Staff, Students & Associates

Conservation Biology Masters Students (2012/13)

Louise (Lou) Palframan

Email: louise.palframan@uct.ac.za

Before moving to a sheep farm near Graaff-Reinet at the age of five, Louise lived on a dairy farm near Underberg, KwaZulu Natal. Growing up on farms inspired her love for nature and its conservation. She is acutely aware of the challenge to balance the need for an economically viable business while avoiding conflict with predators (mainly jackal and caracal). Despite living in the middle of the Karoo, with not much water in sight, Louise has a love for the ocean that brought her to Cape Town and UCT. Louise completed her BSc degree in 2010 with majors in Marine Biology and Ocean & Atmospheric Science. She followed this in 2011 with an honours degree in Zoology, also at UCT, where her project investigated potential temporal and spatial competition between trawl and line fishing fleets on the Agulhas Bank. During her honours year she realised that her real interest lies in applied biology and decided that a Masters in Conservation Biology would enable her to pursue a career in this field. Outside of university she enjoys playing sport, hockey and tennis, as well as painting and spending time with friends. Although Louise loves Cape Town, after a while, living in a city becomes a little too much and she always enjoys going home to fresh air, wide open spaces and big skies.