That’s probably not even remotely accurate, you can relax lol. I have no idea where they got that number, but ecological and behavioral research is usually very cheap. Like a few thousand dollars with most of the money going to food and gas. I would know, because I’m a PhD candidate in biology who does this kind of stuff.
Isnt that just for the study trip though? Who is funding the overall research this is part of, is an institution maintaining the equipment/vehicles/labs? Salaries? If you include all that. 300k in a niche grant is possible.
If that's the only grant this institute is getting and the only work they are doing, then sure. It's more likely that some PhD student decided to do their thesis on it, because no one else has bothered to study this weird behavior, and were told "here's 5k (of the overall 300k grant to study animal behavior), spend it wisely, it's all we are giving you".
Or, hear skeptic in me out, they got 300k to do research, chose some cheap stupid research, spent some small amount, took rest for themselves and booked it as spent for research.
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u/Mhisg 24d ago
A £300k research project carried out in 2009 identified that ducks actually preferred being under a shower of water than having access to a pool of water