What are the Biggest Challenges in Wild Animal Medicine.

I received this question as a text message this morning from a fellow student of Veterinary Medicine here in Central Western Brazil. This is a good questionand to try to condense it into a blog article is quite a challenge.  It is a good job that I like challenges.

You can tackle this issue from as many different angles as you like.  Some issues are as follows:

• Species
• Veterinarian's experience with the species
• What is the background to the case - why has the animal been brought into the clinic?
• Does the animal have a notifiable disease
• Is the animal an endangered species
• Is it a dangerous animal
• What country is the treatment taking place in
• Is there much published information on the animal
• If a young animal, is it going to need feeding on milk and what kind of formula should be used?

Let's rationalise this further still, from two approaches, that of the Veterinary Surgeon and Conservation Biologist.

From the vet's point of view if it is a dangerous animal it is going to have to be sedated.  This needs to be done appropriately. Getting the right dosage depends upon knowing the patient's weight. In a developed country it may not be too difficult to acquire sedation equipment and to liaise, using a reliable and clear telephone line, with vets who have the necessary experience.  They can refer the vet to the literature, or offer tips.  Or if the practice specialises in wildife then there may already be an in-house body of knowledge that can be drawn upon.

If the patient is being treated in an emerging economy then the practice may not specialise in wildlife, may not have an in-house body of knowledge to draw upon, may have limited ability to access foreign- or English-language clinical/surgical literature or case studies, the necessary sedation equipment (blowpipe) may be in the hands of one individual who may be unavailable.
Veterinarians have a duty of care to animals regardless of species or level of endangerment.  However, if the animal is a protected species - and in the case of Brazil all wildlife species are protected by law - then in the majority of circumstances it has to be collected post-treatment by a government biologist for rehabiliation and release. I won't discuss methods of release - hard and soft; these are beyond the scope of this article. If the animal has a notificable disease and/or a zoonosis such as rabies, then there may be no question but to seek the advice of colleagues before taking further measures.

Post-treatment care. 

If you are in Brazil, then I have already dealt with this above.  The patient will most likely have been brought in by a government biologist or other authority and will be collected by the same person. Then the patient may be taken to a holding facility until such time that it can be taken into the wild for release.  Usually these would be hard releases (the animal is freed and left to fend for itself) rather than soft release where the animal is provided with some sort of relief such as shelter or food and water. Post-release survival rates are difficult to monitor.

If in an industrialised country such as the United Kingdom, then the species may be a pest species (Red Fox Vulpes vulpes), protected but not threatened (Badger Meles meles) or protected and endangered (Red Kite Milvus milvus). Such cases require different approaches. 

Take-home Notes

• Unweaned very young mammalian patients will need to be raised on milk substitute made up using the right formula.
• In many countries the exotic pet trade is barely recognised and wild out-patients will be taken by the authorities for release.
• If the animal has a notifiable disease then liaise with colleagues.
• Make sure the medical team, and patient, are safe before dealing with the wild patient.
• All wild animals are unpredictable.

Motivational Quote for Veterinary Students and Those in Mid-life Crisis

"Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances." Benjamin Franklin.

Do or do not. There is no 'try'! (Scroll down for source).

Today we talk about the importance of collaboration between professionals.  I did something yesterday that mildly surprised me. I introduced myself as a Conservaton Biologist soon to qualify as a Veterinarian.  And won an audience with the zoovet at Cuiabá zoo. Today I am due to revisit the animal facility of the Brazilian Environmental Police.  You can do these things when you are a veterinary student. I couldn't say whether being foreign confers any advantage, but self-belief makes all the difference. 

