Bush Vet

by Clay Wilson

  I was thrilled, and it was so good to be back working with these majestic animals again. I drew up a list of recommendations for the trust, suggesting that they improve their in-house diagnostic ability by getting their own blood machine, and also that they purchase a digital x-ray machine.

  I was sad to leave Kenya after such a short visit, but just a few months later, in October 2012, I was back there again. In my check-in baggage were the x-ray and blood machines I had suggested the Sheldrick Trust buy. They had broadcast an appeal for donations and a man in Argentina had come up with the US$100 000 they needed.

  I had sourced the machines for them and it had been delivered to my home two weeks prior to my return to Africa so that I could familiarise myself with their operation and then instruct the people at the trust on how to use them. It didn’t take me long as I’d had similar machines in Botswana. These are nifty machines that produce an instant digital image, and they’re good for use on animals because you can zoom in tight to an area of just a couple of centimetres.

  Coming back to Kenya almost felt like coming home, even though I had spent very little time in the country. It seemed to me that everyone I met, from conservationists and National Parks officers to shopkeepers and border officials, was smiling and friendly. Although I was even more of an outsider here than I had been in Botswana, I had this overwhelming feeling of being welcome in Kenya.

  As my flight swooped in low over Nairobi National Park I made out the shadows of giraffe on the short grass of the savanna and the enclosures and buildings of the Sheldrick Trust. It made my heart skip a beat to think of all the people down there dedicated to preserving the continent’s wildlife. This was how it should be.

  After I had given the people at the Sheldrick Trust a rundown on how to operate the x-ray and blood machines, I set out for the bush. The trust supports Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS – their National Parks authority) veterinary units in the Maasai Mara and Tsavo East national parks, and the Sheldricks had kindly arranged for me to ride along with them and witness firsthand the work they were doing.

  I found the KWS vets and their assistants to be well resourced and highly motivated. At Chobe, one of Botswana’s flagship national parks, we hadn’t even had a fulltime vet – I was it.

  The Mara was staggeringly beautiful. An endless vista of rolling hills covered in green grass was crowded with more animals than I had ever seen in one place in all my life. The estimated 40 000 wildebeest I could see was a breathtaking sight, which was made even more amazing by the fact that this was the mere tail end of the migration whose total numbers of wildebeest and zebra are around the two million mark.

  Meeting my first Maasai was also an eye opener. Living a life little changed by the passage of time and the march of progress, the Maasai truly are at one with their environment. In their colourful robes, striding nonchalantly across the short grass plains with their herds of cattle, they are as much a part of the environment as the wildlife that passes them by. These are people living in harmony with animals, not in a state of perpetual conflict.

  Our task was to screen the Maasai cattle for tuberculosis, and over four days of visits to villages, we recorded about 20 positive samples. The infected cattle were a risk not only to the rest of their herds but also to the wild animals with which they shared the plains. The KWS men sat down with the tribesmen and negotiated a price to buy the diseased animals, which would then be taken to an abattoir to be humanely disposed of. The whole business was done with calmness and respect. We loaded the cattle into trucks and set off for the town of Nairok.

  In town we had lunch at an upstairs restaurant and over a meal of grilled chicken I chatted with Fred, one of the young veterinary assistants with whom I’d struck up a friendship. Built like a battle tank and always grinning or smiling, Fred relished his job and, like his other KWS comrades, was extremely professional and highly motivated.

  Fred’s attention was drawn to the street below us. “There’s someone trying to get into the truck!”

  Fred left the table and ran down the stairs, and I followed him out of the restaurant. The man he had seen had unfastened the rear canopy of the Sheldrick truck and was leaning in, trying to steal whatever he could get his hands on. Fred grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and put him down on the ground. Within seconds a crowd had gathered and citizens were scrabbling around Fred, raining blows down on the hapless thief. Fortunately for the opportunistic criminal, the police arrived within four minutes, pulled off the bystanders and took the robber into custody. I got the feeling that people were so incensed by what he had done that given half a chance they might have killed him then and there.

  “What was that all about?” I asked.

  “That’s street justice,” said Fred.

  From the Mara we travelled south to Tsavo East, in search of elephants.

  Tsavo is home to the largest population of elephants in Kenya, but even so its numbers have been hard hit by poaching. This made the reintroduction of elephants to the park by the Sheldrick Trust not only a morally correct programme but also an essential one to help bring the numbers up again. I walked with the Sheldrick elephants that had graduated from the Nairobi orphanage, striding through the golden grass of Tsavo as these juveniles ate and drank their fill of life in the wild as part of the reintroduction process.

