Busy as usual

I am extremely tired at the moment after the conferences and elephant operation. I haven’t even had a chance to look at my Russian lessons book.
Since the weekend we have been extremely busy. The coatis are now out in their new enclosure. I could watch them all day, running up and down the branches, digging in the soil, balancing on and under the ropes – I think they are having a fantastic time.
At the zoo we have a female Carpathian Lynx – I have posted photos of her previously. She is gorgeous. Anyway, Carpathian Lynx are a local species here in Ukraine and like many species all over the world; they are becoming increasingly rare in their natural habitat. We have been given permission to build a new lynx enclosure as a specific breeding centre for this magnificent species, as we will be getting a male lynx soon and hope to be able to pair these animals up and have some babies. There is a big possibility that we will be able to release these babies (once they are old enough) into protected nature reserves. Conservation in Action! Steve has been working extremely closely with the carnivore department and has planned a suitable enclosure which the maintenance men have started to build. Steve and I have been inside the enclosure starting to furnish it for the lynx. We have been digging huge holes and putting upright tree branches into them. We will fix little platforms made from slices of a large tree trunk into these trees so the lynx have some nice high places to sit and relax. I think it will look like one of the “cat houses on top of scratching post” devices that you can get for your pet cat (but much bigger).
Today I have had another mosquito attack, again very close to my left eye. My face is swollen but it’s not itchy, just uncomfortable and very puffy. I think I may be starting to build up some sort of immunity as it is not as swollen as last time.
I am absolutely amazed at how big the elephant story has become in the newspapers. I have seen the article in Russian, Ukrainian, German, Italian and English. I have had emails from all over the world from people saying they have either seen a newspaper with us in it or a film on the news. We have even been asked for interviews by various UK newspapers!
Following on from the operation, we are about to make some big changes to the life of the elephant. His diet is being changed to increase the fibre levels and keep him busier – I have designed a puzzle feeder for him that will be constructed next week. We are going to change his daily routine to provide more exercise, more enrichment and more interaction with the keepers. I will begin to train him for routine foot-care and veterinary attention. It’s such a positive development for him and for Kyiv Zoo.
To assist in the development of our elephant programme I have been in regular email discussion with zoos all over the world, with some top elephant experts. Zoo and conservation people have a great tradition of excellent cooperation and communication. In my opinion, the zoo world is one of the only businesses/industries where you can phone anyone at a different zoo/organisation and ask for advice or information – we are all working towards a common goal. If zoo keepers visit a different country and want to go to the zoo they are welcomed with open arms. We all value tremendously each other’s opinions and knowledge – we all have so much to learn and teach each other.

