Mara Mobile Veterinary Unit

Category: Dogs, Life of a Vet | Date: Mar 17 2008 | By: admin

I have little time before I fly to Nairobi, so going to upload all my photos now!

We did the school talk at Olepoipoi Primary School in Olmotoni (yes, for those of you who has been following my blog, it is the area the Canine Distemper outbreak started last year)

Once again, Lesingo showing the poster to the school children

This time, it is pink uniforms!

Showing the red dog collar and vaccination card.

2 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet | Date: Mar 17 2008 | By: admin

I am going to Nairobi to pick up my new project car today. I really hope it is ready. It was supposed to be ready 6 weeks ago… I will update more photos from dog vaccination once I am in Nairobi with better internet connection.

Here is little quiz from Mara.

Who left these footprints?

1.

2.

3 responses so far

Category: Dogs, Life of a Vet | Date: Mar 16 2008 | By: admin

I had couple of friends who were visiting me and they were happy to be the cameraman during their stay. Usually, there is no photos of myself, but this time I managed to sneak myself into some of the photos.

A cup of tea for lunch.

Lesingo roaming around the Maasai land with coolbox full of vaccines.

10 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet, Livestock | Date: Mar 15 2008 | By: admin

While I was in Lolgorian, I have received the report that someone who was hunting for bush meat (wildlife) accidentally shot two calves by arrows. Apparently this happened a week ago, but the wound was still swollen. The owner requested a surgery to remove an “embedded arrow” from his calves’ abdomen. The farmer’s house was 4 hours round trip on a horrendous road and when I arrived at the village, I found two calves with very similar wounds (swollen point on right lower abdomen). When I checked the wound, I did not think that arrow point was still inside as owner claims, as swelling was way too small in comparrison.

He claims that this huge arrown point is still inside!

I have removed the small metal pieces and puss inside the swelling.

Practically the entire village came to witness this surgery…

“Ng’ombe imeshona kama gunia “(cattle stitched up like wheat sack), says the villager…

5 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet, Livestock | Date: Mar 14 2008 | By: admin

I have just managed to reach one of the big towns here in Trans Mara, Lolgorian. This town is predominantly Maasai town and needless to say, livestock trade is major business. Town holds two major market days (Wednesday and Saturday) and Maasai livestock traders from all over Trans Mara and Narok districts congregate in “soko ya ng’ombe” (cattle market). Many are Maasai from Loita region who spend two days walking to Lolgorian and three days back to Loita with mix herd of cattle, sheeps and goats. On Thursday and Sunday morning following the market days, you will come across parade of livestock along the main road.

“soko ya ng’ombe”

When there is a major trading of livestock in form of live weight, there is off course amajor trading of livestock in carcass weight. Slaughter house in Lolgorian is busy on Wednesday and Saturday. As a consequences, stray dogs of Lolgorian town wait patiently around the abbatoire for occational meat scraps, causing growing concern for Public Health Department. Stray dogs can potentially become the vector for diseases such as Hydatidosis and you really don’t want “scavengers” hanging around in a place where people handle meat for human consumption.

So, last month, the department sent some officals to take care of the problem by euthenizing them. Some dogs with owner also hang around the slaughter house and these dogs also died from feeding on the bait. As I visited households from Lolgorian, owner bittery told us that their dogs were killed last month. The point I want to bring out here is the issue of public health awareness and responsibility of dog owner. I am not blaming the public health department because they are doing their job in taking care of human health and preventing chances of potentially human-transmissable diseases. It will be owner’s responsibility to restrict their dog’s activity around the slaughter house, as well as town’s management to clean out trash point and fence off larger premises of the slaughter house, so that dogs do not become scavengers in town. People must understand that being an unresponsible owner is the direct cause of death of their dogs.

This particular owner restricted her dogs in courtyard.

I hope next generation will be more responsible dog keeper.

7 responses so far

Category: Dogs, Life of a Vet | Date: Mar 08 2008 | By: admin

Today, my dog handler Lesingo got bitten by a dog. We are now up to 2,770 dogs and it was his first time getting bitten by one (I got bitten about a year ago). The bite was small, but we deal with non-vaccinated dog and it was important for him to get post-exposure vaccine nontheless. After giving him a basic first aid treatment, we rushed to my house to pick up the post-exposure vaccine and headed for local dispensary. In general, Maasai can take lots of pain, but from larger crude weapon such as panga (machete), spear, arrows and rungu (club). For some reason they do not handle pain well from tiny pointy needle. Lesingo finched and told me that “he hated needles”.

After Lesingo’s treatment, daktali (doctor) came to us to thank us for all the work we are doing for the community. He says that prior to our vaccination campaign, he was getting average of 5-8 rabid dog attack cases per month. Since we started the vaccination, the number of victim is now is almost zero as even the sporadic cases are from vaccinated dogs. I am soooo happy to hear this positive feedback!

Lesingo collaring of vaccinated dog.

7 responses so far

Category: Dogs, Life of a Vet | Date: Mar 05 2008 | By: admin

I am back on my track with my dog vaccination. We have started off from the area we left out from last year’s work (number we left off is 2,611 dogs). Just before starting our vaccination in the Lolgorian area, I visited the local primary school to give a small talk during the student parade. I talked to the headmaster of the school to gather up all the students and I was shocked when 950 students came rushing out!

