The Rhino with Glue-On Shoes
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Modern zoos, aquaria, and wildlife parks now invest in conservation programs, and many have updated their exhibits and education programs to reflect the importance of protecting entire ecosystems. Protected areas and national parks are also hiring more vets to monitor the health of rare species and intervene by treating individual animals when necessary.
In the course of our careers, we zoo vets now have the opportunity to practice medicine in a variety of settings. We possess a unique set of skills that allows us to treat the individual animal while also considering the population as a whole. We know how to explain the science behind the medicine, and why some medical decisions are more problematic than others. Our challenge is to take these efforts one step further.
On a world scale, the health of all living things is connected. From a holistic point of view, a wild animal can remain healthy only if the humans and other animals in its ecosystem are also healthy. The negative corollary is that there’s a chain reaction when something goes wrong.
Even the king of the jungle, the African lion, has succumbed to diseases like dog distemper, an infection spread by village dogs in the Serengeti to free-ranging jackals and wild dogs. The lions were infected secondarily. In the suburbs of Los Angeles, raccoons picked up distemper from feral dogs, as they often do, and spread it to a wildlife sanctuary, where it killed lions and other big cats.
A similar domino effect continues to affect sea otters off the coast of California. Every year several die from a brain infection caused by a parasite that originates in two species, the feral cat and the Virginia opossum. Soil erosion and clogged tributaries contribute to excess runoff of rainwater that flows into the ocean, carrying with it the scat of these animals. Once in the food chain of kelp and abalone, the disease can be picked up by the sea otters—and potentially by seafood-loving humans as well.
Zoo vets have begun playing an active role in restoring the balance of nature, though the workload ahead seems to stretch to infinity. In cooperation with other scientists, we have managed in recent years to restore a handful of endangered species to the wild. Clearly, the chain reaction of ill health can be reversed if we work together. By taking advantage of the fact that everything is connected, zoo vets can make a positive difference.
When a doctor heals a patient, human or animal, the entire ecosystem benefits. When public health officials eradicate measles and polio, the world will become a healthier place for wild animals too. Health professionals, decision-makers, and ordinary citizens can set policies that protect existing healthy ecosystems and target those that need our help. If we act quickly, wisely, and collaboratively, we can even contain emerging diseases.
It’s essential that vets who work with wild animals find ways to integrate their expertise into the broad scheme of things. We need to share what we know and how we feel about wild animals and their health, and do our best to promote healthy ecosystems in the places where we work. The stories in this book reflect the willingness within our profession to do just that—to talk to people as well as animals.
Lucy H. Spelman, DVM
Acknowledgments
We thank our contributing authors for their enthusiastic participation in this project from the beginning, as well as the many veterinarians who directly or indirectly contributed their expertise to help the wild animal patients in each story. In other words, we thank all vets who work with wild animals!
We are also grateful to keepers, animal caretakers, biologists, trackers, and rangers—paid and volunteer—for their tireless efforts on behalf of the animals under their care.
We thank Jody Rein, our literary agent, for her support, encouragement, constructive criticism, expertise, timely advice, and fascination with wild animals. Without Jody, this book would still be a good idea in the backs of our minds, and we would never have found Danielle Perez, our equally terrific editor at Bantam Dell.
For their encouragement, we are grateful to our many friends and colleagues. Special thanks go to: Bill Adler, Clark Bunting, Alan Cutler, Jackie Jeffers, Jo Gayle Howard, Franchon Smithson, Diane McTurk, Roy Mashima, Julie Mashima, Athena Mylonas, Jennie Rice, Trish Silber, and Mary Tanner.
THE RHINO WITH GLUE-ON SHOES
A Delacorte Press Book / July 2008
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2008 by Lucy H. Spelman, LLC, and Ted Y. Mashima, DVM
Delacorte Press is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The rhino with glue-on shoes: and other surprising true stories of zoo vets and their patients / edited by Lucy H. Spelman and Ted Y. Mashima; foreword by Jack Hanna.
p. cm.
SF995.84.R45 2008
636.089092‘2—dc22 2007052635
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-440-33788-1
v3.0