Sunday was reptile day. Everyone held the snake and I posed next to Stella holding it. Snake demonstration, held spiders. Went to see Jessica but mistake in scheduling, saw a giant Baobab tree instead. 

Monday was HELICOPTER DAY. We were working with Andrei again so he came to our came in Swadini to have a “lecture” about darting before we started the day. We ended derailing and comparing American to South African culture, which is always an interesting conversation. Due to how recently apartheid ended, race relation conversations are always intellectually challenging and worthwhile. Even more interesting was comparing our police forces. We started with hearing everyone’s opinion on police brutality in the US, and ended up feeling grateful for our police force after hearing about Louis and Andrei talking about how they easily talk their way out of traffic stops. In a country with above average crime rates, Andrei told us he actually thanked the first cop that gave him a ticket without asking for a bribe or being easily persuaded. Our cops may be on edge, but at least they are on edge from doing their jobs. 

Anyway, after lecture we went to try to meet Jessica the hippo again. Today, she was sick. This is how it works when allowing wildlife to maintain autonomy. Fortunately, they have another young hippo, Richie, that washed up on their property like Jessica. He wasn’t as trained as Jessica so we could not get as personal, but we were still able to feed him and kiss his nose. After this, we went to the location for the helicopter rides. Andrei gave us another talk on the types of sedatives and anesthetics that can be used, and how different darting systems can vary. We got two practice shots standing on the ground and shooting at a motionless target.  I’ve shot guns twice before and I found it a lot easier to use the dart gun, it was actually kind of fun. After our practice shots, we waited for the helicopter. We had to wait approximately an hour because the pilot got an emergency call to help dart an injured rhino, most likely due to poaching, so we weren’t complaining at all. By the time she arrived, the sun was just starting to set. This made for a fantastic view up in the helicopter. This was my first time flying in one, and it was absolutely fantastic. I was so ecstatic about being in the air that I almost forgot to shoot the dart, and when I did shoot I was so distracted that I barely even hit the target. I’m thankful I had this experience. If I were to get into wildlife medicine, this would be a major part of my day, and I definitely needed this experience to help normalize it all for me.

That night, we had our last group game night around the picnic table. We played the games we all shared with each other throughout the trip, like Spoons and Mafia. It was definitely a little bitter sweet since the following day was our last full day together. We got up before 6am on Tuesday, making it a fitting last morning. Today we put all of our game capture experience into action. We had to go early to set up in the boma, we had to run around the fields to corral the animals in, we had to jump on the animal after it was darted to keep it from hurting itself, we had to load it on the truck, and we had to release it. It was really fantastic getting to synthesize all we did into one full experience, but it was long and exhausting. There were only 3 nyala does in a multi acre area that was split between agriculture and bushy hills. They kept evading us so we had to spend hours running through the bush and exploring bamboo forests to root them out. This day was not ideal at all, which was good to see because that is exactly how life works in this profession. I definitely walked away from this event thinking a little more seriously about my career plans. 

Once the game capture finished about eight hours later, we drove back to camp and took our final exam. After the exam, we had a few minutes to try to pack our stuff together and then went to the resort’s restaurant to have our graduation dinner. Louis made us pick one of our fellow student’s name out of a hat when we handed our exam in and we had to go around during the dinner talking about how the person we picked affected our trip. That was a nice and sentimental thing to do, but it only added to the water works. Having been my second time studying abroad, I am shocked how close I got to all these amazing people. Louis helped foster an environment where we could all be ourselves and we really filled into that space. We got very comfortable and shared a lot with each other, I am definitely leaving this experience with 10 new lifelong friends.

After we got back to camp from Ralf’s lecture, we spent the evening and the following day going on game drives. We paid for an evening drive with a park worker and that was kind of a waste, we did not see anything exciting really.
But that is the way it works. Wednesday we got the real game drive treat. We spent all day driving around and saw a lot. Unfortunately, we saw two poached rhino corpses, driving the reality of yesterday’s lecture home. Ralf told us that at 9 am, noon, and 5 pm a rhino would be poached, and we saw the corpses at 9 am and noon. Fortunately for us, we got to see a lion scavenging the second corpse, making that our first wild lion sighting.