I have been giving some thought as to whether or not to use physical or chemical restraint on a jaguar cub that I will examine for the second time today.  All indicators are that physical restraint is the only option.  Because this visit has generated considerable interest - among my professor and peers.  The professors want me to take two residents with me in order to take a bood sample.  Residents are qualified veterianrians, and when I rang Jaddy yesterday - a young woman I studied with for five years and who now works in the Small Animal Clinic at the Veterinary Hospital in Cuiabá, she said that we would have to use physical restraint since chemical would envolve obtaining authorisation from the professor - most of whom are travelling or unavailable.

I then went and introduced myself to the zoovet at the federal university here in Cuiabá. If for no other reason than to hopefully get some hints from her about how she would go about examing a jaguar cub.  She didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know, but it was nice at least to be able to out a name to a face.  I got another contact, I got a web site from her and now know where I can get specialist equipment from in-country for restraining wild animal patients.  Some might say "Why are you revealing your plans to others"?

Well, I am by nature an open and honest person and I enjoy meeting fellow colleagues and making new contacts.  Life is all about being sociable and anyway, I consider it an exciting privilegie to be entering the veterinary profession.

Today's motivational quote is from a hilarious source: Yoda! "Do or do not.  There is no 'try'".

Expatriates' Guide to Making Compost

Compost-making when you live in the Tropics can be a real challenge.  Where do you buy a composter?  And can dog muck be thrown in? Yes, I had to deal with all kinds of cringeworthy issues once I had decided to become an eco-correct gardener.  You see, when I bought my house it came with a jungle in the back garden - about four trees, I think.  I lost count after gettig lost out there two or three times. But here is the thing - Mrs Beaumont and I had bought our house in leafy suburbia.  So we were not the only ones with Triffids in the back garden.

But I could not bring myself to do what everybody else seemed to be doing - dragging their garden refuse down the street and dumping it at the roadside.  So I became the Compost King of my neighbourhood.  I had a water tank in my back garden.  It became a born-again, buck-shee composter.  So how do you make compost. 

Get a composter. I use water tanks. Add to it

• mown grass
• fallen leaves
• shredded paper
• fruit
• salad leaves
• water

Don't add

• bacon rind
• meat off-cuts
• pet excrement

I bought a grinder for grinding up twigs and thin branches.  This was pricey but effective. And in Brazil, as with all things electrical, you have to make sure it takes either 120v or 220v.  You should turn the content on a regular basis.  Let's say weekly. After six months empy the composter by sieving the content.  Put that in your plant pots and add top soil.

Business as a Transferable Skill for your Personal Life

I would like to thank Nilson Caldas for developing this article with me.  It came about as a result of an English class and the content is too useful not to be shared.  During the session we had a conversation on how certain essential business, not to mention sports, skills can be equally useful in our personal life, that is, transferable to our personal life.  Here's a brief examination on the matter, the skills in all areas being

• preparation
• selling
• negotiating
• reaching a target

The World is made up questions, and you have to be prepared to answer them.  If this seems a little nebulous, let's look at the language in detail. In business it is sometimes said that, whilst problems cannot be solved, issues can be. Hence some business people prefer to speak of "issues' rather than "problems".

Both business and sports involves strategy, leadership and team spirit. Both involve reaching targets and beating the competition to be successful.
All three, sport, business and your personal life, need a strategy.

In your professional, sporting and personal life, you have to come up with a sales pitch.  To get a job, your sales pitch is your job interview.  On a first potentially romantic encounter, it is your appearance and confidence level.

To be able to win a sports championship, you have to be able to present your winning strategy to all parties. To move house, pay for university, become self employed or book a holiday, you have to sell your ideas to your wife or girlfriend, children and/or friends.

All three involve important meetings.  For instance when you decide to live together or get engaged, at some point you may feel the need to tell your next of kin.

Or when making certain lifestyle announcements - such as not being religious.

In business, sports and our personal lives we need to prepare for important meetings. We need to prepare notes before starting conversations, otherwise how can a wife, boss or team get answers to his/her/their questions?