The first and bravest coati

The others soon followed

Site of the Carpathian Lynx Breeding Centre

Fence Posts Going Up

Me digging a hole

Putting tree in the hole

Support struts for the tree platforms

Steve chainsawing logs for the enclosure

Elephant Manicure

On Saturday we were woken at 4am big the most incredibly loud thunderstorm and torrential downpour. This was not good. We were due to get up in an hour to start preparations for an elephant operation. Sleep and good weather was to be crucial.
Fortunately by the time we all met to begin the procedure the skies had emptied themselves, the weather was cool and dry – perfect conditions.
The operation was to be carried out by Kyiv Zoo’s own team of excellent vets, various Kyiv Zoo staff and the world renowned Professor Wiesner, Director and Head Vet from Munich Zoo. Wiesner’s German team consisted of another vet – Julia, and two elephant keepers – Robert and Andreas. They also had a film crew in tow.
Kyiv Zoo has one elephant – a big Asian Bull called Boy. For various reasons Boy’s toenails had become monstrously overgrown and needed trimming back to make them more comfortable for him.
The day started by giving Boy an elephant sized sandwich with some pre-anaesthetic tranquilizers secreted inside. Apparently it was a blackcurrant jam sandwich.
Whilst Boy was digesting his “spiked” sandwich we set up the equipment. Two enormous cranes outside the enclosure, drugs for the operation, industrial electric sanders for the toenails, straw to make him comfortable and all sorts of other equipment was laid out in order.
About an hour post-sandwich Boy was let out of his house. The Professor was lying in wait with a blow dart pipe at the ready. As soon as Boy appeared the Professor followed him with the pipe, and when the time was right – BANG – a perfect shot, right in the shoulder. But, there was a problem – the shot was good but the drugs were stuck in the syringe. Professor Wiesner reloaded, a keeper tempted the elephant near with a chunk of bread and this time it was good – the drugs were expelled from the syringe and could start to work their way round Boy’s immense body.
We waited quietly for about 20-30 minutes and Boy started to wobble, his eyes dimmed and the Professor sprung into action. He entered the enclosure and threw some huge straps through Boy’s legs. He tied some guide ropes around the legs and with the help of his keepers and Steve, started to help Boy to lie down in a good position. As soon as the elephant was down, we started working manically. Our vets covered the elephant’s eyes and set up their kit to monitor the anaesthesia and give additional medication. Professor Wiesner, his keepers, Steve and our keepers started with the electric sanders to bring the offending nails back down to size. Some of the nails were so big that they needed to be sawn off using a handsaw. The smell was terrible – like burning hair, dust and shavings from the nails were flying through the air like snow. I can’t describe just how bad the odour was, my clothes still smell of it and there are still bits of elephant toenail in my hair – it just got everywhere!
Halfway through the 4 hour operation we had to move the elephant. It’s not good for them to lie in one position for extended periods of time. How do you move a 6 and a half ton anaesthetised elephant? The cranes were lowered and the straps that were underneath Boy’s prone body were attached. We tied ropes to his legs, and as he was raised ungainly into the air, we pulled his legs into position for more manicuring, before the crane operators carefully lowered him back down again.
I was working mostly with Andreas to trim the feet pads, whilst Steve, Robert and other people continued to sand the nails back. When you trim elephant’s foot pads you have to be careful not to go too deep as it will bleed. Whilst I was trimming I saw a few tiny blood spots and started to worry that I had hurt the elephant. It turned out that I had skinned my knuckle and was bleeding on the elephant!
By about 1pm we had nearly finished so started to clear the enclosure. Everyone carried out the equipment, took away the straw bed and generally vacated the area. The vets gave the elephant the reversal drug and he started to wake up. As we watched, we could see that he was awake but having trouble coordinating his feet – he had spent the first half of the operation lying on top of one of his legs. Professor Wiesner got the hose pipe and gave Boy a drink and a wash down, but he still couldn’t get up. There were still crane straps underneath him, so Steve and the keepers started to pull the straps to support the elephant while he got up. It just wouldn’t work, so we attached the straps to the crane and gave him a lift back up to his feet. The Professor just chatted away to him in German and sprayed him with cooling water. Once we were all satisfied that the recovery was good, we decided it was time for a celebratory cup of tea. This was not to be the case – the team had to answer questions at a huge press conference. The whole operation had been filmed and watched by at least 100 journalists.
Once this was over, there was time for a quick shower and change of clothes before heading out to a restaurant with the Director of Kyiv Zoo for fantastic food, many beers and some Ukrainian vodka, much to the delight of the German Keepers. They were such nice people; we talked all afternoon about elephants, zoos and animals.
Amazing, successful day!

Boy's horrible feet

Getting the cranes in position

Professor Wiesner getting the drugs ready

Manicure kit for elephants

Professor Wiesner and Julia getting everything organised

Andrei, our Head Vet with the Blow Pipe

Professor Wiesner firing the first dart

Boy getting a bit wobbly on his feet

Putting the leg straps on

Leg straps and horrendous feet

Crane strop in place

Boy starts to go under the anaesthetic

Steve keeps the strop in place while Boy sits down

Boy is down

Boy's eyes are covered

Robert starts sanding the toenails

The vets monitor Boy

Steve working on a foot

Steve with a piece of toenail

Steve sanding a toenail

Steve sawing a toenail

Andreas working on a foot

Robert and Professor Wiesner sanding and trimming

Getting ready to move the elephant

Going Up

Back down again

Andreas trimming a foot pad

Me trimming a foot pad

Professor Wiesner waking Boy up

Giving Boy a hand to get up

The Professor giving Boy a shower

Boy's new feet

The Elephant Team

Armadillos

In other news, we have been sent a rescue package by the wonderful Luciana – she posted us four jars of marmite! Such a nice thing to do, and I’m extremely pleased that they weren’t intercepted by Ukrainian Customs!
A pair of Armadillo has arrived at the zoo. They are excellent! At the moment they are in quarantine at the vet centre, but will be moving to their new enclosure in a couple of week’s time.

