Name: Ashley Uselmann
Class Year: Junior
Hometown: Carmel, IN
Internship: National Pretoria Zoo
Pretoria, South Africa
It has been crazy since
Tia and I landed in South Africa. We both landed in South Africa on the 18th
of May. Tia had just arrived after surviving a 16-hour flight! I met Tia after
just arriving from my May-term travel trip in Malawi. We managed to find each
other and our driver and were on our way. Both Tia and I were hungry after our
trips and decided to stop at a restaurant on our way to the zoo. The first meal
that both of us had in South Africa was a fast food chain called Wimpy. Not the
most authentic meal we could have eaten. After a short drive, we have arrived
in our new home for the next 10 weeks. We met our new housemates, Stefan and
Nicholas, and called it a night. I was saying goodbye to one journey and hello
to another.
The start to our journey was a little slow. Many of the
staff we were supposed to meet were gone on the weekend, so we had the weekend
also to ourselves. However, besides to unpacking and eating, Tia and I were
getting a little restless. The house we were staying at was as Tia said, “like
Fort Knox”. We were given keys and actually struggled a good five minutes just
to leave the house. The kitchen was beautiful and the rooms were huge. However,
there is one snag. There is no WIFI…yah Tia and I had to adjust to that aspect
a little bit. Yet, we knew there would be WIFI at the research center. We met
another one of our housemates named Marianne. Our housemates are amazing.
Marianne is a student from France who came to the Zoo’s research center to work
on her Masters. Nicholas is a genetics student from Belgium who is also working
on his Masters. Finally, there is Stefan from Austria. Stefan is at the zoo to
coordinate with them on a project. He has been all around the world and has
done so many things that I couldn’t possible list them all. The list of people
we met don’t end with them. On Saturday, we met two new friends, Jamie and DD.
Jamie is an intern at the research center and DD is a research assistant. Both
of them were so kind and took us out shopping for groceries. Both Tia and I had
to cringe when we saw the bill, but we knew these groceries were necessary.
The first day on the job was interesting introduction.
How do two zoo students start there stay in a zoo? Of course, they travel around
the zoo! Tia and I woke up first thing in the morning and spent a couple of
hours just wandering the zoo. I have to say that one animal in particular stole
my heart on the first day. Goliath is a white rhino that lives at the Pretoria
zoo. He shares an enclosure with another white rhino and a small herd of zebra.
Goliath was just an infant when his mother was killed by poachers. He was taken
in by authorities and hand-raised by zoo staff. He loves to race cars and
people alike! He is a sweet boy! On that same day, Tia and I ventured around to
find where were supposed to go. All facilities related animal feeding, animal
health, research, and storage are in the same area. Plus, all the buildings
look exactly alike! We got lost only a couple of times… After asking a couple
of zoo staff, we finally made our way to the research offices. We met with the
research coordinator Dr. Netshifhefhe. She briefed us on who we needed to talk
to and led us to Dr. Dalton. She gave us our research projects. Tia was given a
project that worked on genetic barcoding with different antelope species of
South Africa. I was given a project that worked on the microsatellites of a
South African antelope species called Bushbuck. We were informed that each of
us would be working with a supervisor that would advise us in the lab work.
Also, we are expected to write a paper on this lab work that should be
publishable by the end of our 10 weeks. In addition to our individual projects,
both Tia and I will work on a statistical analysis of penguin measurements
taken at several facilities. We knew we had our hands filled. After meeting our
supervisors, Tia and I ventured off to meet the zoo’s veterinarians.
It was exciting to final meet the veterinarian staff at
the hospital. We met with Dr. Rob and Dr. Krisen who were responsible for the
health of all the 600 animals in the Pretoria zoo. After a brief discussion
about what we were working on with geneticists, the vets agreed that Tia and I
could join them on anything they do. We planned on meeting them for morning
rounds at 8 am, and will also join them on Wednesday went Dr. Rob plans to go
to Mokopani Park. Mokapani Park is an extension of the Pretoria Zoo and Dr. Rob
plans to do check ups on a few of the animals there. With that knowledge, Tia
and I headed to bed after making a dinner of what’s going to end up our most
reliable meal, pasta.