And finally, motivation.  We all need it.  Some of us get it from family and friends.  For some of us that is not an option.
Some get it from religious or non-religious leaders and communities. And some of us get it from motivational quotes.  Such as this one by Earl Nightingale:

"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it.  The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use."

The use of motivational quotes is what got me through the penultimate semester of Vets' school!

Thanks for reading.

Leadership Skills Identified

I  gave an English class to a private one-to-one client recently and we got talking about leadership. He is a Brazilian manager with a multinational business and for that reason needs to maintain his fluency. Especially since he has been transferred from São Paulo, which is a World-renowned and very big city, to Cuiabá.

He encapsulated the skills so fluently that I just had to write them down here because I have been studying leadership for a long time. We divided them into two categories, Basic Leadership Skills and Advanced Leadership Skills.

Basic Leadership Skills include qualities such as these.
The leader needs to be

• a teacher
• loyal
• a psychologist
• fair
• able to like people
• able to foster team spirit

 

                                                 S/he can foster team spirit by

• using "we' not "I"
• have consversations
• listen
• give advice
• give feedback

We touched on the all-important body-language, too. The leader needs to

• maintain eye contact
• be attentive.

As my own emotional maturity and social intelligence develops, I am more and more drawn to one specific paradigm shift that is mentioned above. That is, the importance of liking people. As you may know if you have been reading me on a regular basis, my background is in biology and veterinary medicine ie dealing with animals and not people.  In the past I have been only too happy to enjoy my own company. But that, I am pleased to say, is changing.  I am learning to love being social. And that is important, because being social is what life is all about. Being sociable is living. Getting along with people is happiness.  Have a great day.

Long Distance Relationships. Worth It?

My instint is to say "no,", but of course that is just me.  "It depends," is the short answer.

The slightly longer answer involves knowing the background leading up to the situation.

If your relationship is strong enough, then the answer could be "yes."  Many of us know that love goes through stages.  Yesterday I wrote about how people need three things to be happy: job, social life and wife/girlfriend/boyfriend/husband.  If you have the first two, and then you get involved with a man or woman from the other side of the World, then you need to think long and hard before changing job and ending na established social life.

Because if you do fall in love with someone from another country, and both people think the relationship is serious, then one or the other of you has to move in order to be with your loved one. 

One question to ask yourself is whether or not your girlfriend or boyfriend speaks the same language as you.  This is a major one.  Because if one or the other emigrates to continue the relationship, you have to be damned sure the relationship can last through the hustle and bustle of relocation stress, language learning, getting a job, building a new social life, handling
funerals, dealing with religious and political differences, dealing with narcissists, learning telecommunications technology in a foreign language.  Do you both want to have a family?

Because you know what? I have been there and done it. And I have come out of it thinking that relationships should be easy.  To borrow an idea from an email I received from Harvard, there should be both cooperation and collaboration.

The University of Maryland did a study on what makes two people compatible.  It has to do with your emotional responses to situations. There are about 50 different things that the study came up with.  Certainky none that I had ever thought of before.

Like I say, a relationship should be easy.  It is hard enough gettting it right with someone from your own culture and background.  I don't believe that you should have to work too hard at it. It should be about having fun.

Once I was having a conversation with two men at a conference lunch. They were good friends and about the same age, late forties or early fifties.  One was telling me how the other was about to leave the UK to be with his girlfriend in Venezuela. I often wonder how he go on.  I think that if you are
considering giving up your lifestyle for love in another country, then you have to think very hard about whether or not you have an established social life in the city where you live.  And are you prepared to lose that social life and potentially lose your friends?

Mens' Lifestyle and Happiness Tutorial

When I write 'men' I mean young men who may be younger than 18. 18 is the age at which in th eyes of the law people become adults. But in evolutonary biology and evolutionary psychology some males reach sexual, emotional and social maturity sooner than others.  This is obvious.