  Tsavo took my breath away with its open plains and the sheer number of species in the park. It’s home to wild dogs and the endangered Hirola antelope and there’s an incredible sense of space and freedom about the place. A feature of the landscape here is the rich red dirt that coats just about every living thing, from warthogs to elephants.

  Talking to the KWS rangers in the park, I found them to be proud men, not afraid to go after poachers, and I got the sense that like the Samburu they would gladly lay down their lives to protect the wildlife in their charge. Leaving the orphans to their guards, we set off in search of more elephants – this time those who had been harmed by humans.

  As it happened, it was easy to find the first injured elephant. In contrast to Botswana, where I would have to go looking for downed or injured elephants on my own, sometimes following a GPS reference, here in Tsavo the injured animals had not only been located for us but also had their own KWS escorts, keeping visual contact with them and making sure they came to no further harm before they could be treated.

  A majestic bull towered out of the grasslands and shook his head at our approach, creating a halo of red dust around his massive knobbly head. His tusks glowed creamy gold in the afternoon light. He was a handsome creature.

  “What is wrong with him?” I asked Fred as we got out of the Land Rover.

  “Spear wound. It could be from a poacher, or it could be from some farmer on the edge of the park who was trying to keep him away.”

  I sighed. Even here in Kenya, a country I was fast falling in love with, the fallout of the conflict between man and beast, either for profit or for space on the Earth, was visible in the festering wound on the bull’s side. The veterinarian with us darted the bull and the elephant turned on the spot and charged us.

  More accurately, he charged straight at me. I ran through the grass around the vehicle, hoping to put it between him and me. The others bomb-shelled in different directions. Mercifully, for all of us, the elephant began to slow and, stopping, swayed groggily before starting to fall.

  “No, no, don’t fall that way,” I called to him, still panting from my sprint and the after-effects of the adrenalin rush that had fuelled my flight. But as Murphy’s law dictates, the giant toppled over on the side that bore the spear wound. “We’ll have to turn him over.”

  We roped his fore and rear legs on one side to not one but two trucks and, with the engines straining, rolled the bull over on to his other side. I had brought a pulse oximeter with me from the States and clipped it to the elephant’s massive grey ear. The box attached to the wires gave us a read-out of his vital signs and kept up a steady beep to let us know his heart was still
beating. The KWS vets I met in Tsavo and the Mara were impressed with the machine, and I suggested to them that it would be worth the investment. I knew from my own bitter experience that an animal could expire under anaesthetic without the veterinarian knowing in time to revive it.

  There was swelling, indicating infection, and the wound itself looked quite deep. While the other vet set to scrubbing the entry wound, I cut into the lump next to it. Pus spurted out and, perhaps foolishly, I stuck my fingers deep into the mess.

  “Ow!” I withdrew my fingers and saw my own blood oozing from a laceration. “The spear head must still be inside – I just cut myself on it.”

  “Clean your finger, quickly,” the other vet said. “If it’s a poacher’s spear there may be poison on it; a few drops of this stuff is strong enough to kill 10 men.” While the dose on the spearhead may have been too small to kill the elephant, it might have been enough to make me gravely ill, or worse.

  First I wanted to get the spearhead out of the elephant. I got a pair of forceps, which I should have had the sense to use in the first place, and dug around in the flesh until I got a grip on the head and pulled it out. With my heart pounding anew, I tossed the spearhead aside, squeezed blood out of the laceration on my hand, squirted Betadine all over it and sat down in the grass.

  As I bandaged my fingers I looked around at the grandeur and beauty of this place and thought of the endless struggle for life and death that was fought every single day. I had been charged by this creature just a few minutes earlier and I thought of poor Gavin, in Zimbabwe, who had been killed by an elephant he loved. I had been shot at by poachers in Botswana and I had faced the possibility of death from a charging buffalo or elephant on several occasions, and been mauled by a lion. For as much as I loved her, Africa had turned on me in Botswana, chewed me up, mauled me, and spat me out. But here I was, back in the bush with, I hoped, a future of sorts.

  In the States I had been given a measure of security by my bank, which had allowed me to renegotiate my mortgage so I could keep my home. While the veterinary work was sparse, I had decided to turn my hand to working as a professional fishing guide while I contemplated my long-term future. I had also hooked up with a local wildlife rescue organisation and was once more treating birds and animals that had fallen foul of man and his ways. I was taking the first steps to getting my life back together, but I wondered if I could do that only in the United States.

  Could I ever get Africa out of my blood and out of my dreams? I breathed in the dust and the musty smell of the elephant beside me as the vet finished cleaning the spear wound and injected the bull with antibiotics and anti-inflammatories. It was the same procedure I had done on countless occasions, and I knew that the work of protecting and treating injured wildlife would never end and that I had the skills and experience to lend a hand.

