A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A ZOO VETERINARY TECHNICIAN Brittney Exarhos, LVT, RVT Toledo Zoo and Aquarium 2700 Broadway St. Toledo OH 43609 Everyday is different when you work in a zoo. The zoo veterinary staff is medically responsible for every animal of every taxa. That means our day can start out working on an immobilized tiger, followed by blood draws on ostriches, and ending with radiographs of a tegu. With so much going on every day, good planning and communication is key to having a great veterinary team. We start everyday with an 8:30 am meeting at our scheduling board. This will guide us on what we need to schedule for the day. The veterinary technicians are involved in many things during the day. This can include: immobilizations, small procedures, emergencies, treatments, lab work, necropsies, animal training, hospital management and conservation work. Immobilizations Many of our animals are not handleable, so we must immobilize them chemically to be able to work on them. These immobilizations can be a quarantine exam where we do a full work up on the animal before releasing them from quarantine, it can be an annual preventative exam where we evaluate the overall health of one of our animals. An immobilization can also be a preshipment exam where we accomplish a list of tests that a receiving zoo institution is asking us to perform before we ship an animal to them or it can be an overall diagnostic exam. Small Procedures Some small procedures on well-mannered animals do not require a full immobilization. We are able to do simple things such as wound cleaning, quick radiographs, sample collection, ultrasound, hoof trims, neonatal exams, beak trims and vaccinations without having to sedate many of our animals. Emergencies Just like a technician at any other clinic, a zoo veterinary technician must be ready at all times for an emergency. With a large avian collection, we see a lot of bird emergencies. These are typically a small procedure such as a bird-on-bird scuffle that leads to blood loss or simply just placing a fluffed bird into oxygen and monitoring it until it is stable enough for treatment and diagnostics. We do, however, have large emergencies that require a lot of equipment and set up in a very short amount of time. We have had hoof stock break their horns off resulting in rapid and massive blood loss, we have had GDVs that have required immediate surgery, and we have had down animals, just like a regular ER. We have our immobilization cart with everything we would ever need on it ready to go at any moment. Technician Responsibilities
Working in a zoo clinic is not much different then working at a regular clinic. The technicians are still responsible for the same things, just our patients look a little different. During procedures technicians are responsible for setting up, intubation, anesthesia monitoring, blood collection, radiographs, catheter placement, drug administration and once the technician is done cleaning up after the procedure the technician is responsible for running any and all lab work required. Treatments Typically we like to finish our immobilizations and procedures in the morning. This leaves the afternoon for treatments and lab work. We have a clipboard full of treatment sheets for animals all over the zoo. Treatments can consist of intramuscular injections, subcutaneous injections, tube feeding or bandage changes. These are typically for animals that we can handle, and technicians are responsible for organizing and administering these treatments. Intramuscular Injections Intramuscular injections in any of our mammals is the same concept as a dog or a cat. In a perfect world the muscle should be isolated, the needle should be inserted, the plunger should be drawn back to ensure that no blood enters the hub and the drug should then be injected. This is great practice, and is done whenever our animals allow us to actually do it, but many times most of our IM injections are given via blow dart or CO2 dart gun. In that case we just aim for the thigh and shoot. In avians, the muscle of choice is the pectoral muscle which can be found by palpating for the bony keel on the chest of the bird and feeling for the breast muscle on either side of that bone. As always, the injection should not be given unless the plunger has been drawn back and the hub is checked for blood. Reptiles are a little different. Snakes are pretty simple for IM injections, palpate for the spine and avoid it. Inject on either side of the spine into the epaxial or lateral muscle groups. Other reptiles are injected into the cranial half of their body. Reptiles have a renal portal system that moves blood from the caudal portion of the body through the kidneys before returning it to the heart. It is not fully known as to whether or not drugs administered in the caudal half of the body can cause toxicity to the kidneys or if the drug can get excreted prematurely due to the renal portal system. Since there is such debate as to whether or not this is an actual issue, I always advise to inject into the cranial half of the animal s body just to be on the safe side. These IM injections can be given on the muscles of the front leg. Subcutaneous Injections Subcutaneous fluids are given the same way in our mammals as they are in dogs and cats. Birds can be a littler tricky, especially if they are very small birds. There is a fold of skin that can be found by gently pulling out one of the bird s legs and wetting the area where the leg attaches to the body with alcohol to push away the feathers. Once the area is wet, the skin fold should be able to be visualized and the needle can be inserted into the skin fold. Bird skin is very thin, so the needle must be inserted gently and not too deep. Always pull back the plunger of the syringe, checking for air or for blood. Birds have air sacs throughout their body as a normal part of their respiratory anatomy, and it is possible to accidentally inject into an air sac while giving subcutaneous fluids. When administering the fluid into the inguinal skin fold, first inject slowly