Thursday we packed up camp in the Kruger and started our drive to the next location. We were close to an exit and could easily have left the park and gotten on a highway, but we decided to stay in the park for as long as possible. It’s a good thing we did this, when we were about to leave the park we had two leopard sightings. This was lesson on camouflage in action. We only knew they were there because there were tons of other cars parked pointing at a bunch of bushes and grass. Eventually, we were able to find them through binoculars and camera zooms. While watching one of them get up and walk around, we kept losing sight of it as if it magically phased out of existence, and then it would take another step and reappear right next to where we lost it. 

We got to our next destination, Swadini, around mid day and had the opportunity to explore the location and hang out for the evening. Swadini was the most beautiful location to camp at since it was set in a valley in the Drakensberg Mountains. And better yet, they had a heated pool for us to go into at night.

Friday was more game capture. We went to meet the regional specialist, Andrei and attempted to capture a wildebeest. We tried for about half an hour but they couldn’t get a good shot on him and we had to move on to the next activity. We went to another farm maybe 20 minutes away to move bunch of sable. This was impressive. The vet we were working with, Rita, was loading darts with sedatives in the back of the truck while they were looking for the sable. The drug being used is strong enough to kill a human with one drop, and she was just straddling a bench in the back of the truck, bouncing around, loading the darts like nothing. She was insanely impressive. We then tried for another 2+ hours to catch the wildebeest and it just didn’t pan out. He was in a very large boma with a lot of trees in it, so the vet couldn’t get a clear shot on him. They only had so much room on the truck so a few other students and myself stayed behind and ended up playing hangman for a while.

The next day, Saturday, we went back to Moholoholo go volunteer and I had a great time. We Got to pet another cheetah after watching it run down a strip of land. The sound of its feet as it ran sounded like thunder, it was absolutely incredible. We then broke down into teams and got to help with the daily tasks to see what really goes into running a sanctuary. Most of it was cleaning poop and cutting meat, but it was fun and there were a few animals that wanted to interact, making it worth while. We took a break from tasks to do some falconing with a tour guide. I was completely awed by this experience. First we just had a small eagle fly to us and we all got to partake in that. But after, a few of us got to go in with a… nutty… vulture. The dude was so big, his wingspan was MUCH longer than I was tall. And he was so nutty that I had to “play” with him by batting him with my glove a little bit before he was happy enough to fly to me. I’ve done falconry with owls and hawks before, but this was a completely different experience. He was so massive that the guide had to help hold my arm up because I was not expecting the weight, and I was definitely a little intimidated the whole time I was in his enclosure. Over all though, it was a great experience. 

Finally, it’s time for the Kruger! Our next lodging after leaving Zion and Dr. John was located in the Greater Kruger area, a large strip of privately owned land that surrounds the proper national park territory. Here we studied disease ecology under the most interesting man I’ve met in a while, Cornell. This man was as professional as he was rude and immature. Honestly, his personality and bush camp was a complete 180 change from the humility of Dr. John and his paradise. Even so, these four days would have been extremely boring without him. It is impossible to describe exactly what this man was, but I came to the conclusion he watched ‘Ace Venture, Pet Detective’ as a 12 year old and decided to be that character for the rest of his life, and only lost his social filter from living mostly by himself in a bush camp for many years. I never thought I would appreciate the many years my older brother and his friends harassed me, but Cornell’s witty behavior reminded me of them a lot and that helped me appreciate this time. Not everyone had this advantage, and his lack of social filter did end up making a girl cry and cold shoulder him halfway through our stay. As I said, he was a character. Even so, he lectured us on wildlife diseases and their surveillance, performed autopsies with us, and took us to farms to do some surveillance activity. Throughout all of this, I realized he knew more than most vets about disease ecology and he showed an admirable level of professionalism when working with clients. I’m hoping for the opportunity to intern with him sometime in the future as well, epidemiology and disease ecology are areas I am more passionate about and am thinking of carrying a career in.