My god, I did not realize that this school had so many students!

Basically, the talk I give entails “what is rabies and how does it affects human?”, “how is rabies transmitted and what you should do when you are bitten by a rabid dog”, “what kind of work we do” and “how to properly handle dog without getting bitten”. Teaching children the basic of this deadly disease is important as most of the victims of rabid dog attack are of age 5-15.

Rabies Awareness Poster

7 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet, Livestock, Wildlife | Date: Mar 02 2008 | By: admin

Today, I met up with ranger Naitoi and I have downloaded the photos he has taken from last year. There were very interesting photos of wildlife in the reserve, but what really interested me the most were the photos taken from livestock attack scene. Yup, crime scene photos with all the gruesome details of torn flesh, dripping blood and all… well, basically lots and lots of dead bodies.

Naitoi had almost 200 photos of livestock attack, but I only manage to update 34 photos here on my personal website. The text is in Japanese, but the graphics should give you an idea on how much damage the large carnivores can cause to livestock keeper. These amazing photos gives an idea on what we are dealing with when we talk about need for predator control. The wildlife-livestock conflict is the major reason why lions and leopards are being killed all over Africa, but if you take a look at these photos, you will understand livestock keepers’ anger over the whole issue.

The first sets of photos are of cattle killed by lions. Second sets are leopard attacks on sheeps and goats. Lastly, I posted photos of livestock massacre or killing craze by leopard. I do not know if these are appropriate word to describe this behavior, but it is just crazy how this predator play kills the poor animals. It is just an enormous waste of animal lives…

This photo in particular shows powerful representation of what kind of damage carnivores are capable of inflicting on a herd of livestock. This is as a result of one leopard entering into boma at night, killing18 animals in half an hour or so, and eating only one. ALL the photos of mass killing are taken at different household in Trans Mara.

If you live in an area within 5 Km of wildlife reserve border, the livestock owners will be compensated for the loss (under the condition that they would not revenge kill the carnivores) It was hugely successful program started by Mara Conservancy in reducing an incident of revenge kill. However, this scheme has come to halt following the financial difficulty after tourism collapse.

3 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet, Wildlife | Date: Mar 02 2008 | By: admin

Thanks everybody for all the encouraging comments!

In general, I feel that there are two ways one asks for monetary donation. One way is by presenting all the horrible things happening on ground, so people donate through pitty and guilty conscious (yes, it is very unpleasant, but many use this trick and I really don’t like it). Other way is to present all the good things happening on ground, putting spotlight on efforts people put in their work and its outcome. In latter case, people feel the urge to support more of their work because they feel that they can be part of the great work. I think many of the blogs in Wildlifedirect is the latter case and it is also the way I have being getting my donations for the Mara Conservancy rangers. I just write what the rangers do, what they have achieved in six years, what changes they brought to Mara and what would happen if there is no fund to support their work. No matter how small the donation, it will make a great difference and is definitely part of great conservation work.

Yes, it is hard to ask for help, especially when it is monetary. It is not something I am used to do, as I am often stubborn and independent woman, but I do it because people around me need help. And they need help NOW. I dont think anyone likes asking for money, so when they do, they do it for someone they care or something they care about. I care about rangers in Mara as much as I care about the wildlife. Even if it means me asking 130,000 people for help, if Mara needs my small help, I will do it and I have done it. I dont know any one of the 130,000 people who I asked for support for Mara. They are total strangers to me. It is embarassing to sound so desperate and rejection hurt my feeling, too. Crisis in Mara has nothing to do with people I reached out, but my story and enthusiasm seemed to move lots of people to donate and as long as I can move people, I will continue my work.

Please, there is nothing impossible so join me in this Mara fundraising. Yes, I wrote articles in magazine, website, newspaper and webmanazine which is much bigger audience than most of you will start off with. However, people who read my article did amazing thing on their own initiative. They donated personally, then went and did their own small fundraising. Some wrote article about Mara on their website, others did small talks at local school, university, even at woman’s group lunch gathering and tennis group. Others showed the photos they took in Mara in the past and asked around for small donations from people who also have been to Mara.

We are no millionaire, but USD 30,000 is result of hundreds of small donations made by people who went out of their way to make a “small difference”. I have never done any fundraising in my life and certainly not a good campaigner or spokes person. Only thing I can proudly say is that I have unconditional love for Mara. I fell in love with this place 12 years ago when I first worked in a lodge called Mpata and later went back to school to become a vet because I wanted to do conservation work in Mara. I cannot stand here doing nothing when conservation work in Mara is put on a test.

2 responses so far

Category: Life of a Vet | Date: Mar 01 2008 | By: admin

I am in Nairobi for couple of days and I have just attended a meeting with Brian and General Manager of Landrover to close our purhcase deal on a second hand Defender Tdi (2005). After signing the paper, we saw the same vehicle as the one I am getting (same model and color). Oh, my God… It is an absolute beauty!!

It still needs to be brought up from Mombasa (from the previous owner), get a new license plate, get insurance, fitted with bull bumper, etc. so it will not be ready till mid March. I will be doing dog vaccination back in the Mara from Monday with my wrecked Suzuki, but will be coming to Nairobi to pick the Defender once it is ready.

I really cannot wait for that day!

4 responses so far