Here in Brazil there is a Portuguese-language magazine called 'Veja'.  It features interviews with a surprising number of foreign intellectuals.  Mrs Beaumont buys it on a regular basis and I usually can't resist a casual flick-through. Last week's edition caught my eye because it was by a British economist and it was about happiness. The essence was 'what makes people happy'. For a man to be happy - and we are talking about a man's evolutionary psychology here - he needs three things.  These are

• a social life
• an occupation
• a wife or girlfriend

Seems simple enough, doesn't it?  Yet my own life's experience, which is the reason for this blog, has taught me that these three things are by no means easy to obtain.  And please, let's be clear on this.  You have to have them all at the same time in order to lead a happy and fulfilled life, dude.

 I consider the very best PUAs (Pick Up Artists) as analysts. So let us analyse a key área to attend to to in order to get a girlfriend. This follows on from the recente article of the same title. Body language. You should stand up straight, like there is a cord in your chest, attached to the chest's sternal angle, pulling you up. I talk about the sternal angle because I think this is the best place for you to visualize.

Head.  Hold it up. This needs more explanation.  Which leads me on to

Eyes. When in a mixed (men and women) social situation, give some thought as to who the tallest men are.  Make relaxed eye contact with these men, and don't forget to maintain it with the brashest, most confident, assertive, aggressive or narcissitic males in the group.  But be casual about it and ready to laugh at yourself if they make jokes about you with women present.  Because the woman you are interested in will be watching your reaction.  Cool, calm, and collected is what you should be, with a relaxed sense of humour.  That is, socially intellugent. 

The woman's evolutionary psychology has evolved to be attracted to this behaviour.  The men in the group should take 60% of your body language's attention in a social interaction, and the women present, 40%.  Of course this is not a hard and fast rule; social situations are dynamic. But until the social dynamic of the group changes, that is a good guideline.

And here is what is important.  The moment you changed from looking to the man to looking at the woman when she speaks in the group, then that is a natural angle at which to hold your head. At this moment your eye musculature will be 'social', that, relaxed. Brilliant! You are demonstrataing social intelligence through your body language.

Eye contact is vital in an interaction with a woman. It should be relaxed.  I won't go into musculature of the eyes, it is complicated and unnecessary.  But you should not look down in your interaction with your woman. A woman's evolutinary psychology interprets this, on a subliminal level, as weakness. Weakness is the opposite of strength, and a woman wants strength from her man.  In this case, by 'strength' I mean that you should be aiming to vanquish from your body language signs of a lack of confidence. By looking to the sides when you break eye contact, this one way that your eyes can convey strength/confidence.  And when moving your eyeballs, do it slowly.

 The group's social dynamic will change.  When you are able to talk on a more individual level with the woman, when listening to her and trying to inject more humour and flirtation into the interaction, try and find reason to use a cocked eyebrow.   This advice will maintain your head and eyes moving the way they need to be in a social interaction, whether you are standing or sitting. There is more to be said on body language.  For now, thank you for reading.

A word of caution to help you develop your social intelligence. Beware if there is a narcissist presente.  Narcissism exists along a spectrum. Now, if the group perceives that you are interested in somebody in it, you can expect some jokes about it to your face.  But that should be all. If, however, one person starts to go over the top, is persistent to the point of being antissocial or even going beyond a koje and being isulting, that could be a sign of narcissism. I was subjected to it for the first hlaf of the year. Indeed, it is one reason I started the blog. There is a way to deal with it, but my advice is to use the maximum discretion in the interaction with the girl you like at that particular time.

Wild Jaguars (Panthera onca): Ecotourism and Habituation

Today I want to conclude with big cats, but, first, it has been an actioned packed few days.  My computer broke last week, which is why I have not been posting.  But now we are back on-line and intend to focus in on two áreas that seem of great interest to the readership in future articles: the environment, and your environment, that is, your relationships. So let's get started with the first.

