Scrubs, Stethoscopes, and Scalpels- The Life of a Vet Student: Save our Rhinos, Hunt a Poacher!

I really wanted to do a more in-depth description of the work I did with the rhinos in South Africa, because I really do feel that those two days were the most interesting. And they were the two days where I really felt that I was contributing the most to the wildlife conservation cause.

The whole idea of the rhino horn infusions is to make the ivory worthless on the black market. Of course, you can't tell that the ivory is worthless just by looking at the rhino, so the whole hope is that the procedure will spread by word of mouth, and poachers will know that rhinos on the reserves have been treated and that they'll go somewhere else. And so far, to the best of my knowledge, none of the treated rhinos have been poached, so it's hard to say whether the treatment is effective or not.

The treatment itself involves darting rhino from a helicopter (they are darted with 4 mg of etorphine, which is essentially morphine x 10,000), and once the rhino goes down holes are drilled into the horns in order to attach the hoses for the transfusion. A rhino's horn is keratin, the same material that makes up human fingernails, so they don't feel it. The infusion is a mixture of an ectoparasiticide and an indelible dye, or an indestructible dye. An ectoparasiticide is basically a medication that we would use on animals to treat and prevent fleas, ticks, and so on. The one used in this procedure is an organophosphate. Since some of the myth around rhino horn is that by ingesting it you can be cured of anything from headaches to cancer (this is an especially popular belief in Vietnam), the idea of injecting this parasiticide is that when humans ingest it, it will make them physically sick and not want to try it again in a hurry. The dye that is injected stains the ivory pink, and makes it worthless for carving. So overall, the entire procedure is designed to ruin the value of the horn by making it worthless for decoration and toxic to ingest.

There is some debate among veterinarians as to the effectiveness of this procedure, but I think that since it is still so new it will be a while before there is any data either for or against it. Some veterinarians are still in favor of dehorning, as a rhino's horn is able to regenerate itself in about 6 years. This procedure was created to try and prevent dehorning, as rhinos are such a huge part of the tourism industry in Africa. A rhino's horn is porous, and the infusion is thought to last for 4 years.

While doing the infusion, microchips are also inserted into each horn. The holes are then stuffed with putty and wrapped with duct tape. This allows the research teams to monitor the rhinos and the ivory, should the rhinos be poached. Each rhino also received an ankle tracking collar as well as an ear notch.

While doing all of these procedures, it was our drop to monitor respiration and pulse on the rhinos. We weren't able to help with the actual infusion since it is toxic. We measured the respiration by holding our hand in front of the rhino's nostril and counting breaths. The respiration on the rhino should be between 8-20 breath per minute as the widest range, but we were trying to keep it more in the 9-12 bpm range. When the respiration drops too low (we had one that dropped to around 6 breaths per minute) the rhino is given a shot of butorphanol in the ear artery to help wake it up a bit. The pulse on a rhino is actually taken on the inside of the ear. The normal pulse for a rhino is around 37, according to one of the vets in charge of the infusion procedure, but when they are under etorphine their pulse goes up to around 60, and that's where you want it. When the rhino becomes stressed, the pulse can get as high as 150. And as a fun fact, a rhino's body temp is slightly warmer than ours at 37-38 degrees C, or right around 98.6 degrees F. Because the days in Africa get so hot, even in the winter, we had to consistently pour water over the rhinos during the procedure to help keep their body temperature down.

The last part of the procedure we got to help with make have actually been the most fun- rolling the rhinos. This procedure is done with the rhino laying laterally on its side. However, we don't want the rhino laying on the same side for too long, or it can start to impair breathing and damage the lung. So halfway through each procedure we rolled the rhino onto its other side. This was quite an event that took about 7-8 people to manage. But then you get to say you flipped a rhino. And rhinos are actually quite efficient breathers, so I'm not sure how long a rhino would have to be laying on its side before damage occurred. But each rhino also got an oxygen tube as an added precaution.

When I first arrived in Africa, I was really only interested in rhinos in that they were part of the "Big 5". But after working with, I really love them. They are just such awesome animals, and there is nothing else like them on this planet. I'm really hoping that either the dehornings, this infusion procedure, or a combination of the two can help save South Africa's rhinos. Currently, about 75 rhinos are being poached in South Africa PER WEEK. Those numbers are just out of control. Our very first call out in South Africa was for a rhino poaching incident. So far about 200 rhinos have had this horn infusion, and considering we only managed to do 4 per day, that's a lot of work. The eventual goal is to do 6000-7000 out of the 20,000 rhinos still left in South Africa.