During the first weeks of September this year, Switzerland was unexpectedly blessed with superb summer weather. The bright blue sky and the sunny warm days presented the perfect opportunity for sampling trips - an opportunity the ZHAW team, of course, instantly seized!
First, Lona & Akshay took a little trip to the Zurich Zoo. With organisatory help from Dominik Ryser and the hands-on experience of Dr. Leyla Davis, and Sandro Schönbächler they sampled several animals there. This was, however, not the first time, the ZHAW team was allowed to sample the animals of this zoo. In fact, the samples from a previous sampling trip (together with Gabriela Hüslimann) are still running through our data processing pipeline, but pre-liminary results look very interesting! Naturally, optimism about the new samples gathered at Zurich Zoo now is high.
Later-on, Julia joined and together another sampling trip to the Swiss Alps was done. Here, we had some help from David, a local hunter, who gave some insights into the ecosystem in those mountain ranges. We learned a lot about the animals themselves and about the delicate balance of human and animal populations.