Associate Specialist Wildlife Veterinarian
Zabeel Veterinary Hospital
Total years of experience :24 years, 8 Months
• Caring for several wildlife collections including elephant, hippo, large predators, bears, wolves, gazelles, antelopes, giraffes as well as snakes and birds
• Implementing preventative medicine
• Examining clinical cases
• Disease investigations
• Monitoring of staff
• Attending to Wildlife veterinary call outs in the area
• Assisting wildlife farmers with herd management issues
• Wildlife capture and darting
• Running and maintaining the practice and necessary permits
• Maintaining the veterinary scheduled drug register
• Taking university students on call outs as part of their WIL experience
• Lecturing of undergraduate students in cell biology and ecophysiology. Class sizes of 25 to 200.
• Supervising laboratory practical components
• Teaching university modules online and in person
• Contributing to fish health research projects
• Being a member of the University Research Ethics Committee
• Managing veterinary wildlife practice, including client communication, invoicing, scheduled drug register maintenance
• Lecturing international students and veterinarians (CPD accredited) in aspects of wildlife management and capture, wildlife medicine / pharmacology and one-health
• Training and supervising staff for the practice and quarantine enclosures
• Carrying out wildlife clinical consultations, post-mortems, disease investigations
• Supervising the maintenance of a wildlife quarantine enclosure
• Working with a capture team to translocate wildlife - including elephant, rhinoceros (black and white), buffalo, giraffes, all antelope species, large predators and crocodiles
• Working with government agencies to obtain necessary permits for wildlife operations
• Planning and executing research projects in wildlife anaesthesia for Wildlife Pharmaceuticals (Pty) Ltd.
• Being part of the Registered Research Ethics Committee of Wildlife Pharmaceuticals
• Developing and leading a community One-Health project in the rural areas
• Managing my own veterinary practice, including financial aspects and book-keeping
• Generating new clients
• Offering ambulatory veterinary and herd health services to wildlife, crocodile, and beef farmers
• Dealing with disease outbreak at the wildlife livestock interface
• Advising clients on wildlife management issues
• Inspecting meat in game abattoirs
• Being the co- owner and manager of the business
• Managing 8 staff members with financial aspects, advertising, client communication
• Liaising with government agencies on a continuous basis for all necessary permits to carry out wildlife translocations
• Developing species specific transport crates and enclosure designs
• Capturing and transporting wildlife including elephant, rhino, large predators, buffalo, giraffe, crocodiles and most antelope species
• Consulting game farmers on all aspects of game management and management plans
• Importing and exporting wildlife such as large predators and antelope
• Hand raising wild animals and registering wildlife rehabilitation facility
• Breeding of various indigenous antelope species
• Farming and rearing 650 crocodiles from hatchling to grower stage
• Farming cattle - specializing in miniature zebu cattle and Nguni cattle
• Veld management and anti-poaching on our own 100 ha game farm
• Consulting clinical wildlife and ruminant health cases
• Developing the relationship between the veterinary faculty and the wildlife industry, and with individual clients
• Developing core competencies and syllabus for the new wildlife path offered to final year students
• Teaching students in various subjects of production animal health and wildlife medicine
• Contributing to community outreach and One-Health projects
• Consulting in rural mixed practice in South Africa with wildlife component
Carried on working here as free lancer for many years
• Consulting in rural practice, mostly production animals
• Carrying out meat inspection in EU registered abattoir
Investigations into the respiratory physiology of opioid immobilisation in African antelope
With Distinction Specialist Degree as a Veterinary Specialist in Wildlife Medicine Thesis: Physiological parameters of farmed Nile crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) captured manually and by electrical immobilisation
With Distinction Thesis: Occurrence of tick-borne haemoparasites in nyala (Tragelaphus angasii) in KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Province, South Africa
Distance study course
Cum Laude Thesis:Newcastle Disease and Avian Influenza in wild birds in an area with a history of intensive ostrich farming in South Africa
Equivalency of this degree has been established by the Ministry of Education of Dubai