King of the animal kingdom?

This beautiful elephant bull we saw in Kruger National Park. He just wanted to show off and luckily never showed real agression. But still...very impressive! Don't wanna know how impressive these animals are when they charge seriously. During my work the Gabonese rainforest I have run for bush elephants almost on a daily basis, but the good thing was that you did not see them (only heared their footsteps in the thick rainforest), so you could not see how big and impressive they were. Also bush elephants are much smaller than this adult bull savanah elephant. This elephant just wanted to let us know that he knew himself how big and strong he was!

Dutch problem in Africa

African buffalos carry many diseases. They do not get ill themselves, but they can infect more vulnerable cattle with disasterous results. Therefore in most regions in South Africa (west of Kruger NP) it is only allowed to keep African buffalos free of the main South African contagious diseases: Tuberculosis, brucella, East Coast Fever and Foot and Mouth. These 'disease free buffalos' are very popular. Therefore the price for a disease free buffalo can go up to approximately 30.000 euros (more than a white rhino!) Over the years raising African buffalo calfs disease free has been very popular: these calfs are taken away from their diseased mothers and raised by disease free Jersey cows to make sure they stay healthy. The motherhood skills of these Jersey cows are very good: they always adopt the calfs easily. Because of this disease free buffalo raising we have a lot of Jersey cows here. My first day at work, I diagnosed a very common disease in cattle the Netherlands, but never expected to find it here: a displaced stomach. Wild bovines and local cattle will never get this problem as the high concentrated diet of domestic cattle (to get them to produce milk) has a big influence in the cause of this problem. The normal position of the stomach (abomasum) of a cow is at the lowest part of the abdomen. Gas or too much space in the belly (after giving birth) can cause the stomach to go up and the gas will keep it at the upper part of the abdomen. This creates stomach pain and the cow will stop eating. In the end she will always die. So, the first day at work in Africa I did a very common Dutch operation: putting the stomach back into place and stitching it into to the abdominal wall so that the stomach will stay in place. The African people could not believe their eyes how I, a foreign white female with much less muscles than them, got this cow on her back (an easy and funny trick; will tell you later) and opened her belly to find the stomach. It was hilarious to see these African surprised faces!

Greybok with sores

Skinproblems are quite common in wild animals. Treating skin problems reminds me of the small animal surgeries, as domestic dogs and cats often suffer from various skin problems, e.g. mites, fungal infections and allergies. The approach is similar. The only problem is that a wild animal needs to go under anaesthetics each time you want to examine it: luckily this is not the case with your pets. This small antelope (Grijsbok) showed crusts and sores on the nose and on the ear shelves. I darted the animal with a low dosage of Etorphine and treated it for mites, fungus and a bacterial infection. At scrapings I could not find any external parasites, but I treated the animal for it anyway, because not finding them does not guarantee they are not there. Another big difference between working in the bush and in a city veterinary clinic is the logistics: here it's not always easy to get samples to a lab. In this case it would have been nice to do a fungal culture, but because of the isolation here I decided to first treat it and see whether the treatment worked. I darted the animal after 2 weeks again to treat it a second time and since then the sores are healing. We are keeping a good eye on it, because skin problems can return easily when a treatment is stopped too early. When the improvement does not continue, I will dart the animal again to do skin biopsies to investigate it for other skin diseases, such as allergies. Will keep you posted. The Etorphine anaesthetics (mainly used for big game) was amazing. The antidote of this drugs works within a minute, so after injecting it into the vene, the animal run off, completely awake, within 45 seconds! Really impressive. And it was great to get help from 2 good friends visiting from the Netherlands and Ireland, Pieter and Claire.

ALL respect for black rhinos!