  I resolved that if I did return to Africa again for the long term, I would learn from the mistakes of my past. I would start at the top, not at the grassroots level, and I would get approval from the people in charge of the relevant national parks or wildlife service. Better yet, I might invest in the future of Kenya or whatever country lured me back to Africa – I thought it might be good to find a keen young graduate from veterinary college and set him or her up in a practice and pass on my knowledge to them on the job, in a joint venture. That might leave me free to offer my services to wildlife with a business base of some kind to back me up.

  Even if I stayed based in the States, I hoped that I might supplement my life on the water as a fishing guide with regular trips back to Africa as a consultant vet. I had already had a call to help out with the animals in a zoo in Venezuela and thought that perhaps my services might be needed in Africa as well.

  The truth was, I didn’t know what was going to happen.

  “Is there an antidote to this poison the poachers use?” I asked the other vet as he finished up with the elephant.

  He shook his head.

  Perhaps that was something that could be researched, I thought. If we could find out what the poachers made their poison from, then we could surely develop an antidote that might save human lives, as well as animals’. There was so much to be done; I also wanted to start a research project that would test the milk of wild, lactating elephant cows so we could compare it and the enzymes present to that of captive elephants to see if there was a difference.

  “Are you okay?” the vet asked me.

  “I feel fine.” I was, in fact, approaching 60 and facing the prospect once more of having to start my life all over again. I had been terribly bitter about my expulsion from Botswana, but a sense of calmness had recently helped to soothe those pains. Perhaps it was being back in Africa, albeit for a brief visit, that was aiding my recovery.

  The vet drew up the reversing agent and I stood by as he injected the elephant. It tried to stand, but couldn’t. I wondered if the tranquillising dose had been a bit high. Fred and I, as well as the vet and the KWS rangers who had been guarding the elephant, all moved to it and started rocking the animal, trying to help it stand.

  The bull snorted through his trunk and, at first unsteadily, pulled himself to his feet. We backed off, but as the elephant looked around it seemed like he had once again got me in his sights. As he regained his senses, he started running towards me and as the others scattered I found myself running for my life for the second time that day.

  As I ran I started laughing. The African sun drenched the grass gold as it swayed in my wake and all I could hear was my laughter interspersed with the puffing of my breath and the beating of my heart as I ran. I glanced back and saw the elephant giving up his charge – just in time, because I thought I might have a coronary if I had to run much further. He tossed his head again, as he’d done when he first saw me, and turned his red rump and sashayed away.

  I walked back to the truck and saw Fred leaning against the vehicle. He was 24 years old and had his whole life ahead of him, doing this job that I wanted so much, day in, day out. I envied him his youth and his calling. He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder when I reached him. As I fought to catch breath I wondered if I was getting too old to pursue this dream that some people might think was foolish, to be a bush vet in Africa and start all over again.

  “Doctor Clay, I learnt something today, watching how fast you ran from that elephant two times.”

  “What’s that, Fred?”

  “Age means nothing.”

  As a four-year-old, posing with piñatas in Mexico

  Rod Genricks (right) and I, waiting to pick up guests up at the airport (and choosing the best-looking ones …)

  My passion for elephants started early

  Catching fish poachers in Malawi

  With Rod and Frank at Sabi Sabi, years later

  Examining a shot leopard just after my reinstatement

  First elephant shot at dump after it had eaten plastic and developed intestinal obstructions

  Elephant’s ears chewed by hyenas overnight

  The first lion I treated

  Shaving fight wounds

  Elephant tusk hole in tailgate. A bit too close for comfort …

  Warthog caught in snare

  Free

  Hyena in culvert

  Impala caught in snare

  Snare

  Laura

  Vaccinating dogs for the community

  Outbreak of distemper

  Vaccinating well into the night

  SPCA neutering day – patients waking up after surgery

  Tacaroo

  Baby elephant stuck in the mud

  Going down – Laura and I were terrified that after I’d darted the angry mother elephant she might fall on top of her baby, who was stuck in the mud just behind her

  Free – We pulled the baby elephant out of the mud using my truck. The little guy took several swipes at me while I was putting the strap around him!

  Lion hit by a car

  X-ray of lion spine and hips

  Lion shot in spine
by poachers

  Bateleur eagle surgery

  Stitched up

  Better

  Waterbuck

  Buffalo with snare

  Treating gunshots

  Close-up of gunshots

  Another gunshot victim

  Elephant shot at base of tusk – a bullet in the brain is affecting swallowing

  Elephants shot with automatic weapons often escape to die miles away from the scene, depriving poachers of their ivory

  Minnie attacked by a leopard in the back yard

  Claw wounds

  Night vision: two leopards eating bait

  Relocation of rogue leopard

  Three rogue lions relocated