Last week Mrs Beaumont gave me a special treat for finishing the first part of the clincial year at university.  We booked a Jaguar (Panthera onca) safari to the Pantanal, specifically to Porto Jofre (PJ).  It's the weirdest place. You drive along a dirt track through the jungle for three hours and then you come to an airstrip and a river and the road stops. A word on me and jungles: they don't scare me; they fascinate me. I am not put off by the heat, the unpredictability of logistics or the biting inescts. I am too fascinated by the diversity of life around me, and excited by the prospect of what could be slithering around the next corner. I have studied jungles like pick up artists study women.  Yes, jungles turn me on (but not in that way).  So do big cats.

I have seen Swamp Cats (Felis chaus) in Isreal, Clouded Leopards (Neofelis nebulosa) in Malaysia and, in the Pantanal of Brazil, Pumas (Puma concolor) and Ocelots (Felis pardalis).

Zoo Vets' Casebook: I have carried out physical examinations on two Brazilian cats and here's what I learned

• Ocelots: they are sneaky.  They swipe and bite your Achilles' tendo. Use chain saw leggings!

• Jaguar cubs: you can begin a partial examination with a three-month old, usin physcial restraint.  I am joking.  Use chemical restraint otherwise you may be wasting your time.

So on Saturday night we were in a clean-but-basic guest house in Poconé and at 3am Sunday morning we were in the pick-up on our way to PJ.  We got there and were in the boat by 6:30am.  There is something you need to know about the naturalist in me if you ever come on tour with me: I am hardcore. I like to be in position at 6am, not on my way at 6:30am. However, I was with other people and didn't want to argue.

Our guide, Junior, was anxious and I could tell this was his first such tour - we had booked a Jaguar Safari with him. He was probably curious as to why I was not marvelling at the nature around us.  There is a very good reason for this. I have dedicated several years of my life to studying this regions's nature and today was for spotting Jaguars.  So the Spectacled Caiman (Caiman crocodilus), the Jabiru Storks (Jabiru mycteria), even the Hyacinth Macaws (Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus), all were ignored today!

And the day delivered!  I was expecting several split-second glimpses.  After eight hours we rounded a bend in the river and there was a Jaguar standing on the river bank 20 metres away like a sheep!  We followed him for two hours and watched as he stalked two Spectacled Caiman and two capivara, unsuccessfully. The boatman radioed colleagues and withi five minutes there were six boats and 50 tourists looking on.

Analysis.  This kind of tourist is only possible three months of the year. Why?  This is the Tropics, and we get two seasons here: the wet and dry. July, August and September is the dry season.  Rainfall ceases.  Riverine water levels drop, wildlife accumulates around dwindling water sources, and numbers of Capybara and Spectacled Caiman build up.  That is the Jaguars' prey-bas right there. Jaguars are nocturnal, and this one was hunting in the heat of the afternoon.  I have never seen a wild predator hunting so desperately.  So this animal was hungry.  I think the population must be incredibly dense, contributory factors being that the habitat is available and there is a prey base.  I think the possibility that the PJ Jaguars have become habituated to the presence of humans is a certainty.  And the perceived lack of regulation of ecotousism: is it imoral or unethical? Well, the only way to be sure is to study hunt/stalk success rates in the wild, and that would be really hard to do. Another way would be to radiocollar individuals to see if those hunting in non-crowded conditons enjoy a greater frequency of hunting success than those habituated animals having to do their hunting surrounded by onlookers.

People. From what the guides told me, there are two Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) operating in the region. 

• Panthera is American and the content of its web site states that it is involved in a Jaguar corridor project. The guide pointed out its buildings along the river. I wanted to drop in but they sais the place is closed to the public. On the way out for the afternoon I said to the boatman that I wanted to stop there, He agreed but when the time was right I could no longer be bothered with introductions, I was too happy.
• Jaguar Research Center. These seem to be involved with identification of identification of individual animals.

How to Get a Girlfriend

Part One – Your clothes.

