Wildlife Veterinary Experience

Program Description

Working alongside a wildlife vet in South Africa you gain real hands-on experience. Cases you work on vary widely, as wildlife veterinary work is very unpredictable, but you will get an amazing insight into this exciting profession and be directly involved in different veterinary procedures, while working in stunning locations.

We work with a number of different wildlife vets in South Africa and will consult with you to team you up with the specific vet who is the best match for your experience level and specific interests.

Your role varies from case to case and you'll assist the vet based on your ability level. Typical volunteer tasks include helping with the immobilisation of animals, monitoring vital signs, taking blood and administering lower schedule tranquillisers.

Highlights

Working as an assistant of a wildlife vet, no particular procedures or species are guaranteed. However, the following are relatively common, so you are likely to experience at least some of these:

- Help protect South Africa's rhino. Vets are at the forefront of rhino conservation and perform many procedures related to rhino protection. Cases frequently experienced by volunteers include de-horning of rhino, microchipping of rhino and horn, darting rhino for relocation or in order to fit monitoring collars

- Taking blood samples from buffalo for TB tests

- Pregnancy tests or insemination of rare and endangered antelope species

- Chemical immobilisation of wildlife during game capt

Qualifications

You do not need specific qualifications for this experience. The project is suitable to pre-veterinary students as well as current veterinary medicine students, vet nurses, vet techs or anyone with a keen interest in pursuing a career in veterinary medicine.