FULBRIGHT AWARD TO STUDY MALAYSIAN ELEPHANTS

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URI grad student awarded Fulbright to study elephants

By: Chloe Thompson

Issue date: 4/26/06 Section: Campus

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Rhode Island graduate student was named a Fulbright Scholar this month

and will study elephant migration patterns in Malaysia.

 

Regen Jamieson, who majored in environmental management and graduated

from URI in 1997, discovered her passion for elephants after watching

a National Geographic video entitled " Return to the Wild: The Homeless

Elephant " at a ranger station. The video was about an educational

program that involved the endangerment of Asian elephants, she said.

 

" I watched it, learned about it, and thought to myself, 'Why isn't

anyone doing anything about this? This is really interesting,' "

Jamieson said.

 

The Fulbright Scholar Program annually sponsors international

educational exchange for various levels of research. Arkansas Senator

J. William Fulbright initiated it after World War II.

 

" He wanted to improve the relations between people of different

countries, " Jamieson said.

 

More than 42,000 participants have been sent overseas to continue

their research endeavors.

 

Jamieson is using the scholar money to study elephants in Malaysia.

She wants to learn more about their migration patterns. " They don't

know how many [elephants] die, they don't know how many leave the park

borders … they don't know anything about their life histories, " she

said.

 

From that video, and research after watching it, Jamieson learned that

there were between 30,000 and 40,000 elephants remaining in Asia. To

demonstrate the drastic nature of this statement, Jamieson compared

the number elephants to the number of residents in a part of Rhode

Island.

 

" I like to use the comparison of Aquidneck Island, " Jamieson said.

" There are around 85,000 people living on that island. That's twice as

many people on one island compared to the number of elephants living

in the wild. "

 

Jamieson will be going to Malaysia to study the migration habits of

elephants that are released into national parks, specifically the

national park Taman Negara. She will put global satellite positioning

collars on the elephants. She wants to find out if there are patterns

in their roaming paths.

Continued...