Strength is what women want.  All that follows is to help you work towards that. And it has many meanings.  In the context of becoming a modern alpha male it means demonstrating the masculine forms of emotional and social intelligence.

Firstly you have to look – and sound - your best.  We will start on clothes and then deal with body language.

You have to dress well. So let us progress our lesson by going on a virtual shopping trip together. You have to dress in such a way that you look as tall as you can.  This may involve you obtaining some new outfits and perhaps changing the content of your wardrobe. Certain clothes combinations can help you to do this.  I wear black jeans with black shoes.  This combination of black helps to achieve the desired effect of making you look taller. You should polish your shoes. On your top half you should wear a white, or light-coloured, t-shirt. This t-shirt should be of the v-neck variety. It is more masculine. This is because it enhances the inverted triangle of the male torso. In other words, you want to use clothes that make your upper body take on an inverted triangular shape. This looks masculine. It communicates to women on a subliminal level.  There is a science behind this. Two, actually. The sciences are evolutionary biology and applied evolutionary psychology.

If you have chest hair, consider removing that part of the neck exposed by a v-neck t-shirt. If you live in a temperate country, you may need to wear another layer in order to keep warm. This other layer should be slightly darker. The effect of dark-top-over-paler-undergarment achieves the effect of enhancing that masculine inverted-triangular torso.  This was Part One. Tomorrow I will cover more.  You can contact me on thecritterdoctor@hotmail.com or make a comment below.

How to Examine a Jaguar.

A better title would be' How to Restrain a Jaguar Cub'. Very recently I bumped into one of my lecturers at university. She told me that the State Department of the Environment had received two jaguar cubs. She didn’t know much more about them, except that one was docile and the other potentially dangerous. She mentioned it because she knows that my final year paper is going to be on wildlife and she was kind enough to pass me the telephone number of the man in charge. I gave him a call, explained that I was a final year student of veterinary medicine and that my final year project is on wildlife and that I would like to know if it was possible to carry out a physical examination on the jaguar cubs he is currently responsible for. To my delight he said next week.

The appointment is next week I firmly believe in seizing opportunities when they present themselves, and this occasion was no exception. It does present me with a number of challenges which I set out in the following thought experiment.

Some research on carrying out a clinical examination of a Jaguar has revealed very little on-line. My personal library on this occasion let me down. The Human Society’s Veterinary Medical Association has some useful material on-line regarding physical restraint methods designed to reduce stress for both patient and veterinarian.

When I was last home in the UK for Christmas my terrific parents took me to a hardware store after learning that I would be handling an Ocelot on my return to Brazil.  They were worried that I would be mauled and bought me some equipment.  Tomorrow I need to augment these purchases with some new equipment.  

It is impossible to know in advance what circumstances I am going to encounter. My objective is to carry as full as clinical examination as possible, involving

·         History-taking

·         Weighing the animal

·         Checking eyes, ears and nose for secretions or obstructions

·         What is the heart rate

·         What is the respiratory rate

·         Checking the pulse rate

·         Checking the colour of the mucosae

·         Body temperature

·         Lymph nodes for swellings, indicative of disease.

·         Check teats for alterations.

·         Check Anus

·         Check tail.

·         Check skin.

·         What is the animal’s sex?

The physical examination begins whilst I am taking the animal’s history. I have to be able to approach the animal safely.  I am going to have to be very careful because I have no experience with Jaguars and have to very carefully assess its weight-to-strength ratio.  I don’t know how thick a Jaguar’s fur is, and it may be very time consuming to check its body condition if its fur is thick.

I hope you have enjoyed this article and found it interesting. For me it served as a valuable ‘thinking-through’ exercise. Right, I am off to buy a big net now.

How to Be a Veterinarian

I have just finished the ninth semester of Vet’s School. I found it really hard, but not for the reasons you might think.  You see, I am British born and raised, and when I was in my late twenties I moved to Brazil.  After several adventures and projects, I took the university entrance exam in a language that I was not yet fully proficient at and yet managed to pass. Thus began six years of anxiety.

