19 May 2008

I woke up praying my clothes dried over night as washing and drying is by hand and air. Mostly this worked out but my towel could stand a few more hours. Regardless everything went in a bag and we had a 1-hour trip to Mysore which was mostly taken trying to get out of Bangalore which has a sprawl stretching pretty far out. There is graffiti everywhere, and posters plastered along the city walls so much that the bear walls seem out of place. Ornate temples spot the scenery with bright colors accenting the ornate sculptures of deities. It is a strange place but pleasant at the same time. The only thing I worry about are pickpockets, but I am bound to lose (and have) more than they would ever be able to take from me. I do not feel out of place or uncomfortable around here, it is nice (aside from the smog).
Mysore zoo is very well kept and organized. I got to help feed elephants with the group, which was extremely exciting. The mouth of an elephant is a really strange sight, as the teeth seem to be only in the back. We are told the digestive tract is exactly the same as if they were a large horse. We also got to hold a baby leopard cub, which was precious. A blind leopard was an interesting sight as well. They had captured a wild tiger that killed 30-40 head of cattle in a town, and said it was “well on it’s way to being tame.” Most of us were skeptical as it lunged the bars of the cage roaring. Apparently a few weeks ago it was basically climbing the ceiling of the cage it was in, so had calmed down much. We met Wally, a chimpanzee that would drink from a bottle the zoo keepers held and hit Matt, Tamika, and Myself with a good spit. Better than some others that got some urine on their shoes from a nearby chip that has pulled out all his hair, giving it the very haunting appearance of a strange old man. It has been a good day so far, and it is about to get better. We went to help with a vasectomy of a Spotted Deer. So the Deer populations at the zoo over produce themselves for the enclosures they have, and they must be controlled.


Unfortunately if you castrate them, they lose many of the traits that make them so attractive (such as antlers). One of the Doctors shot the deer with a dart rifle while they were feeding the herd. They were after a subadult male, and got him right in the back leg. In about ten minutes he was out, and they went to place him on a net and tarp to carry him to the front. They scrubbed him in, removing the hair with an actual hand razor, not an electric one, and did the vasectomy. Some time through the surgery, the jugular IV fluids blew. The asked someone to place it in the cephalic, and I obliged. Unfortunately, this too blew, even though it went in fine…twice. After this, Matt had a chanse to put it in the jugular on the other side. He hit it fine too but it rolled out, and so the doctor stuck it straight in at a perpendicular angle. We have never tried this before…but it worked pretty darn well for the deer. It seems our labs with cattle helped us find the right anatomy, but didn’t give us the right technique for a new animal. We then helped carry the deer to the isolation area so it could recover well before joining back with the herd. After this we went to Brindavan Garden, home to the famous musical light show. It was like an extremely packed carnival that you crossed a bridge loaded with people to get to. The fountain light show was pretty exciting, and all the people in the crowd knew every song they played. We spent the night at a golf club that one of the zoo veterinarians was a member of, and watched Kindergarten cop in our (Matt and mine) room with Vibha and Tamika.