Learning every day here. Lucky to work with the best wildlife specialists in the field, because some actions with wild animals are just too difficult and too dangerous to do without lots of experience. One of them is releasing a black rhino into the field from a crate. Black rhinos are very different from white rhinos; the more I learn about them, the more I understand that they are completely different animals. Black rhinos have very poor eyesight and are smaller than white rhinos. Because black rhinos live in thick bush, they are more quickly irritated and can be very agressive! One would say that it must be easy to release a black rhino from a crate: just open the door! This happened in previous days, but the agression of an aggitated black rhino (after being transported in a crate, he or she is for sure not in the best mood!) is BIG problem, for both the people and the rhino itself. Very often the just released animal attacks everything he/she sees first thing: the crate, the cars, the people... Therefore wildlife vets have developed this new technique and I was lucky to assist, as it was very impressive and learnful! The theory is: let the rhino walk out only a few steps and let him fall asleep just a few steps in front of the crate. This required very good timing! First of all the 'brake' was applied: a rope around a hind leg to be able to stop the animal when it takes off, the same as when 'walking a white rhino'. Then a rope was prepared in front of the door to be able to stop the rhino from running away. When the team was ready and prepared, the rhino was darted with anaesthetics inside the crate. Then we waited until the rhino was almost falling asleep... The timing of when to open the door requires loads and loads of experience with this species. In this case the door opened a little bit too early and the rhino run off. Luckily the rope and lots of strong arms kept the rhino close the crate, where he fell asleep. Wow, very impressive to see the power of this beautiful animal. While he was sleeping, we removed everything: the crate, the truck and all cars. He woke up very relaxed only seeing bush, trying to find out what had happened! In the moment he has settled well into his new home.

Just a pic of my old fashion boiler. My hot water is heated by: wood. Works fantastic and completely independent from the South African authorities. Start to understand that this is always a plus, haha!

Buffalo bull fight

Yes, natural bull fights do exist. No red laps are needed. No fool who ever wants to try a bull fight with an African buffalo anyway, as its massive horns will 100% sure kill you (good idea for the spanish bulls: just be EXTREMELY aggressive, the fun stops immediately). Bull in a herd will always protect their females and calfs aggressively. This is exactly their job and that's why you will always see the adult bulls in front, back and at the edges of a wild buffalo herd. The females and calfs you will always see in the middle of the herd, safely protected. Adult buffalo bulls can also really go for each other and sometimes even kill each other. Luckily this is rare and the 'loser' will give up before it's damaged too bad. This sole buffalo bull was found with a wound in his neck. Luckily we saw it in time, so that we could dart him and treat the wound, before it got worse. In the tropics, fleas just LOVE wounds and will lay their eggs in it soon (also will never forget my first rabbit at 3 am during my night duty almost completely eaten by maggots, in the Netherlands; no that's not a dream job at all!). Also this wound was covered with maggots eating their way into the meat. After I darted the bull with Etorphine and Stresnil, he took off rapidly! So quickly we followed him with the jeep to make sure we did not loose him. After 4.5 minutes he feel asleep, nice in th shadow (which is important in the hot summer now). First the wound had to be cleaned with sterile water, washed and desinfected. I also gave long-acting antibiotics, painkilling and anti-parasite injections. Because the wound was not too large, older than a day and dirty, I decided to leave the wound open to let it drain, covered with wound healing cream. After I gave the antidote the bull recovered very relaxed under a tree. He has been seen by the trackers recently and I was happy to hear that he is doing fine!

Kaaskop

As most little girls I also watched Daktari, dreaming about a life in Africa working with wild animals. Never thought that it would really happen. After graduating I worked as mixed and small animal vet, but never stopped dreaming about working as a wildlife vet in Africa. Still have to pinch myself regularly to make sure I am not dreaming. Living surrounded by so many amazing creatures, beautiful nature and open African smiles is still very special for this dutch Kaaskop. The way how African people make the best of each (often challenging) situation is inspiring. Every day you see something incredible here. For example our riding horses have joined up with wild zebra's. Nacho, an handsome thoroughbred, is with his size and temperament the leader of the herd and the wild zebras, including a cute young foal, also follow him. These horses have the best of both worlds: during the day free-roaming and in the night a warm and safe stable. And in between, a nice ride through the bush, passing buffalos, giraffes, black and white rhinos, giraffes, impalas, elands, warthogs, kudus, zebras, waterbuck, red hartebeest, ostriches, nyalas, sable and roan antilopes, hippos, snakes and lots of birds. For them they are all just neighbours, nothing special.

