Bringing new meaning to the word, "s***head"

By: Dana Cannon

Class of 2013, Ross University

While I was on a VIDA trip in Nicaragua, this Brahman calf was behind his mom in the stocks and his mom just couldn't hold it in!  How unfortunate, but a very good laugh!

 

South Africa Field Experience

y: Michael Lovasz

Class of 2012, Ross University

Did you know that Echinococcus is commonly found in the fur of the leopard?  I do now. This is just one of the many interesting facts that I learned while doing a two week externship in South Africa last April. A group of four of us were about to start our third year of Veterinary School and we were very eager to apply what we already knew, or believed we knew, to the field.

In our first week we had the rare opportunity to assist in Cape buffalo herd management in the Red Zone. These animals were either infected or acting as a buffer zone to animals infected with Foot and Mouth Disease, Tuberculosis, Brucellosis, and Corridor Disease (Theileria parva). Tuberculosis is a huge concern in South Africa because it affects populations throughout the ecosystem. It effects the immunocompromised humans, which is an immediate concern, and tuberculosis has also decimated the lion population.  The value of a disease-free buffalo is about ten times greater than an infected one. While the story of tuberculosis in buffalo, lions and man is interesting, this article is going to focus on my time with leopards, and their story is an unfortunate and sad one.

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Taste of Island Vet School Life

By: Elizabeth Maxwell

Ross University

4' x 6' Oil on canvas

India’s Dudhwa National Park: not quite forsaken

By: Arvind Badrinarayanan
Ross University

A really wild experience usually involves a wild journey there. Along India’s 1,700km border with Nepal, vast swathes of forest at the foothills of the Himalayas shelter some of the last substantial areas of biodiversity in the continent. The Terai grasslands run through here and Nepal all the way to Bhutan.

Yet even in these remote corners of the world, the extensive Indian railway network sends an ancient metre gauge train, barely occupied, curling around the rising hills to just within range of my destination. Dudhwa National Park, a forgotten and not quite forsaken treasure trove of nature sits on this border, a front line in the fight on wildlife poaching and trafficking.

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An Ounce of Prevention

By: Anna Whitehead
Class of 2011, Ross University

The management of stray animal populations is a sensitive subject. People have deep-seeded opinions on what is ethical and/or practical. Most are unwilling to compromise.  But pet overpopulation within shelters is detrimental to the health of its animals and inhibiting of their proper socialization and care. For better or for worse, the current methodology for control is to euthanize the animals for which there is not room in the shelter.

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