years at Ngogo. The reason for this is that, well, chimps are interesting! But also, paraphrasing a quote from Jane Goodall, only if we understand them, will we save them. Chimpanzees are an endangered species, and I think public interest and knowledge can benefit their conservation.

My third goal is to introduce a broader audience to my research and those of others. I want to tell you not only about my project on aging apes and how they forage, but also how researchers come up with questions about primates, and how they investigate them.

Fieldwork is exciting. Fieldwork is boring. It’s unpredictable and routine, stimulating and exhausting. I want you to join me on this adventure as I honestly share what life is like here.

What can blockchain do for science or scientists?

Researchers have two jobs other than, you know, science. We face a mandate to educate the public as well as the necessity to fund our research. Yet, there are real obstacles to these goals. Scientists are rarely rewarded professionally for public interaction.

For example, hiring committees often care more about how many articles you’ve published than the number of primary school students you’ve wowed. Meanwhile researchers, from grad students to professors, spend a major portion of their time writing grant applications.

Not even for large amounts of money. The smallest grants I’ve applied for lately were $400 to attend a conference, and $250 to host a lunch with a visiting speaker. So, why not kill two birds with one stone here at sndbox and steemit? (sorry ornithologists).

Research is largely funded by a select few organizations, kinda like the whales of science. These include government agencies like the National Science Foundation in the USA or the European Research Council. Sometimes private foundations fund particular topics, such as the Leakey Foundation for human origins. But, scientists have already benefited from alternative funding sources.

Crowdfunding has become more popular among researchers. So maybe when PhDs have to petition to buy pipettes or binoculars this represents a failure of the current scientific infrastructure (answer: YES it absolutely does), yet openness to new forms of funding has already benefited some researchers.

With that in mind, the final goal of my account is a test, an experiment: can the blockchain fund research? Can the Steem help conserve chimpanzees? I pledge that 50% of my steem earnings go towards funding my research and the other 50% will go towards chimpanzee conservation efforts here in the Kibale National Park. Let’s see what can happen with the power of blockchain!

I’ve found blockchain audiences like this at steemit both global and hungry for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) content, so fingers crossed you’re excited for some chimpanzee ecology and biology in the coming months! Also, eager to connect with more scientists and natural historians here on steem.

Looking forward to your questions and uploading more chimpanzee adventures.

100% of any steem earnings go directly to chimpanzee research and conservation

You can also follow me on twitter @benjamin_finkel

Learn more about and consider supporting about the Ngogo Chimpanzees

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