Anyway, Thursday was just driving to the Greater Kruger area and adjusting to the level of ridiculous that is living with Cornell. He took us for a game ride in the evening and we ended up seeing elephants, zebras, and impala antelope. Friday started the real fun. A day that was supposed to be spent entirely on lectures suddenly evolved into a spontaneous post mortem examination. The owner of a sanctuary not so far away was worried that his animal had tuberculosis so Cornell was called up to examine. We are for sure the lucky group, getting numerous surgeries and necropsies (post-mortem or autopsy) that were not scheduled. The sanctuary itself had a handful of interns in vet school that watched over as well, and boy am I glad to be a student in the US. In South Africa, they go straight from high school to vet school and I do not know how that’s a functional system because one of these interns volunteered to help and, with only two years left of schooling, could not identify basic organs in the digestive tract. That is something us EcoLife students, not even close to finishing our education, were able to identify instantly. It’s a hard road through vet school but I suddenly feel like I’ll be prepared for life afterward’s now.

With the failed attempt to lecture and the post-mortem exam completed, we decided to have a pizza night to skip cooking and called it an early night. It is exhausting keeping up with a human like Cornell, let alone running between towns throughout the bush to learn about wildlife diseases. Saturday we got to provide preventative and diagnostic healthcare on a small heard of cattle. This was an interesting experience. Mostly because the “farmer” was a Township resident that let his cattle freely roam around, so we had to drive through one of these shanty towns and work on the edge of one. The one thing I will miss most about Africa is how polite 80% of the people we interact with are. Anytime there is a child walking or woman working on the side of the road, they smile and we excitedly wave at each other, which is always a warming experience. And this experience continued while driving through the Township. It became an uncomfortable experience because we were driving behind a government employed vet, who was in a GOLDEN Mercedes SUV. The ability of this vet continued to make me appreciative of how much work it takes in the US. He was unable to perform any of the basic duties that Cornell, who is only a technician, can do in his sleep. It was even funnier when all of us students, taking blood from a cow’s jugular for the first time, all were able to fill a tube. He tried for the neck, failed, tried for the back leg, failed, and tried for the tail, and failed. To top it off, he went to vet school in Kenya and the government paid for all expenses (including flights and materials). That experience was a nice look at corruption. In all, this day was similar to the days in Belize that we worked with cattle, especially since brahman thrive in both countries. Beyond drawing blood, we got to give intramuscular and sub-q shots, monitor vitals, collect fecal samples, give oral de-wormer, apply external parasite medicine, and search for clinical signs of diseases like foot and mouth and TB.

Louis and Cornell were impressed with our good work and gave us the opportunity for something really specially, a meal at a restaurant! I eat out regularly at home and now we are on two weeks of cooking our lives away. This was needed. On Sunday, we attempted to finish the lectures we passed up for the Moholoholo Necropsy. Once lectures were finished, Cornell collected an impala for routine surveillance of diseases and we performed a post mortem. We ended up finding THOUSANDS of tape worms in, surprisingly, the liver of this doe. I’ve never seen that before, but we scoured her digestive tract and found nothing, hinting at the fact that the impala is not the target host of this species of tapeworm. We collected tissues and parasites during the post mortem and moved on to analyze our samples in the lab. It was a fun learning day and it was great to see Cornell acting mature on our last day with him.

Monday was a long travel day, going from central Kruger to southern Kruger. Luis gave us the option and we decided to drive to the very top of the park before heading to our campsite at the bottom, adding another 3 hours to the drive. It was awesome getting to see all the different environments that occur in the park, and just to see how absolutely massive it is. We had at least an 8 hour travel day, with one hour spent outside the park and one spent eating lunch. 

The following day we had to drag ourselves out of bed pretty early, we took the roundabout way to our lecture. On our drive out of Kruger, we had the most amazing luck. We saw 7 rhinos total, 2 black and 5 Southern White. While the Southern White is a different species than the one reported to have just lost the last male, all species are extremely endangered in the face of poaching, making the multiple sightings an incredibly rare experience. These sightings tied in perfectly with our lecture for the day. We met with Ralf Kalva, formerly the head ranger of a southern section in Kruger. He taught us about the ecology of the park and the issues the rangers have to constantly manage. The issues range between water and fire management, elephant overpopulation, and poaching.

We thought 5am wakeup was the end of the world. Then, we found out we had to roll out of bed at 4am on Tuesday. We almost rioted. But this is where my “Don’t be grumpy, its worth it” mantra came into full affect, we were going to get the special opportunity of participating in the first lion hysterectomy ever, as well as the first big cat operation with EcoLife.  First, we helped with game captures at a picturesque location in the mountains. The owner of this reserve was the first female we saw, but her husband obviously had issues with that, he kept interjecting as if he was the smartest person on the ranch. Game capture is fun, but there is too much going on for us to get really involved so it’s not my favorite activity, but sitting in the bed of the truck and driving through the mountains was pretty awesome.

