Certainly press was involved in a lot of procedures, specifically when Sined was tranquilized. Yeah, yeah, I think so. So this one was sort of an odd case. It wasn’t one where usually the publicity is about you’re doing something unusual. We immobilized a gorilla named Sinbad at Lincoln Park… Read More
And I said, just don’t worry about it, just hold it off. And he said, I am, but her neck is getting big. And I went to look at her and her neck was getting to be the size of a volleyball and, and she was having difficulty breathing, she… Read More
And it happens much more quickly than just an animal asphyxiating because they’ve got something plugging their airway. And she had probably been on her way out before we even started to resuscitate her, but at some point, after having gone through four or five inches of subcu hemorrhagic tissue… Read More
So it wound up being part of a television show as well as being a losing an animal. So Now, so the press was present, but how do you feel about the press being present when procedures are being done?… Read More
Yes, that was a, that was a, an interesting case. The thing that complicated that was, so, it, it turns out that this was a, it was a female snow leopard, an adult that had a condition that we call eno occlusive disease now. And it was relatively common at… Read More
And can you relate the story of the snow leopard that died while you were doing a routine tranquilizing and lessons learned from experience?… Read More
And as part of that, they were interested in just as a sidelight a, showing what zoos were doing to help conserve endangered species. And so they just had a standing request, if you’re, if you’re doing anything with some of these animals, invite us out. So in addition to… Read More
How did you handle events when a routine procedure resulted in the death of an animal?… Read More
So your responsibilities to the collection didn’t change much?… Read More
N not too much. It was, you know, who I worked for and where my office was. But you know, those things changed after I’d been there about a year, year and a half. But I had been mostly on my own for, for that time. Read More
Well, I was, I was an assistant veterinarian, but Dr. Ashkin was, you know, because of declining health, he had a brain tumor and he underwent various surgeries and he was, we, we didn’t work together very long a after I started there. And so I was still officially the… Read More
Well, it, Or was it one in the same?… Read More
I, I think probably the, the biggest medical challenge and, and not based on animals being prone to illness or whatever, but just the volume of the collection. When I was at St. Louis, we had two, we had a pair of elderly gorillas, a handful of other great apes. Read More
So, so those are, you know, that, that, that was one of the big changes and one of the challenges that I really enjoyed. Now you were hired as a staff veterinarian, but you moved up to the head veterinarian position. Read More
How did that occur?… Read More
Were any of the animals at Lincoln Park where you started medically challenging?… Read More
Or had you thought about that philosophically before, Before I, I hadn’t really thought about that. It, it really was, you know, trying to develop their trust. You know, I, I remember jokingly when I, because I, I’m, I don’t know that I was aware of this, but certainly I… Read More
And how did you handle it?… Read More
I think so. So Dr. Ashkin had been a consulting veterinarian there at the zoo, and they hired him out of small animal practice and into the zoo full time when they built the first purpose-built Zoo Hospital in 76. And so this was just a few years later. So… Read More
How hard or easy is it would you say for a young veterinarian to work into the medical routine routine of a organization?… Read More