October 2005
Jean Bosco Bizumuremyi: 20 years with Karisoke
The end of September saw a party held to celebrate Jean Bosco Bizumuremyi's 20th year working at DFGFI's Karisoke Research Center.
Bosco, as he is known to everyone, was employed by Dian Fossey at 16 years old and has since become a cornerstone of Karisoke's research and conservation work.
In his current position of field operations coordinator, Bosco ensures the smooth running of research and anti-poaching activities, coordinating with park authorities, the military and local police.
All Karisoke staff, as well as representatives from the Rwandan national park services, other local organizations and the Rwandan military attended the party, demonstrating the huge respect felt for this remarkable man.
National University of Rwanda students
The other major events from last month relate to our partnership with the National University of Rwanda. We were pleased to host nine students from the biology department for their annual internship, including a weeklong course on primate behavioral ecology and conservation.
Other activities included biodiversity monitoring exercises within the Volcanoes National Park and visits to the research groups, where they were mentored by our research assistants in data collection techniques.
The internship was well received by both the students themselves and teaching staff from the university and will go a long way towards conservation capacity building in Rwanda.
The next step in this process is the supervision of students' final year research projects by Karisoke staff.
Claudien Nsabagasani finished his project on the highly endangered Grauer's rush warbler in the Volcanoes park this month and successfully defended his thesis in front of a panel made up of NUR professors.
Claudien was awarded a mark of 15.4 (77%) and we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on this achievement and thank him for his hard work during his time here.
