My Last Day at UWEC... and in Uganda

An unexpected morning:

Hameed told me yesterday we were to do some work on the olive baboon and the vervet monkey in the morning. However, when I arrived, he was in a rush to prepare the dart rifle. I asked what was going on. It turned out that Charles, the baby elephant, had some how opened the gate for Bambi, the little Sitatunga to escape from the pen... So we had to go out and find her. We actually did not have to go very far. She had not wandered into the UWEC forest thankfully. She actually was just grazing around the front of the hospital. Hameed tried to take his shot, trying to compensate for the fact that antelope like to jump when they see a dart coming, but instead of going up she went down so the dart missed. She thankfully did not freak out too much. We were able to chase her back to the area of the gate, just not enough to get her to go in. So Hameed took another shot and got her. She went down very fast; we carried her back to her pen. He gave the reversal while I dewormed her. The dart made more of a wound than expected so we needed to infuse some antibiotics and staple the wound closed and keep her under observation for the day.

Primates:

Female Olive Baboon

Next was the female Olive baboon that was staying in the hospital under quarantine. She had never been worked on before so I was told to double glove. Remember we share a lot of the same diseases as primates. She was darted and went down, quite vocally. We were NOT going in there until she was out cold; not fun to mess with a baboon, they can be quite vicious. We then brought her back to the treatment room. Barbara got blood and I gave all her required shots and did some monitoring. We think she was experiencing too much of an effect from the ketamine she got because her breathing became very laboured and her heart rate went up. So Hameed gave her a drug to help combat the breathing and irregular heart rate. She was also starting to wake up so we had to finish and put her back.

I cannot get over the hands!

Afterwards, Hameed wanted to work on the little Vervet monkey that was brought in yesterday. He was from a community that had him as a pet. Unfortunately they had a rather large chain around his waist to use a leash. I insisted that it be taken off and he be put in a cage for the time being. Anyway, Hameed gave me the syringe of ketamine. There was no way we could hold him in his cage to give him the injection in his thigh, so Barbara just grabbed his arm and pulled it through the cage and I injected into his forearm muscle. Worked like a charm; he went down rather quick and smoothly. Because these monkeys are considered vermin in Uganda, it was zoo policy that he should be euthanized; however, the owner of the Kavumbe zoo (where Pete and I went to try the croc muzzle) said he would take him, because he had a female and he wanted to breed them. Otherwise we would have castrated him. I still got some good practice getting blood from him. It was rather difficult as he was so small, but the only way to perfect that technique is to practice! As such, I also gave him some injections of dewormer and multivitamin. Then the fun part was waiting around for him to wake up. He got a pretty high dose of ketamine, and there are no reversal drugs to counteract that drug, so it was literally a waiting game. Once we saw some swallowing reflexes and his eyes started to twitch we put him back in his cage. 

Yup its a boy...

That was it for treatments in the morning! I had my last lunch of African cuisine at the UWEC canteen and then headed back to my room to relax for a while. 

I had planned to see Maria (chimp researcher) and her boyfriend Ben one last time before I left. So we headed to Anna's Corner again as it was movie night and they were playing Men In Black. We had dinner and some wine and just hung out for a bit until it was time to go. I was happy to hear I was welcome to come visit them in Leipzig, Germany some time; and they would take me to Berlin and show me around. So great to meet friends from around the world!

Farewell:
This is going to be my last post of my amazing trip to Africa. I have learned so much, gained so many experiences, met so many wonderful people and felt so grateful for the hospitality that I received while I was here. I am sad that I am leaving, but I will look at is as it will only be some time until I return. Hopefully with more experiences I can bring back here. Of course I want to explore more of Africa, but I will make sure to stop in Uganda.

This trip was worth every amount of time and money I put into it. I want to thank everyone reading this who helped me get here. I could not have done it without you all. Thank you for your support. Just have to make a stopover in Nairobi, Kenya, then up to Amsterdam again, then back home to Toronto. Onward home!

Look forward to seeing you all soon.

Kyle