The first day that we worked with the vets was packed
filled. The day started at 8 am for morning rounds. The morning rounds
consisted of the whole vet staff checking on the patients that reside in the
vet hospital. Some of the patients included: two adorable genets that Dr. Rob
himself raised that are waiting for an enclosure designed for them, 4 cockatoos,
tow juvenile genets two parrots, a wild dog, a tortoise that had a nasty cut
after having a run-in with a hedge clipper, and finally almost 100 confiscated
leopard tortoises. 70 of those tortoises are baby tortoises that were just
hatched after arriving. Later that same day, Tia and I would check on all 70 of
those baby tortoises to make sure first that they were alive, and secondly to
check on their body conditions. The few that we pulled out required closer
monitoring because of not receiving enough UV light and calcium and as a result
having softer shells. And has most of you back home know, a turtle with a soft
shell is not good at all.
| Me with a baby leopard tortoise. Tia and I had to inspect around 70 of these adorable creatures. |
| A picture of Tia at 5 am. Excited for the day's trip! |
Our Wednesday started early, with waking up at 4 am. Dr.
Rob planned for us to leave by 5:30 so we could get to Mokopani by a reasonable
time. It was a packed car by the time we were leaving. The group consisted of:
Tia and I, Jamie, Dr. Rob, Sabeth (vet tech), and Elizabeta, who is a student
from Italy working on her Masters. At Mokopani, our group was led on a tour of
the facilities. At the beginning of the trip we planned on darting 2 animals,
and we left darting none. We planned on darting on a female Roan antelope and a
lioness. The reason we didn’t dart the lioness for her check-up was because she
was in heat and we wouldn’t be able to separate her from the male lion. The
Roan antelope not being darted that day was a whole other story. We went out to
the park’s preserve and left Dr. Rob, Tia, and the vet tech, Sabeth out in a
hideout, so they could dart the roan secretly while she was eating. Sadly,
right as they were going to dart her, Sabeth ended up sneezing…Loudly. All the
roan scattered and we knew we wouldn’t be able to get near them again today.
The best part of the day though was when Dr. Rob had to check up on a baby
pigmy hippo. He and a couple of others had to pick up the baby, because he
managed to sneak into the wrong pen. This pen had a male pigmy hippo and if
they stayed together this would lead to a dangerous situation for the baby.
Obviously, both baby and the mother of the baby pigmy hippo were angry at the
staff for picking up the baby. So, what does an angry hippo mother do? She
sprays poop all over the staff. Yah, Dr. Rob had to rinse off before we let him
anywhere near the car. It was an exciting adventure!
| The protective pygmy hippo mom in front of her calf. She got Dr. Rob good! |
Thursday was more exciting if possible. Thursday consisted of not only the normal rounds but also with a full checkup of all
marmoset monkeys. There were about 9 marmosets in total. First the keepers would
gather the marmoset from their respective crates and we would gas them in a box
to allow them to sleep during the check-up. Dr. Rob went over each individual’s
body condition, head to tail, and we over x-rays. I became the scrub that wrote
down all of Dr. Rob’s observations for the record. Tia became the X-ray
assistant and would position all the marmosets for their x-rays. The process
itself took hours.
Friday was exciting in a different way. We had to dart a
red kangaroo. This kangaroo broke his jaw in the past and the vets wanted to
reexamine the wound for possible infection and signs of healing. This
particular kangaroo is one of the dominant males of the group. The vets darted
him and we were able to pull him from the enclosure without trouble from the
other kangaroos. Once we secured him in the vet office, Dr. Krisen worked to
clean the wound and reexamine it. It was healing quite nicely! They stitched
him back up and we returned him back to his enclosure. Although, he was still
unconscious as we were carrying him back into the enclosure. We happen to pass
a huge group of school children on the way. Yup, that was fun seeing their
reactions and telling them he is not dead, he just had a doctors appointment.
There is never a boring day here at the Pretoria Zoo.
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