WildLife Group
of the SAVA
Wildlife Experience
South Africa 2016
Julian Keles
I am Julian (25) from Germany, studying in my fifth
year at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna
in Austria. Currently I’m having the pleasure of doing
a 13 week clinical rotation at Onderstepoort Campus
in Pretoria. I applied at OP in South Africa not only
because of its excellent reputation but because of my
strong interest in Wildlife Medicine and Conservation.
Prior to my arrival I had contacted Dr Katja Koeppel
from OP’s Wildlife Department in order to assist me
with wildlife experiences during my stay. Other than
back home where we only study the anatomy of
domestic animals such as cats, dogs, pigs, cattle and
horses. I got to attend Prof Hornsveld’s lecture about
the anatomy of the bufallo, elephant and Impala with
its clinical importance.
Meanwhile I had the chance to assist Dr Koeppel
in her fieldwork as well as join her wildlife elective
students on a fieldtrip to Castle de Wildt with a focus
on Game Ranch Management and Nutrition. Being
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instructed by her I got to experience a wide range of
tasks such as monitoring a tiger and jaguar anesthesia
as well as performing a post mortem on a meerkat at
a private zoo in Johannesburg. We drove to a private
game park to do nyala game capture and to relocate
them to another camp.
A very important part of the profession as a wildlife
vet is the overlap of wild animals, domestic animals
and humans. Zoonotic diseases which can spread
from animals to humans, such as rabie,s have to be
targeted to preventively take care of captive and
wild animal populations in order for them to not get
infected.
Using polesyringe and dartgun we spent half a day
vaccinating lions, cheetahs, leopards, hyenas, servals
and tigers in a private game park. Planning a hormone
therapy for a giraffe bull to treat repetitive behaviour,
can be seen in many captive animals, was part of the
work too.