DSU Natural Resources Major Does Elephant Research in Africa

Katie Ommanney may become a wildlife professional who will regularly work with the largest animal ever by a DSU College of Agriculture and Related Sciences (CARS) student.

Ms. Ommanney, a junior Natural Resources major, grew up in Tanzania, where she spent her childhood at a wildlife reserve. She was particularly drawn to the elephants that roamed that country and beyond.

After later moving to the First State and subsequently graduating from Dover High School in 2006, she enrolled at DSU where she directs her work as a Natural Resources student toward returning her to the African wildlife and her love of elephants.

Last summer through some funding support by CARS and others, Ms. Ommanney did research on elephant stress levels at Knysna Elephant Park in Plettenberg, South Africa. Specifically, her research explored whether stress levels went up or down when tourists interacted with the captive elephants. “The research looked at whether the frequency of tourist levels affected their stress,” she said.

That research opportunity has begotten her an internship in Africa next summer. While she was on the continent last summer, she visited her father who still lives in Tanzania. There, she learned that an elephant orphanage would be opening in Arusha, Tanzania. She met with the people running the operation and landed the upcoming internship.

Elephant orphanages exist to provide a place for young elephants whose parents are killed by poachers for their ivory tusks. “There is a huge psychological component when dealing with orphan elephants, which in some cases they witnessed the killing of their parents,” Ms. Ommanney said.

She credits the DSU Aquatics Laboratory with giving her the needed scientific foundation and the guidance and support of Dr. Gulnihal Ozbay, professor of natural resources, and Dr. Karuna Chintapenta, DSU postdoctoral research associate in aquatics.

Ms. Ommanney said the care and preservation of elephants is her professional aspiration. “Since I was a child, I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “It was always going to be wildlife.”