UPDATE:

After 20+ years in wildlife conservation I have had to retire from this line of work following a car accident.  

I've worked with wild animals for 20 years, first in a wild animal park where I grew up in the UK, moving onto practical conservation and applied research projects all over the world while I earned a first class BSc in Animal Conservation and Biodiversity with honours, after which I began ecological work in the UK, before landing my dream of working with giraffe in Africa. 

Shortly before the first year of the project I was involved in a car accident in the UK, and having struggled through the first field season in a lot of pain I was advised to take a year out to allow my body to recover. Unfortunately 3.6 years later, despite daily physiotherapy and medications I am still nowhere near my old self and have been unable to return to my ecological work. The pandemic gave me some extra time to work through physio as much as possible, and having had that extra time and still not been able to resume any of my normal activities without pain it is now very clear that my injuries are a life long situation. 

The project and all useful information has been shared with GCF and AP from the start and it is hoped they will continue the partnership.