18th December 2007

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Donegal student Killian McLaughlin, who graduates today with a BSc Honours degree in Computing and Multimedia Design successfully combined his final year project with a very unusual hobby.

When he was growing up in Donegal, like many other youngsters Killian had the usual kind of pets like goldfish, hamsters and rabbits. But unlike other youngsters, Killian’s early curiosity in animals was not just a passing phase and it triggered an interest in working with exotic and endangered species.

He now runs a sanctuary for around 200 exotic and endangered animals on a half-acre enclosure at his home in Buncrana.

The sanctuary is home to a pair of European barn owls, pygmy hedgehogs, doves, monkeys, scorpions, peacocks, snakes, pheasants, chipmunks, rabbits, doves, turtles, iguanas, toads, Muscovy and Mandarin ducks…. to name just a few. Killian has also successfully bred endangered species including Arctic Foxes, which are now being cared for in Dublin Zoo.

Looking to the future, Killian plans to start a BSc in Zoo Research Management by distant learning and will continue to juggle running the sanctuary, giving talks to local schools and community, while at the same time holding down a part time job as a life guard – which helps pay for the animals’ food bills.

For his final year project, Killian developed an innovative and entertaining multimedia package to stimulate pre-school children to learn the alphabet using the linerider.com tool to teach them the names of animals.

His multimedia presentation received excellent feedback from both academia and industry when it was showcased in May this year during the launch of the £20M Intelligent Systems Research Centre at Magee.

Dr Kevin Curran, who supervised Killian’s final year project said “Killian is a perfect example of someone bringing their outside expertise into the research lab in creating a wonderful addictive multimedia learning software package for young children to learn the alphabet and the names of exotic animals.”

For further information, please contact:

David Young
Telephone: 028 90366074
Email: David Young