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Blogs from the Field

A healthy future for wildlife, people, and planet.

Administering a vaccine during the rabies campaign trip in the Eastern Communal Conservancies. Photo: Dr. Robin Gieling

On an early Saturday morning in late September 2021, I was half-awake when I logged in to attend the virtual Veterinary One Health Association Symposium. The first presenter was Dr. Laurie Marker, who I then learned was the Founder and Executive Director of the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF)....
A sloth with telemetry tag shown in a tree.

Did you know that the second most common cause of injured sloths coming into rescue centers is electrocution? If not, you are in the majority. There is little to no literature about sloth electrocution in the academic world, even though it is such a pervasive problem.
A whale calf’s entangled flipper and how tightly wrapped the line is.

For my last summer before clinical rotations, I wanted to gain experience with marine animals. I was accepted as an intern with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) Marine Mammal Rescue & Research (MMRR) program in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, a unique geographical area where tides and coastlines can suddenly trap a dolphin or whale in inches of water....
Hery Ríos-Guzmán, DVM ’24, in Bayahibe, Dominican Republic, FUNDEMAR’s headquarters.

We strap on our snorkel gear and jump into the blue. It only takes a few butterfly kicks to reach a citadel bustling with life. Within seconds, we are greeted by branching, massive, and laminar structures formed by hundreds of genetically identical individuals....
Free-roaming dogs in Nepal

It was 5:30 am and I was already sweating when I stepped out of my wooden sleeping hut and into the steamy dawn at Nepal’s Chitwan National Park.  It was already 85°F but would reach 105°F before noon. I was up before the sun to complete my summer intern research project - a census of free-roaming domestic dogs in the park’s buffer zone....
Carolina Baquerizo and team collecting fecal samples for the study

Working with primates is something I had avoided for a while. Most of my interest has been in southern Africa, with ungulates like giraffes, antelope, and pachyderms being my main focus. Yet I felt that, following the COVID-19 pandemic, learning more about wild primate health would be vital....