Rhinos on the move

Moving large and dangerous animals like white rhinos from one place to another is quite a challenge. Safety for both these highly endangered and special animals as well as all the people around is crucial during this procedure, as they can hurt themselves and us quite badly! Strangely white rhinos are very sensitive for the commonly used 'big game' drug Etorphine. An adult female only needs 0.35 ml while for example a much smaller adult sable bull needs around 0.8ml to get immobilised. They are also known to get respiration depression quickly. Luckily there are very good drugs available to make the narcosis as safe as possible. Five subadult white rhinos had to be transported to another game farm close to Pretoria. Before they could leave here, they had to be in quarantine for one month to make sure that they did not transport any diseases to another part of South Africa. So...first they had to be caught in this 8.000 hectare area. Each rhino was darted with a dart with Etorphine and Stresnil. After they went down (approximately 5 minutes after darting) we could approach them. Never stand in front of the head, even while you think a rhino is asleep, because the power of even the smallest movement of head and horn are amazing (this says a lot about its power when he's awake!). The first thing we did was to apply cottonwool in the ears and a blindfold around the head to keep the animals as relaxed as possible. Each wild animal knows that human voices mean danger, so everybody has to be as quiet as possible to avoid extra stress. Then we drilled a hole in the horn to apply a microchip (the same as what we use in dogs and cats) and we aplied a chip behind the ears. A microchip makes it possible to identify the horn and the rhino. This possibility to track down an illegally traded rhino horn, makes this rhino much less attractive for poachers. Then we went for 'a walk with a rhino'. To be able to 'walk' the rhino to the crate we applied a rope on the head to 'pull' the animal in the correct direction and a rope around one hind leg what acts as a brake (it works, really!). When the whole team was ready for some action, I gave a partial anti-dote to wake up the rhino just a little bit. Just enough for the animal to be able to stand up and walk to the crate. This is the tricky bit, because you do not wanna 'walk' with a fully awake white rhino! Everything went well and when each rhino was in the crate a gave the full antagonist to let the animal wake up completely. I also gave a safe long-acting sedation to make the animal more relaxed for the coming 3 days while getting used to the quarantine. And yes, close up they are even more cute, special and amazing! More later, must go now. Happy Christmas everybody!

Bush Blood Bank

Unfortunately the lovely warm climate here is also lovely for many tick, flea and musquito species. These parasites transmit many tropical diseases including blood parasites from animal to animal. Therefore we try to keep the animals tick free to reduce the chances that they get ill. But ticks are clever (and hungry!) and they often still find their way to a nice meal. Unfortunately we found a very ill and anemic roan calf this morning; anemia means a lack of red blood cells. Blood parasites, under which Theileria spp., are very common in this species, especially at young age. We decided to dart the calf for emergency treatments. When you treat an animal to kill these parasites, it will still takes some time before the animal has produced enough new blood cells to survive. In this period the animal can dy because of the anemia. Red blood cells transport oxygen in the blood to organs, so without blood cells, no oxygen: quite lethal. Therefore we needed BLOOD. Quickly. But what to do in the bush when dealing with a very rare wild species?? Indeed! We made the plan to dart a big healthy roan bull to get some blood from him to be able to give the calf a blood transfusion. First we had to find a strong and large bull, who would be able to act as a donor. The size and health of the animal are the most important when selecting a donor. A female with young and pregnant cows you would never dart without a clear reason. Male animals are therefore preferable over females. Great: we found a very handsome healthy bull, I made up a dart with Etorphine and Stresnil and darted him. It was windy and the animal was quite wild, but luckily I shot him nicely in the bump! After 1 minute after the dart went off the bull got quiet, stood still and showed typical Etorphine signs, such as ataxia. Finally he went to lay down. The Ethorphine is a very potent drugs, 10.000 times more potent than morphine. Just around 0.7 to 0.8 ml is necessary to immobilize strong animals like an adult roan bull! When the bull looked deep asleep I approached the bull quietly. Often animals are still strong enough to damage you badly with their horns while half asleep. Therefore you first check how deep the anaesthesia is before approaching the head. He was deep asleep and we kept his head high by holding his horns, both for safety as well as preventing it to regurgitate rumen contents. Putting ruminants under general anaesthetics is always more complicated than animals with 1 stomach, because the increased abdominal pressure while laying down together with stress can force the rumen to empty. An animal what is under anaesthetics can not swallow and the rumen contents can therefore enter the air way. This is in most cases deadly, so it's very important to prevent this! We removed the dart and treated the dart wound with antibiotics. Then we filled up the blood collection bags, just like you get it done at the blood bank. Only instead of your arm, we used the Jugular vene in the neck to be able work as quick as possible. We for sure did not want to put the bull at any risk during this procedure. Therefore I checked his respiration and heart rate all the time, to be able to give him emergency drugs if necessary. His anaesthetics went according to the books (as if he read it), so no further drugs were necessary. When the bags were full I gave the antidote Naltrexone in the ear vene and the very kind blood donor walked away in just a minute as if nothing had happened. And yes I told him: "Thanks for the kind donation". Not sure if he got this, as he took off rapidly! Then we rushed to the roan calf with anemia. I darted her with another drug A3080, quite similar to Etorphine, but it works even faster! It is very important to be able to find the small and fragile calf quickly after it has fallen asleep: the shorther the running time and therefore distance, the easier you can find the calf when it sleeps. The mum was standing close by and we had to be very careful as she would absolutely defend her baby agressively if we did not scare her off. I first applied a normal IV catheter in her Jugular vene. When the IV fluids was running, I attached the blood bag to this system and let it run into the animal very slowly to watch for any allergic reactions. Some small animal experiences in posh London and Amsterdam showed its advantage in quite a different setting with quite a different patient. But the principle is the same. Because the calf was okay, I continued to give the transfusion. I also treated her for different blood parasites, worms and gave multi-vitamins. To be able to check later, I made some blood smear to see if there were any parasites in the red blood cells; this was later confirmed. Unfortunately with wild animals, you can't first do some diagnostics and then give the appropriate treatments for that diagnose. You always try to do everything at once to avoid unnecessary general anaesthetics. The calf got better soon and it is happily running around again. We luckily did not have to dart her again. The rest of the blood bags are now in the fridge to be ready for another emergency case, so if anybody needs roan antilope blood, please let me know! Maybe we should start a Bush Blood Bank?

