SZ Tale 04

Zoo was slack today. Had a vet morning talk where the veterinarian shared a lot of interesting live stories. The most saddening and gratifying story is about an owl with a closed eye. Usually for such symptom, the vet has a standard treatment but for this case, the vet felt something amiss. He sensed the owl was unhappy and decided to bring it back to the clinic.

He found the closed eye was alright but it refused to open. On further examination, he found something black (which is a dead black ant) and removed it, only to find another of it. In total he removed about 300+ ants in that closed eye. As a precaution, he decided to check the other eye and removed another 300+ ants. Although the owl has been cured, the vet was puzzled how did so many ants get in.

The next day, the keeper found a dead deer at the same location they found the sick owl. The vet pieced up the information and realised the owl might have been startled by the dead deer and knocked itself unconscious. Thus allowing the ants to crawl into its eyes. When the owl woke up, the eye movement kind of cut the air supply for the ants causing them to die inside. This could have caused the owl some discomfort which explains its behaviour.

I have to admit it is an incredible story and one I hope will never happen. And after the talk, one does have the urge to be a veterinarian to help these animals. In the human world, there are many types of doctors, those who own private clinics and earn relatively higher as well as those who work for MSF. In the animal world, there are also many types of veterinarian, those who see cats and dogs daily (haha meaning they also own their own clinics and earn a lot) versus those who work in the zoo. I’m not saying the zoo pays low but it is a common knowledge that you set your own salary when you own the clinic.

So passion and the interest to treat a wider variety of animals (not many veterinarians will get to treat tigers and elephants) play a strong motivation role when one decides to be a vet in the zoo like the speaker. And for that, I have to salute him.