After the game capture we drove back to town and went to a location exhibiting a lot of predators (I hated this place and want to share these thoughts, but I know it is against Dr. John’s wishes to put them on blast so I will refrain from sharing the name). This location was equal parts disturbing and exciting. Every reserve we had been to so far consisted of the natural biome fenced in, whereas this place looked more like a zoo from the 90s. All the predators were pacing, a surefire sign of stress, the short fence lines of their enclosures. The placement of the exhibits were horrible, a jaguar (because South Africa is actually South America??) was placed next to a baboon, an ideal predator-pray relationship. And the animals were blatantly neglected, with feces piling up to unacceptable levels. Even so, animals should not bear the brunt of the faults of humans, so Dr. John has an obligation to care for the animals and we had a blast helping out. Today we only performed one operation, but it was dramatic enough. Dr. John darted a lioness, but she didn’t want to go down, so he had to give her more opioids. This resulted in a rapid drop in heart rate and breathing when she was on the table, so we needed to administer some antagonist to reduce the extent of anesthesia. We were able to keep operating, but at some point she started kicking and rolling over. She was waking up. So we had to jump back and give her more anesthesia to keep her from waking up. I don’t know what everyone else was thinking, but I was planning my escape route for the moment she jumped up and started attacking students. Fortunately, we didn’t get that far. The sedative kicked back in and we continued with the operation. It didn’t get hairy again until we finished surgery and were suturing closed the incisions. The lion started kicking its legs and Dr. John went into double suturing speed. When he finished closing the incisions, he walked off to get antibiotics and the antagonist and left us to carry the animal back into the enclosure. While we had her on the stretcher, she started quickly regaining consciousness and picking up her head. We all started bugging and ran with this lion waking up. The second we threw her in and removed her blind fold, we all jumped up and slammed the door shut. I put a timer on and it took another two and a half minutes until she was up and walking around again. That was close.

Fortunately, Wednesday’s surgeries were much more smooth, excluding a surprise emergency right when we arrived at this reserve again. We got to ‘sleep in’ until 7 am and then went back to the same facility to finish the job. When we arrived, we found out that one of the lion cubs was discovered to have detached the skin from its jaw.  This was a really interesting surgery to watch because it’s not commonly seen and requires a lot of ingenuity. All of the skin was detached from the jaw, leaving only bone exposed, so Dr. John had rigged suture string between the teeth to provide an anchoring point for the skin to be able to reattach to the jaw. It was not a pretty sight and I am thankful the cub was anesthetized otherwise that surgery would have been another level of pain. After the emergency cub operation, we jumped right into the scheduled programming of hysterectomies. Yesterday’s lioness was healthily walking around and back to normal. Her daughter, the next patient, was well behaved for her procedure. Meaning, no lion CPR, no waking up mid surgery, everything went smoothly.  This operation took a fraction of the time without worrying about being suddenly mauled to death. And then we moved onto the tiger patient. Typically, tigers are endemic to Asia only, so the owners imported these to add to their predator collection (a big no-no in the conservation world), so it was definitely for the better that we sterilized this tiger. Unless they’re in a zoo and bred specifically to increase genetic diversity, there is no need to increase populations in foreign habitats. This surgery went well too, but the tiger was covered in more ticks than I’ve ever seen leaching off a single animal before.  There were so many that I had to swat them away from crawling on to me while I held a leg down. After the surgery, we coated her in frontline (the same tick medicine used for house cats, at a higher concentration) and hoped that would do the trick. I could go in depth about how disturbing this facility was, but Dr. John is working the angle that if he keeps building a positive relationship with the owners and developing management plans for them, the animals will be better off, so I can’t put them on blast.

The surgeries were a fun activity in a bad place and that was our last activity with Dr. John. Wednesday we got up early and head out right away, we had 4 hours of driving not including stopping for groceries or anything. Our time with Dr. John was amazing and I would love to intern with him while I’m in my later years of vet school. He is an intelligent and thoughtful person, and the level of calm and quick thinking he kept throughout the surgeries was admirable. He’s someone I want to study under when I’m preparing for my certification exams.