My daily office.

new job!!

Finally back on the internet in the bush! Sorry that it took so long before you heared from me. The bush and technology do not always go together, unfortunately. But okay, will update you quickly, before the connection breaks up again. STARTED A NEW JOB!! This time as the only wildlife vet in a prive wildlife ranch and 8.000 hectares park, being responsible for 160 white rhinos, 22 black rhinos, hundreds of African buffalos, sable and roan antilopes is this an absolute dream come through! This South African wildlife ranch is just 12 km south of Kruger National Park and only 45minutes drive from the Mozambican border. In the last 2 months I darted, treated, tested over 500 wild animals so having loads of interesting, funny or weired stories to tell. Hope I will be able to share these stories with you, as I have been long enough in civilization (I Amsterdam!) to understand that these bush stories of a wildlife vet in Africa are not quite ordinary for most of you. I will also try to download as many pictures of wild animals and of course the wildlife work as possible with this slow connection... Please contact me any time for comments or questions: always good to hearing from you! Love, Martine

Back in the bush

Sorry, was away for a while, but now back with some new stories. There is always something happening here! First I wanna show you some pictures from 'my bushlife' because many people were curious how it looks like, so there we go....

A rhino with a broken horn

Rhino horn is much softer than you imagine. Especially when the horn gets longer, quite regularly the horn can break off during fighting or other trauma. A broken horn is very uncomfortable for the rhino, so it's better to cut it off. New horn will grow back exactly as a nail. Seeing a rhino horn in real, makes you even more wonder why people in 'the man made world' make 'just hair' so important: completely ridiculous. < ------------------ This wild rhino was found with a broken horn in the morning. A big logistic operation was organized to immobilize her and her 1 year old calf. Because it's very hard to find an injured wild animal back in the thick bush it's important to dart it as soon as possible after you have found it. In only a few hours a helicopter was hired and 2 trucks were organized to translocate both mother and calf to another much smaller game reserve to prevent further fighting and also to be able to keep a closer look on them. To make sure the mother and calf stayed together, only the mother was darted from the helicopter so that the fully awake calf could follow her. Wild animals often run away after being hit by the dart and/or from the noise and wind from the helicopter. When the calf is fully awake it can follow the mother, because logistically it's a problem when the mother and calf fall asleep far away from each other. Also one of them can be lost in the thick bush when they seperate. Therefore the calf was darted from the ground just next to the mother after she got sleepy, so that both fell asleep next to each other. The horn was cut off and the wound was treated with disinfectants. The cow also received antibiotics and a painkiller. Then a partial antagonist was given in the ear vene to make the rhino 'a little bit more awake', but not fully awake. She must be awake enough to 'walk' to the crate by pulling the rope around her head into the direction of the truck, but sleepy enough to not run away or to charge the people pulling the rope. The amount of anaesthetics and antagonist is quite a tricky bit! Both mother and calf each 'walked' into a seperate crate smoothly and the journey to their new home could begin. After arrival in the new reserve both the mother and calf received the full antagonist in the truck. The mother had to leave her crate earlier than the calf, to prevent the calf running off. Peter told the crowed that no sounds were allowed. The mother first left her crate...then the calf. All went smoothly but somehow the mother and calf walked a different direction. Now Peter strict comments became clear. Everybody held their breath... What were they gonna do?? They could not see each other. Silence....more silence.... Then suddenly the mother started calling...hmmm....hmmmm.... The calf reacted....hmmm...hmmmm... No movements. They were just standing there approximately 40 meters apart. Hmmm....hmmmmm....hmmm...hmmmmm....echoing to each other for a few minutes. Then suddenly they moved towards each other. Such a wonderful moment when the calf was back at its mother side and both walked quietly into the bush together. Absolutely incredible creatures!

