Thursday, April 27, 2017

A Story from @Batfan!

To help celebrate Chimp and See's 2nd anniversary, we asked our volunteers to share their personal stories, memories, and anniversary wishes for the blog. Today's volunteer story is from @Batfan:



On Chimp and See, you know me as Batfan.  My real name is Jane.

I'd like to say... A huge Happy Birthday C&S. Long may this brilliant project continue.

After a couple of summers spent teaching at a remote school in Tanzania, with a roost of bats living down the ‘long drop’ (which made for some very interesting trips to the loo!!!), I fell totally in love with both Africa and bats.

At the end of last year I had to go into hospital, which led to an enforced period of inactivity and, to keep me sane during this time, I investigated the Zooniverse site to find something to occupy me. After having dabbled with various projects, from planets to penguins, I came across C&S and, within minutes, was totally hooked. My love of wildlife coupled with my love of Africa, make this the perfect project for me. Although I’m now back, living my normal life again, it’s become a priority to carve out at least a few minutes each day to spend trawling the C&S videos to see what new gems are there to be discovered.

When I came to the site, I always knew I’d love such as the chimps, monkeys, elephants, hippos and leopards but I hadn’t realized how many other species I’d develop such affection for. Those red river hogs always make me smile as they rootle around and those leaping galagos make me laugh out loud. Even the pretty little (and I’ve only recently found out just how little) duikers frequently melt my heart.

And it’s not just the animals that make C&S such a great site to be involved with. All you mods , scientists and ‘old hand’ citizen scientists have been so welcoming and helpful to newer people such as me and because of this, I’ve never felt embarrassed to ask questions or make mistakes, and so feel to have learned loads. Thank you to you all.

So once again, Happy Birthday C&S,. May there be many more years to come.


Thanks, Jane, and all our volunteers for making C&S such a special project! See you tomorrow for another story!

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