Week One:Rhinos and Checkups

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 18^th 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.

            After the morning round was finished, our first patient was a moderately high-profile case. An Oryx herd resides within the zoo. These antelopes are listed as a threatened species by the ICUN. Before we arrived, one of the oryx had a metal wire that tore into her hoof and the vets had to stich up the injury. That same oryx was not putting any weight on that leg, so the vets were going to dart her and reexamine the site of injury. After helping the vets dart and treat the animal, Tia and I acted as their scrubs/scribes. We were given charts and recorded: drugs given, doses, heart rate, temperature, breathing rate, etc. All the vets and vet staff work diligently to clean out the reopen wound, stich and wrap it up. Afterwards, she was moved to a stall so could be monitored for a while. Once we knew the oryx was stabilized we moved on to a harder part of the job, post mortems. Two birds, one flamingo and one parrot died unexpectantly and the vets had to determine the cause. We met another vet, Dr. Michelle, who specializes in pathology. We watched has both her and Dr. Krisen searched each animal for signs of illness or injury. It was fascinating how they went step by step at looking at all parts of the animal. With the two post mortems done, so was our day and went home to prepare for an early Wednesday.

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.

           

           

           

           

Cheetahs, Cheetahs, Everywhere

Hello! 

My name is McKenna Hancock, I am a junior Zoo and Conservation Science and Biology double major from Austin, Texas.  I am currently interning at the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia. Cheetah Conservation Fund or CCF, is a facility that is working around the clock to try to save wild cheetahs from extinction. It serves not only as a place to educate visitors and others who come but also as a rehab facility for cheetahs that need a little help to get back to their normal lives in the wild. 

Currently when I am writing this, we have 36 cheetahs here, I know, that's a lot of cheetahs but some are currently being rehabilitated and some are permanent residents here, who are ambassadors for the education program. Our resident cheetahs live here because they were too young when they came here and do not have the basic skills they need to be a cheetah in the wild. The cheetahs that are permanent residents here help us to educate the public so they can be passionate and help us save them. 

We don't just have cheetahs at CCF, we also have Livestock Guarding dogs. These are dogs that we give (at a small fee) to farmers in the area that will protect their herd from predators, reducing the human wildlife conflict in the area. The waiting list for these dogs is very long, so when we have puppies, they go in with goats very quickly to get them used to livestock. We want them to care about the goats and the livestock more than they care about people. Then when they are old enough, we get them spayed and neutered, and send them to their farm homes. I was lucky enough to be able to sit in on the procedure of the puppies getting spayed and neutered. 

 

Alongside the dogs we also run a model farm here at CCF, we have goats and sheep to show the farmers how they can have their livestock and not harm wildlife. It is also where we develop and demonstrate our livestock managing techniques. As interns we go to check the goats twice a day to make sure they are free of injuries and sickness because a limping or sick goat looks like food to a predator. Doing goat checks every day you make friends with some of those goats. The little lady on the right is Dot and I love her. 

It is a very rare occasion when we get to watch something like the puppies getting fixed, usually my day consists of tasks, work on projects, or reading up on native species in Namibia. My tasks are broad and range from feeding dogs, to what we call center feeding.

Which starts with laying all the bowls out in a designated area so that the guests can look at the meat and learn a little about it in what we call a 'Meat Talk'.  It's where we discuss what the meat is (usually horse or donkey) the vitamins and minerals we put on it and why its in bowls (cheetahs are finicky). 

It’s funny however because when we lay out the meat, we tend to get hungry visitors like birds that will come take nibbles of the meat. Then we put the bowls of meat in the feed pen and then when we are safe and out of the enclosure, we let the cheetahs in to eat. It is an experience that the guests get to watch and take pictures of and I got to say it is very cool to be that close to a cheetah while it is eating, I don't think I’ll ever get used to it. 

There are also tasks where you help take care of the dogs that live here. Tasks with the dogs consist of feeding them cleaning their enclosures, putting fly spray on them, and of course dog walks. I have not been here very long but I may already have a favorite dog. His name is Bolt and he has personality for days, the photo on the left is a one I took of him right after we got back from a walk. He is very tired but also very happy. He will stay here at CCF for breeding purposes. 

There are quite a few tasks we do relating to the cheetahs; my personal favorite is Husbandry. We get to head to where they keep the releasable cheetahs, about a 10-minute drive away from the main building. This is so we can keep those cheetahs as wild as possible before we release them. For husbandry we feed them and run them to get their exercise, they are trained to chase the cheetah keeper truck. The cheetahs do their best to keep up with the truck and usually they beat it, after that we feed them. Usually we throw the meat over the fence and they grab it and run away. We also take care of the resident cheetahs we have in bigger enclosures for the safari experiences. Overall it is in my opinion one of the coolest tasks because you get the chance to see how cheetahs in the wild would act as well as see some of the resident cheetahs we don't get to see too often. 

Of course, there are the typical tasks that have you cleaning enclosures or feed pens, then there is the task that has you prepping the food for the cheetahs. Basically we take the big chunks of the meat that the butcher preps for us, we prep those by cutting off as much of the fat as we can and also making sure there are no bones that the cheetahs could choke on or get stuck in their teeth. After we are done usually there is a bucket that look somewhat like this just full of fully prepped meat. We have 36 mouths to feed, that is a lot of meat to prep every day, so as you can imagine it’s a long very busy task, but the cheetahs need to get fed. 

Overall, I have learned so much in the short time that I have been here, this internship is proving to be invaluable in prepping for my future career.  My next blog post will probably update much more on that project and not my daily tasks!