Lieke van Klink

"I fell in love with South Africa"

Lieke van Klink finished her bachelor Animal Husbandry with professional field Equine, Sports and Business at VHL University of Applied Sciences (VHL), when it was still located in Wageningen. At the moment she is working on the last bits of her Master programme Global Wildlife Health and Conservation at the University of Bristol. Read more about her Master thesis and how her bachelor at VHL has prepared her for this.

Difficult choice
“The past three months I have worked full time on my Master thesis and finally I am close to the hand in date. I have so many interests that when I had to choose what to do for my thesis I could not decide. The master programme I am following now is quite diverse and it was therefore difficult to find my way. However, during my time at VHL I once had the opportunity to go to South Africa and I immediately fell in love with the country. When an opportunity arose to go there again I knew at once that this was what I had to do. Now I had to find a project that was feasible within the 3 months’ time frame and that could fit into the 4000 word limit- really difficult I can tell you."

Amazing beauty
"I eventually decided to look at the Wildebeest behaviour in response to human disturbance. Exited as I was I went to South Africa and settled in to start my pilot. No wildebeest in sight for two full weeks! Stress kicked in and with a little help of my supervisor I was able to change my topic to include other animals as well. For my research I drove, walked and cycled through an African Nature reserve and was able to witness the amazing beauty of South Africa. Now I am back in the UK and working on my report. I realise now that I truly love what I do - even the data analysis."

Horses
"During my study I often doubted my choice for this bachelor degree and even though I do not work with horses now, I still realised that I have gained a lot of skills at VHL that come in very handy in many aspects of my current studies and life. Management and Conservation go hand in hand.” As a next step, Lieke is now looking for a PhD position in Australia to become a researcher in the field of conservation - preferable with expertise in wild equine behaviour and a focus on Przewalski horses and/or brumby’s.

More information:
Bachelor Animal Husbandry