Nice ride through the bush

Riding on the back of a horse through the bush is like a wild dream. Elephants or lions can be around each corner and especially wading through the water is so exciting. It's also 'just' a beautiful ride and a great way to enjoy the bush. Wild animals are not able to distinguish seperate objects and on the back of a horse we smell as horses. For them we are just 'horses with a weired lump on their back', instead of the most dangerous animal on this planet, walking straight on 2 legs: a human!! This makes it possible to observe wild animals more natural and more relaxed on a horseback. The trust each horse has in its rider is amazing: they are cool. They all got a long and intensive training to be able to take tourists into the bush, similar to the training police horses get. The biggest task for a horse is to stay still when dangerous animals like lions, elephants or buffalos are close by. Quite the opposite of their natural instinct: run!

Teddy has a broken leg

This is Teddy, a baboon orphan. He lives in CARE, a rehabilitation centre for orphaned, injured, abused and traumatised chacma baboons(www.primatecare.org.za). Accidently he fell and could not use his right leg afterwards. Under general anaesthetics he was examined and X-rays showed that his right femur was broken. A cast was applied and must be in place for 6 weeks. In the moment he is happy, comfortable and tolerates the cast very well. In 3 weeks time we will repeat the X-rays to see whether the bone is healing.

Do snake eyes look bigger than the stomach?

When living in the bush it's always a big surprise which wonderful creatures you'll meet on your way back home. In the few months I have been here, I have regularly seen warthogs, a family of jackals, giraffes, zebras, wild dogs, scorpions (including the Palabuthus granulatus: the most dangerous scorpion in the world, but wow so beautiful), pythons, kudus, impalas, steenbok, water buck, bush babies, monitor lizards, owls and many more special animals on my way back home. Last week I witnessed something incredible! A brown house snake had just killed a gecko, but didn't seem to have any idea how to eat it. Are snake eyes also sometimes looking bigger than the stomach??? I waited for hours to see how the gecko would finally be eaten, but unfortunately the snake worked hard on its meal without any progression. I finally left because I got so hungry watching this late evening dinner that I speeded home to cook mine! The next morning both were gone, so it will always be a mistery who ate who that night.

Unlucky black rhino calf

This wild black rhino calf was found without his mother in a private game reserve. He was in a very bad condition: emanciated, dehydrated, weak, anemic and covered in ticks. His mother probably left him because he was too weak to follow her. Without the protection of his mother and without any treatments he would for sure die within a few days. The prognosis of wild animals in such bad condition is always poorly, but of course everything was tried to try to safe the life of this wonderful animal. He was darted and all possible treatments to improve his condition were administred: IV fluids, antibiotics, anti-inflammation, anti-parasite and anti-tick treatments, painkillers and multi-vitamins. He also got a long-acting tranquilliser to reduce the stress in this completely wild and undoubtly traumatised baby.

The next day he was a little bit better, but still very weak. We repeated the treatment: IV fluids, antibiotics and painkilling. It's absolutely unforgetable how he reacted to Peters voice, copying an adult rhino calling for her baby: he was talking back! He also walked around, took a bath and ate some branches. The goat was a wonderful companion and even started to eat the ticks from the thick rhino skin. Unfortunately all treatments didn't help. His condition was too bad: very sadly the little rhino passed away the next night...