What I discovered was that you spend four years studying theory and one year of clinical practice before qualifying.  I used to hate walking into the classroom with everybody staring at me.  But I quickly made friends. I was able to keep up with the content. The difficulty was that the content was delivered in Portuguese, and I had only recently learned the language.  One of the first skills I had to acquire was to increase my attention span. Then I had to figure out how I was going to study, because studying is a very personal thing and what works for me may not work for you.  It was whilst reading Richard Dawkins’ autobiography that I picked up some study tips, but this was close to the end of my degree.

So I tried all kinds of approaches, such as noting everything the lecturer said (big mistake because it was exhausting and unfeasible and a bad way to study), to recording classes, to doing spider charts and algorithms and mind maps, to noting key words and then doing a lot of dictionary work.  One of the best ways to study was to obtain the book on the reading list in both English and Portuguese.

It was when I entered the clinical year that I realised the four years of theory had been easy in comparison.  During the previous semesters nobody cared if you were late, least of all the professors, or if you didn’t do the homework or you copied it the only person you were cheating was yourself.

Then I started the ninth semester and everything changed.  The professors disappeared.  I had to work in a team of eight people. My team did not speak my language.  I could not participate in their jokes and I did not understand their slang.  And they all spoke a the same time.  And they were half my age. We had to do shifts.  I had to have my mobile on me at all times for four months.  And I was receiving 500 messages a day from my team. 490 were not important. The team leader demonstrated narcissistic tendencies. After three weeks I had an argument with her.  That was a cathartic experience, and I had to think how I was going to deal with the rest of the five months.  I developed a strategy.

I realised I would have to place myself at the bottom of the hierarchy if I was going to have any respect at all.  I decided to always be visible, always be active, always be on hand and willing to help out no matter what. I decided to give total attention to the team leader, which was not easy because she never stopped talking and spoke too fast. I eneded up paying special attention to her tone to find out whether she was delegating or otherwise. I would take critiscisms without argument, act on instructions without comment. At night I would access the internet, find motivational quotes and print them out for taking to university the next day.  My strategy became

·         Receive angry instruction

·         Read motivational quote

·         Breathe

·         Live in the moment

·         Start a blog.

·         Pay attention to body language

o   Neutral face

o   Chin in

o   Shoulders back

o   Direct eye contact

o   Stop nibbling inside mouth

Seems silly, doesn’t it, but it made the difference between the dark depths of depression and becoming a better man.

The fourth and final module was easier. There were no shifts, and I had fewer problems tackling the homework and getting up early. Now it is done, and there are graduation photo sessons, three months in the UK and the final paper. Today I am the happiest man alive!

My Bio. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Field Biology and Habitat Management, a Master’s degree in Conservation Biology and soon I will qualify as a Veterinary Surgeon with a major interest in wildlife veterinary medicine and surgery. You can contact me on thecritterdoctor@hotmail.com.

Parrots

These birds belong in the family Psittacidae.  They comprise the Macaws, Parrots, Parakeets and Cockatiels. They are a pantropical bird family, being found throughout the tropics.  They are some of the most beautiful birds in the avian class.  Some species are endangered. 

Rarities

You have heard about the fact that the science of physics has its own laws.  The science of ecology is just the same.  It has its own laws. One of these is that island species are more vulnerable than continental ones. Therefore more likely to be classed as Threatened or Endangered. One of the best examples is Mauritius, home to the Echo or Mauritius Parakeet. In the seventies the population was estimated at 16-22 individuals. A conservation project that became famous was set up to monitor the wild population and breed them in captivity and it was a great success.