Vodka and Bears

Kyiv Zoo has just hosted four days of International Zoo Conferences. Zoo conferences here are much the same as in the UK or Western Europe, except here there is considerably more vodka involved.
This was a particularly special conference as Kyiv Zoo is celebrating its 100th anniversary. People came from zoos in Russia, Ukraine, Armenia, Hungary, Poland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and I am ashamed to admit, places and cities I have never heard of! The actual conference presentations were excellent, some really interesting research on veterinary topics, amphibian diseases, enrichment, animal training etc. Fantastic and we are extremely grateful to our translator! Some of the other participants were not so lucky – everyone at the conferences spoke Russian but some zoos presented their topics in Ukrainian – fine for us, but not so good for the Russian speakers. Like most conferences, much of the actual work goes on in the breaks and evenings – making contacts etc. During the presentation sections it was also a bit different, several people were videoing the whole conference to share with colleagues at their zoos, and most people were taking photos of all the PowerPoint slides. Doesn’t happen so much at UK conferences.
Steve made his presentation early on the first day. He talked about setting up enrichment programmes, how to make them effective and how to monitor them. It went down very well he even got a few laughs with some of his enrichment pictures; people asked a lot of questions both at the time and throughout the rest of the conference.
Lunch was provided each day at a local cafe, which provided another opportunity for networking and chatting about animals. It’s amazing to meet with, for example, someone from the Republic of Tartarstan (look it up on a map, that’s what we had to do) and have so many things to talk about with them.
We also met an elephant keeper from Budapest Zoo; in Hungary. He gave an excellent presentation on training techniques. We have actually spent most of the conference with him as he speaks excellent English.
On the first evening a meal was arranged at a restaurant at the University – just across the road from the zoo. I should really call it a feast, as there were mountains of every kind of Ukrainian food you can imagine, and bottles and bottles of vodka. As usual, there were many toasts, all long and full of the spirit of international cooperation and friendship, to the past 100 years of Kyiv Zoo, to the next 100 years of Kyiv Zoo, to the conference participants, to women zoo workers, to men zoo workers.............. Steve was asked to make a toast; he talked about the global zoo community, how amazing it was that we could all come together to learn and share with each other and this is what would make the zoo world a strong force in conservation. He ended his speech with the traditional English toast “Anaglypta”, explaining that this is very much like saying “Cheers”. The toast of Anaglypta was invented by our good friend Mr. Roger Best (Zoo Electric Fence Specialist) who we hope will be proud that we have brought Anaglypta to the people of Russia and Eastern Europe! The evening was wonderful, everyone was warm and friendly. We drank a lot of vodka and there was plenty of singing. A Zoo Director from Armenia is an opera singer, so he sang some traditional songs, and at the other end of the scale was a very drunk Zoo Director from one of the Russian Republics who serenaded me with Beatles songs! We have found that Russians and Ukrainians adore the Beatles, and a lot of other English music.
The second day of the conference was mainly for veterinary topics. On the first day, it was extremely difficult to understand the presentations without our translator but the second day was slightly easier as there was a lot of familiar veterinary terminology. We talked a lot with a Ukrainian vet who has written several text books on anaesthesia, she was interested in anaesthesias that we have been involved in at other zoos and we were able to show her a lot of the photos of tigers, bears, jaguar etc from last year.
My presentation was in the afternoon. It was quite nerve-racking as there were lots of Zoo Directors and Zoo Vets. I presented on an unusual disease in a puma that I observed last year. There was a lot of interest from Moscow Zoo as I quoted from some papers that they wrote and compared my case to theirs.
At the end of the day there were more drinks, food and many many toasts at the vet centre in the zoo. Steve was asked to make the first toast, but this time did not use Anaglypta.
On day three (Friday), we went to a workshop organised by the Kyiv Zoo Vet team. They have recently written a book on anaesthesia in bears (and used one of our photos) – two of the younger vets are doing PhDs on anaesthesia. The workshop was for non-inhalation anaesthesia in a bear. One of the Zoo’s Isabellinus bears (a small honey coloured sub-species of the European Brown Bear) needed a check up following dental surgery last winter. The procedure went very smoothly, and the bear’s teeth are in a very good condition now.
In the evening was the main conference dinner (we thought the first one was, but apparently not). This one was just for Zoo Directors and Curators. It was at a very nice hotel in the centre of Kyiv. Again there was plenty of food and drink, singing, dancing and talking. All the Zoo Directors took turns to make toasts to the conference and the 100th anniversary of Kyiv Zoo. They all brought gifts for the zoo – animal sculptures, paintings, carvings, traditional items from their countries. After the meal there was entertainment – traditional Ukrainian singing and dancing.
Towards the end of the evening, a team of vets and elephant keepers arrived from Munich Zoo in Germany, as the elephant was scheduled for an operation on the next day. We spoke to them briefly in English and they said that for Ukrainians we spoke excellent English!

Steve giving enrichment presentation

Me giving Puma presentation

Anesthetised Bear


Bear Operation

Conference Meal Entertainment