Question: I Like Your Hat. Do You Like Your Job? Considering Its Kinda Sick..

Eileen Diskin answered on 13 Nov 2012:

Thanks! I got that hat from the USA. My auntie sent it to me. They sell lots of crazy stuff over in the USA. Like flamingo hats! Perfect for me though, since I’m researching them. And yes, I love my job – because I get to travel to some nice and sunny places to take samples from flamingos, and because I work with a lot of other PhD students – and we all have a really fun time together, its like one big group of friends!

Do you think my job is sick? Well, getting samples from flamingo bums CAN be a little bit gross (they are very stinky little creatures!). But the bacteria that are in there are important, and can tell us how polluted the environment is where the flamingos are living. This can tell us if there are any dangerous bacteria that might cause diseases in humans.

So basically, I’m using the flamingos as ‘indicators’ of how healthy their environment is, so I can make a prediction about the risk to humans. This is REALLY important in developing countries – places like Kenya – where people dont have access to clean drinking water. So its important to be able to predict just how polluted their water might be, and its handy to do this with flamingos (taking the samples doesnt harm them – it takes about 10 seconds, and I release them back into their homes straight afterwards!)

Hope that all makes sense?!