Dr. Courtney Collins
Courtney is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of BEES at UCC. Her current research focuses on human-animal interactions in the zoo and the zoo visitor experience including behaviour, engagement and education.
Courtney has a BA in biology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA and an MSc by research from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. Her Master’s research focused on visitor effects in captive animals at Dublin Zoo. She completed her PhD at University College Cork, Ireland in 2018. Her PhD research was an investigation of the relationship between education, zoo visitors and animal behaviour. This research was carried out at Fota Wildlife Park and Dingle Aquarium in Ireland.
Courtney’s research interests include animal behaviour, visitor effects and experience, and environmental education. Specifically, she is interested in captive animal behaviour as it relates to the zoo setting and zoo visitors. Her PhD focused on developing an educational intervention to enhance visitor learning and reduce negative visitor behaviour while promoting positive animal welfare. Currently, Courtney is investigating the zoo visitor experience and how this relates to pro-conservation behaviour. This research is essential in helping zoos maintain positive animal welfare, while fulfilling their goals of education and conservation.
Dr. Amy Haigh
In 2011, Amy successfully defended a PhD at UCC on rural habitat use by the western European hedgehog. Prior to this she was involved in collecting data on the free ranging lemurs at Fota Wildlife Park. This was particularly concentrated on recording incidents of feeding by visitors. Between 2012-2014, she did a post doc (funded by Fota Wildlife Park and the Irish Research Council) on the red squirrels in Fota Wildlife Park. This investigated the impact of visitors, feeding behaviour and variation in behaviour between squirrels in the wildlife park and less populated and disturbed areas of Fota Island. Currenty, Amy is a technical officer at Univeristy College Dublin.
Dr. Tom Quirke
Dr Tom Quirke is the Senior Demonstrator in the School of BEES at UCC. He is also responsible for coordinating the transition year programme. Tom conducted his PhD research at UCC in conjunction with Fota Wildlife Park and other zoological institutions and conservation organisations across the UK, Canada, South Africa and Namibia. His research focused upon the behaviour of cheetahs in captivity. Specifically, Tom studied how husbandry practices and enclosure design influence the prevalence of species-specific behaviour as well as abnormal behaviour. Dr. Quirke also conducted comparative research on cheetahs in the wild and carried out multiple environmental enrichment experiments aimed at improving the behavioural diversity and welfare of cheetahs in captivity. Dr Quirke’s research has helped to enhance our knowledge of environmental enrichment and the welfare of cheetahs and other felids in zoos and other captive settings.
School of Bees Blog _ Dr Quirke's research