Here in Brazil there are many species of parrot.  Perhaps the most spectacular is the Hyacinth Macaw.  It is an endangered species and is huge. As is its beak, which can crack nuts. It nests in the Pantanal, the Tropical wetland that is a biodiversity hotspot here.  The population is possibly in the tens of thousands, although you would have to check the literature if you wanted a more precise estimate. One of the best places to see the Hyacinth Macaw is at Kilometre 33 of the Trans-Pantanal Highway, an unsurfaced track that runs from Poconé to Porto Jofre.  There is a working farm there that has guest accommodation and the residents pride themselves on being able to provide facilities that enable close-up viewing, filming and photographic opportunities of the macaws. 

The parrots that can be seen locally include the following species. Macaws first: the Blue and Yellow, the Red and Green and the Hyacinth. Of the parrots, the Turquoise Fronted is probably commonest, and of the Parakeets there is the Monk and the Canary Winged.

Captivity

I had the idea for this article because I recently went on a field trip to a pig farm and on the way one of my class mates was saying how much he liked parrots and what he could do to obtain one. It is impossible for most Brazilians to get a parrot legally. They are kept as pets, of course, because there is a deep need in many of us to bring attractive animals into our domestic environment, and the parrot family is nothing if not attractive. But the ones that are kept illegally are mostly maintained in woefully inadequate conditions, with scant regard for their nutritional needs.  I don’t blame many private householders locally for the way they keep their animals.  Mostly it is due to a lack of available information.

The legal way is to buy one from a Criadouro Comercial, but these are are hard to find because they don’t advertise widely. If you have the money you can buy one and must keep the receipt as proof of purchase. I believe our local environment agency has just instigated a scheme by which people can adopt permanently injured parrots.

If you have a pet parrot and have a question, you can get in contact with many sources of help.  You can even send a comment here to me.  Have a good weekend.

 

My Bio. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Field Biology and Habitat Management, a Master’s degree in Conservation Biology and soon I will qualify as a Veterinary Surgeon with a major interest in wildlife veterinary medicine and surgery.

Is Vegetarianism the Answer?

This blog post is for you if you are considering becoming vegetarian because of a perception that the meat industry is cruel.  People become vegetarian for lots of reasons. Here I just want to address one, which is that people feel they want no part of a cruel industry. This is understandable.  But having visited some of the biggest and best-run meat plants in Brazil in recent days, I thought I would address some issues on cruelty in the animal production industry. 

The abattoirs that I have visited this month were all stainless steel and white tiles, by which I mean very clean. They are run to standards set by Government rules.  Did you know that meat for export is handled differently compared to that intended for the domestic Brazilian market?

This issue is perfect for bringing together my two favourite academic áreas: veterinary medicine and conservation biology.  In vets' school we learn about the stress hormone, cortisol. We also learn about the importance of not anthropomorphising, that is, projecting human thoughts, feelings and values on to animals without knowing if they possess such attributes. Well, we can measure the amount of stress animals are under by measuring their blood cortisol levels. And we surmise that they are under stress by their vocalisations.  But modern slaughter house staff are trained to herd animals in such a way as to minimize stress as they drive the food animals towards the stunning box. And in the case of cattle, the work of animal scientist Temple Grandin has gone a long way towards revolutionising they way holding corrals are designed so as to mimic the animals' behavior and to miniise stress. These stress levels, as I have said, can be measured using sérum cortisol levels, and modern methods minimize these.

Livestock farms ensure there is countryside otherwise the rural zone would be converted to other forms of land use. Some people may say that intensive farming methods prevent animals having a right to roam and still mean that the countryside is built upon. Certainly confined farming goes on, bu it is a result of domestic and internation market forces, and where it goes on it is heavily regulated. And those stock need to be fed, and so food crops are grown in open fields.

For people who wonder about going vegetarian because of animal cruelty, there is a better way to do your part for animals.  Preventing cats from killing wild birds would be a smart move for nature conservation, and if you are a cat owner, or know somebody who is, give some thought as to its care and where it goes roaming. Does it wear a bell?  If not, consider getting one.  The local songbird population will directly benefit.