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Zoo & Wildlife Field Services

The zoological field service was formed due to increasing demand by curators, owners and local veterinarians for specialized support services for zoo collections, aquariums, and aviaries. The field service works in close cooperation with your local veterinarian, if you have one. Our visiting zoo team generally consists of one boarded specialist veterinarian, one intern veterinarian, one technician and several senior veterinary students that have been trained in exotic and zoo animal medicine.

Our field service is happy to deal with a variety of different species including birds (ratites, raptors, psittacines, passerines, waterfowl), fish (and other aquatic species), reptiles (snakes, lizards, turtles, alligators), and mammals (rodents, lagomorphs, cervids, bovids, primates, carnivores, camelids, rhinos, elephants, etc). We offer management consultation including husbandry and nutritional advice, reproduction control and contraception, preventative medicine and disease control, behavioral enrichment advice and target training. Chemical restraint using remote immobilization techniques (blow-pipe, CO₂ dart pistol, Dan-Inject and Pneu-Dart systems) is available, and the availability of modern (reversible) drugs permit safe and effective field anesthesia with rapid recovery in many species. Our field anesthesia system also includes oxygen (free flow or demand valve) and anesthetic gas support (isoflurane) with modern monitoring devices including blood gases, pulse oximetry, and end-tidal CO₂.

In addition to one-off examinations or surgeries (e.g. castration), we are able to offer annual health evaluations and preventative programs, including accurate weight measurement using bar scales up to 1500 kg (3000 lbs), physical examination, dental evaluation, micro-chipping for permanent identification, vaccination (e.g. rabies, distemper, clostridium), fecal collection for parasite evaluation and deworming, complete blood cell counts to assess infection/inflammation and anemia, biochemistry profiles to assess liver and kidney disease, and infectious disease serology testing (e.g. West Nile, feline and canine viruses). Diagnostic imaging available in the field includes radiography, ultrasonography, and endoscopy. Minor surgeries can also be performed on site and include beak, wing, nail, hoof trimming and care, castration, wound repair and minor surgery, and minor dentistry. More major procedures are carried out in the dedicated operating suites at the Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

Our faculty is also recognized specialists in wildlife health and disease, and is available for population health evaluation, mass mortality/morbidity investigation, field anesthesia, biologic sample collection (blood, tissue), euthanasia and necropsy, surgical implantation of radio-transmitters and data-recorders, and research collaboration.

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