and make sure you are forming a bubble beneath the skin so you are sure you are not injecting into an air sac. If fluids are given into an air sac, the bird will drown. In snakes and lizards, subcutaneous fluids are much like a mammal treatment. Just insert the needle beneath the skin and administer the drugs. Always ensure to insert the needle between two scales and not directly into the middle of a scale. Chelonians have skin folds that can be found near their neck and in their inguinal region. Subcutaneous injections can be given in these spaces, although if it is an actual drug and not just fluids, consider injecting them in the ventral neck folds over the inguinal folds due to the renal portal system discussed earlier. Bandages Technicians often are responsible for bandaging, and the most common bandages we see are figure 8 wing wraps and ball bandages for avian feet. Figure 8 wing wraps are applied to immobilize the wing due to a fracture or another injury. If the humerus also needs to be immobilized the wrap also needs to gently go around the birds body, tight enough so the wing will be fully immobilized but loose enough that the bird can still breathe. Even in a zoo setting birds can get pododermatitis due to inappropriate perching. Ball bandages for their feet protects the plantar surface of the foot and takes pressure off any potential ulcers that have formed on the foot. Even when only one foot is affected, both feet are wrapped with the same size bandage to make sure the bird is placing even weight on both feet so the healthy foot won't become unhealthy. Creative E-Collars A big challenge in zoo medicine is dealing with an animal recovering from surgery or a small procedure that required sutures, and making sure they leave the surgery site alone. Zoo veterinary technicians have to be creative and making e-collars for our awkwardly shaped animals is no exception. Your average e-collar does not fit most of our animals, but we can make e-collars out of many items such as old radiographs, buckets with large leather straps, cardboard, or even sometimes felt. Brainstorming ideas for extra enrichment with the keepers is also helpful, because if the recovering animal is distracted by fun new things in their exhibit, they are less likely to try to chew their sutures out. Tube Feeding Just like in a small animal clinic, we have critical patients often. Critical patients often need assisted feedings, and that requires some type of tube. We use a lot of gavage tubes and red rubber catheters for our tube feedings. In birds and reptiles, tube feeding is rather simple. These animals do not have an epiglottis, so when you look into their mouths you can visualize the glottis very easily (in most species), so when these animals are tube fed we find the glottis and insert the tube as far away from that glottis as possible. Before injecting any food down the tube, I always palpate the animals throat to ensure that I can feel both the trachea and the feeding tube separately to ensure proper placement. Lab Work
Some zoos send out a lot of their lab work, and other zoos do the majority of their own lab work in house. In either case, every zoo veterinary technician should know how to perform manual CBCs on all taxa. Avian and reptilian red blood cells are nucleated, and therefore their blood cannot be ran through an automated CBC machine. Using hemacytometers, special stains, and a thorough understanding of different species of blood cell morphology, veterinary technicians can accurately read a manual CBC on all birds and reptiles. This takes a lot of time to learn, and many zoos keep their old blood slides so new technicians can practice identifying different cells. Besides blood, zoo veterinary technicians perform many fecals. A direct and a centrifuged sample should be ran on all of the zoo animals, sometimes more than once a year depending on what the veterinary team has agreed upon for their preventative schedule. Occasionally there will be a species of animal that has an established level of parasites that can not be removed, and at that point monthly quantitative fecals may be performed to ensure that the parasite load stays beneath an acceptable level. Zoo veterinary technicians are also responsible for organizing and properly keeping stored samples. Since we can t voluntarily get blood out of many of our animals, whatever samples we collect during an immobilization gets labeled and stored into an Ultralow freezer that stays between -80 and -70 degrees Fahrenheit. Necropsies An inevitable part of working with animals is that they will die at some point. Every single animal in the zoo, from the tiniest of toads to the largest of elephants, is necropsied once they have died. Some necropsies can take 10-12 hours to complete and requires an entire team of people to perform them. Other necropsies are a simple abdominal cut and the body is then placed in formalin. In either case, a zoo veterinary technician can have many different responsibilities during a necropsy. The technician may be responsible for recording findings, collecting organ samples, assisting the veterinarian or pathologist or even performing an entire necropsy on their own. When the animal that is being necropsied is a species that is endangered, many times a large amount of measurements are needed and tests are sent out so we can further learn about the species. Once the necropsy is done, the collected samples should then be evaluated by a pathologist. Training Training makes the job of the veterinary team much easier. Many of our animals can be trained for voluntary blood draws, hand injections, ultrasounds and they are also trained to present certain body parts to assist in medical exams. These behaviors don t happen overnight and require a strong keeper team that are willing to train often with their animals. All of the training that we do is voluntary for the animal. The animals always have the choice to get up and walk away from a session, but if they are food motivated they are usually rather good for training. Positive reinforcement is always used. For blood draws we have our orangutans, grey seals, harbor seals, giraffes, elephants, ostriches, rhinos, cheetahs and our Galapagos tortoise trained. Hospital Duties
Zoo veterinary technicians are often responsible for ensuring the hospital runs smoothly. This typically means they are in charge of ordering and inventory, equipment maintenance, radiology monitoring, volunteer programs, internship programs, overall hospital cleanliness, and depending on the zoo some keeper work may be rolled into a technician position. Conservation Work It is an old mindset to think that zoos are a cruel place for animals to just entertain humans. Many zoos are now on the frontline of conservation, and without zoos many species would no longer exist today. The Species Survival Plan (SSP) oversees the populations of animals within captivity and enhances the conservation of these species in the wild and is a strong force in zoos. Veterinary technicians can have a huge role in conservation and these opportunities could be anything from doing field conservation work monitoring populations, collecting data from wild and captive specimens, helping place GPS trackers on threatened species, blood analysis from wild populations, and helping with a head start program at their home zoo. How to Become a Zoo Veterinary Technician The field of zoo veterinary technology is highly competitive, but not impossible to get into! The first step is to graduate from an accredited school of veterinary technology and earn your license. Begin volunteering at a local wildlife rehabilitation center to get wild animal handling experience. Study on your own time at home since many technician programs lack a strong teaching in exotic medicine, so most of it you will have to teach yourself. Volunteer at a zoo hospital, even if it is just cleaning or doing paperwork. Do a zoo internship or externship. And don't give up!