Blair Drummond Safari Park

Today again proved to be an excellent day on this rotation! We got to go to the Blair Drummond Safari Park for the day! It was seriously so much fun, and we had great weather again
(touch wood it lasts). Its closed at the moment for the winter, so we basically got a private tour around some of the animal habitats, speaking with the keepers and learning how they keep the animals healthy, how they train them for vets to check them, and how they are used for breeding to keep captive populations for some that are endangered. We started off with the sea lions and got to see how they train them to be still for their examinations by the vets, how they check their teeth, and a few random tricks just for fun. They were really fun to watch and so well behaved! Then we went to go see the giraffes which was a surprise, and got to get really close to them while we learned about keeping them and some of the problems they have there keeping them. They were so tall so close up it was amazing. Then we went to the elephant enclosure and learned about the elephants they have there. They have had a really tough life before they came there from the sound of it, so they are working with them a lot to get them to be happy and healthy despite coming from places that didn't treat them very well. It was interesting to learn the different ways they have to work with the animals to keep them happy and where they were planning on going with their training once the elephants got more accustomed to vet training. We even got to see ones feet inspected and teeth for an oral examination. Then we went to the raptor enclosure and saw one fly for an audience for the first time, he did a good job so the keeper was pleased. We then went to the rhinos where we saw them being fed and then got to pet them! So now I can saw I've touched 2 white rhinos, and there are only about 20,000 in the world, so these are part of a breeding programme to ensure that there is a strong captive population. Then we went to the tiger enclosure and got to help the keeper put out meat in the trees for the tigers to go find so that feeding is exercise and enrichment. We also got to see one do its veterinary training and got to see her massive claws. All in all it was a super day!

Pheasant hunting!

Well,  not really. Today we went to a farm/pheasant shooting range/partridge restoration area of farmland by the Firth of Forth, about 2 hrs from Glasgow. It was a lovely day and we spent it mostly hiking around and looking at the habitat that they have created for both the pheasants to live in for the hunters and for the partridge to live in to increase their numbers. We also saw some roe deer and the biggest badger sett I have ever seen! Also some badger poop, so that was pretty cool! It was really interesting learning about how easy it is for farmers to use their land to not only remain a profitable business but also use their land to create area for wildlife to flourish.  And it was just really nice walking around the countryside in the glorious weather! And 2.5 weeks until BOTS!!!!!!!!

West Highland Way

Today we went for hike on the West Highland Way FINALLY! Not the entire thing, but a part of it and it was super fun! Everything was covered in snow and just beautiful! We talked about some ecology like species numbers estimations, different ways to manage land, and some diseases and how you could avoid then through livestock management. At first we almost didnt go because the weather forecast wasn't great, but we got back just as it was starting to rain so it worked out really well! So it was a lovely day outside again, with pretty favourable weather as well!

Week 2

Monday I didn't end up going in because I woke up with a killer sore throat and I think I was pretty feverish all day, so instead of walking around in the cold Scottish weather all day I figured it was probably best to stay in. Today I felt much better, though I had to be at school at 6am, to go to the Highland Wildlife Park! I was so excited to go there today, I've been wanting to go up there for ages! It was like a 3 hours drive but it actually wasnt too bad a ride up there, and the weather (though cold) wasn't really rainy so it was a pretty nice day! We got to listen to my professors random taste in music the whole way up as well, always a treat! We had a little lecture when we got there, then grabbed lunch, and headed out for a tour of the park. We got to see so many animals and got a guided tour, not of the entire park but of a few cool ones for sure! We discussed a lot about building enclosures and management of zoo species and how they move them between zoos and some ethical considerations as well. Tough it wasn't as much 'learning' per se, it was still a really interesting day and I was just excited to go finally! But I'm definitely going to have to go again once the weather improves!

Wildlife

Today we got to do some wildlife PMs which were really fun! My partner and I got a young male roe deer who looked like he'd been hit by a car, but ended up having a really jacked up liver as well as potential HBC evidence. Not totally sure what ended up killing him, but it was an interesting case anyways. Other people got a fox with 3 legs, a hedgehog and another deer that definitely had been hit by a car. We were all going to do bird ones as well but by the time we were done there wasn't much time left and we were FREEZING from being in the PM room, so we took a break for lunch. Afterwards we all met up and discussed some more aspects of wildlife medicine and then worked on an exercise about the mass die off of the saiga antelope that happened last year. Kind of random but an interesting exercise as well! Now we have a three day weekend and got out trail cameras to fiddle around with! I may head up to the farm to try to see if I can strap it to a tree or something if I can get up there. Hopefully we see something cool!

And more badgers!

Today we were off again searching for badger setts and it was such a lovely day! We started out discussing the papers we'd read the previous day about the badger culls, what type of evidence they have, etc. It was actually really interesting to have a brief overview of the evidence they have at the moment and how varied it is. It was nice to critically look at papers again, something that'll come in handy in the future I think. Then we went off in search of more badger setts. This time we didn't already know where they were so it was basically us wandering around like trackers looking for signs. We were out pretty much the whole day and finally at the end we found some so that was really exciting. Regardless of it being a pretty random day it was so nice to get outside  and hike around for a while in the sun (while it lasts). So far our group is still pretty cool and we're all getting along really well.

Tier 1 Production and Wildlife

I finally started my selective block and let me say I am so glad I chose it! This is going to be such a fun month, I seriously am so excited for it. Yesterday we mostly got the run down on what to expect this month and also what to expect when we go to Bots. While I was already excited for the Botswana trip, this month actually looks like it's going to be a blast. We have a project that we're working on which will be a full ecological survey of an area and we get to put out motion sensitive cameras to capture wildlife images and videos! We were going to do a joint project  on foxes and otters on campus, but now we may try to do a survey of badgers, but we have to see what we find tomorrow when we wander around. Today we learned all about badgers and Tb and then went for a hike to look for badger sets and we found loads! Who knew wandering around and looking at holes in the ground could be so much fun! We also saw their scratch marks, snuff holes and even some poop in a latrine! This month sounds like mostly a bunch of really fun field trips and then time off to study and work on our projects and prep for the Bots trip. Can't wait to do more stuff!

Finished with SA Core!

Well, except for my tutorial tomorrow, but I'm finished with core! It's been a pretty chill month and I'm looking forward to my next block of my tier 1 elective. It looks like its gonna be a bit random, but should be fun an interested for sure! Hopefully I'll have a fair amount of free time to start studying for exams and doing portfolio stuff, etc. Today I got to do a cat spay which was pretty cool because I've never actually done one of those before, and totally forgot that its done flank here since i haven't seen a cat spay here in a while. But it went pretty well, very fiddly but I managed to find everything on my own which is really half the battle, the rest is just ligation and suturing everything back up! The weather seems to have calmed down so I don't feel like I'm going to get blown away anymore.  Pretty boring here now but the next rotation should have more exciting stuff to blog about!

Last Week of SA Core

This is my last week of small animal core so we're on afternoons doing ops. Its been slowish, but it makes it so we don't have to rush our ops, which is nice. I did a dog castrate today and it went pretty well so that was good, though I had a weird mind block when i was putting on my gloves for some reason, but no matter! We dont have to be in till 1 so I've been sleeping in which has been pretty nice, though this damn storm has been blowing wind all over the place and making all this free time slightly miserable since I dont want to do outside! Hopefully today was the last day and it'll be normal again, but for now my classmate has a car so it hasn't been terrible! Other than that just waiting on visa stuff and my flat mate gets back on Sat (I think) so it will be less creepy being in the flat!