After spending about two weeks in Moscow, where I was being during the process of the UK visa legalization, I had finally got cherished document and left the capital of Russia for the capital of Great Britain.
The first point of destination was the Wildlife Heritage Foundation (WHF), the breeding centre for big felid species. So, it was the biggest collection of big cats that I had ever seen. Usually this place is not for visitors, but sometimes WHF administration allows people, who are attracted to the future of endangered cats, to visit this place. So, the first day keepers organized a small tour for me and few other people around territory of center. We even had opportunity to take part in the keeper’s work – we cleaned enclosures and feed animals.
The immobilization procedures were planned on the next day. After Dr. John Lewis had arrived in the morning of the next day, knock downs were begun. A lot of interesting people came to see immobilizations. There were also guys from Bangladesh ZSL tiger project - Christina Greenwood and Adam Barlow.
The first our patients were two black leopards, who lived very close to enclosure with lions. Though, neither lions nor leopards had visual contact, one of the leopards tried to tease lion every time. It was curious situation, because lions couldn’t do anything and had very frustrating appearance. Lions probably had cheered up, when it was planned to immobilize leopards for replacing them into another enclosure. However, not for a long time, as it was also planned to knock down lions for replacing into a new enclosure as well. Anyway, they were happy to be saved from annoying neighbors. After leopards were darted, they were placed into special transport box, for replacing and releasing into enclosure. Three lions were immobilized after one by one. After immobilizations it was also resettlement of Amur tiger to the enclosure which lions had left for a new place. Tiger was replaced without immobilization – big transport cage was used for this purpose.
After all work had been done, Christina and Adam made interesting presentation about their work in Bangladesh.
In the morning of the next day John Lewis picked me up from WHF to show veterinary work in the Chessington zoo. The zoo was not big, but it was very vivid and I could feel the people’s love to work which they do with animals. John showed me basic principles of zoo veterinary work.
Colchester zoo was the point of destination on the third day. It had really huge territory and had everything for animals’ welfare at the same time – just take modern water pump cleaning system alone!  It was interesting and productive day. We did vasectomy on lion, immobilization and blood sampling of cheetah, treating of rhino’s leg, microchipping of birds and a lot of other interesting things.
Paradise Wildlife Park was the last zoo, where I had opportunity to learn from John Lewis, because I had to leave for ZSL on the next day. But this last day was extremely interesting because it was extremely hard. John Lewis did removing of broken canine on the Amur tiger “Rocky”. Before start John said: ‘It is not easy to remove tiger’s canine, but it is still not as bad as removing of bear’s canine.”  Procedure of removing Rocky’s tooth took about six hours, and it was finally done to the end of work day. After all, I remembered John’s words about “bear’s canine” and I was horror-stricken. Later John explained me that Rocky had unusually long root, and it takes even less time to remove canine from usual bear - I had been settled down.
The week in WHF was extremely interesting period of my sojourn in the United Kingdom. Between works in the zoos I had opportunity to attend BIAZA meeting (British zoo association) which was carried out in the Houses of Parliament. I consider it to be a miracle.
Very soon I left WHF for ZSL, where I had met a lot of distinguished people, had visited many interesting places such as ZSL Library or Whipsnade zoo and had opportunity to learn from ZSL vets Andrew Routh and Taina Strike. It was real pleasure to meet the oldest London zoo keeper - Ray Charter who told me a lot of useful and interesting things about big cats keeping. I was also witness of dramatic family relations among lions. Lioness didn’t like her two cubs for some reason. It was two nice subadult lions - sister and brother. Heat period made mother to be in absolutely incongruous mood and father lion had to protect kids from raged mummy sometimes. I had met personally a lot of people which were known to me only from correspondence in ZSL.

I continued my trip from London to Twycross by train. First three days I spent with carnivore keepers. Guys showed me and told a lot of interesting things that concern of carnivores keeping as well as I had opportunity to told about our work in RFE with Amur leopards, because Twycross zoo had two leopards who should take part in breeding program for possible reintroduction and guys were interested to learn about this specie in the wild. Twycross was a quite big zoo.  New enclosure for snow leopards was really great. I’m sure that animals were just happy to live in such magnificent structure. Though snow leopards spend almost all their time inside of dens (male - in small cave outside, female – inside of inner building), I still had opportunity to see them walking. I had also opportunity to take part in keppers’ work – to feed animals and clean dens. On the fourth day in Twycross I met veterinarian from IZVG Nick Masters. All next days Nick took me along, and I learned from him. Nick had a lot of work this days, I had opportunity to see ovariohisterectomy on small primate, endoscopy of birds for sex identification, elephant trunk biopsy procedures, a lot of immobilizations, including knocking down of iguana that was really interesting. Nick and I also visited Birmingham zoo to provide health check of few animals. Between veterinary proceedings we attended presentation of Koustubh Sharma, a scientist from Snow leopard trust, where I had an opportunity to say few words about our work in Amur leopard project.

It was my first time in abroad, and I worried a bit in the beginning of trip, but now I can say for sure that all my worries were unfair.  All people were really friendly and I never felt myself out from one’s element. It was absolutely enjoyable trip, where I obtained experience of high qualified zoo veterinary work, met a lot of new friends and had opportunity to see the Great Britain.

Investigation of diseases among Amur leopard and Amur tiger potential prey species such as ungulates is a significant part of our work. This time I would like to pay attention to this part of our work and describe the ways of samples obtaining from such animals as sika deer, roe deer and red deer. Totally we have three types of targeted ungulate species. Each type is equally important for our research.
Ungulates from the wild. To obtain samples from this type of hoofed animals we use dedicated trapping with use of stationary traps and anesthesia. Besides that, during our field work, we have opportunity to collect necessary samples from carcasses of animals, killed by poachers, predators or died from a natural cause (starvation, disease or accident). Sometimes State nature conservation organizations provide raids to collect samples from dead animals during mass mortality for determining of its reasons. This spring our ZSL team took part in such raid.
The main part of samples obtained from ungulates belongs to this type of animals ( from the wild). In that way we receive information about diseases which are present straight in the wild in the present area.

Ungulates which are kept in semi-wild conditions (sika deer farms). There are several large sika deer farms in the Primorsky kray, where animals are kept in semi-wild conditions with the purpose to obtain antlers of young sika deer stags named “panths”. Most of  time animals spend in the wild and also can be consumed by tiger or leopard. So we are interested in sampling of deer from such farms. It is possible to collect blood from such deer during procedure of “panth” cutting when animals are safely fixed.
To this moment with help of State agricultural academy we’ve got successful contact with directorate of these farms and plan to collect samples from these animals in the near future.

Ungulates which came to captivity from the wild. These animals, which came upon small local zoos and parks from the wild, are valuable for us as well.  For example, there is small zoo which specialize in the keeping of ungulates in the central south of the Primorsky kray. They receive weak animals from the wild, recover and keep in big open-air enclosure, so people have opportunity to enter inside and look at the animals. Directorate agrees to collaborate and willingly give us the opportunity to collect samples from recently obtained animals. In our part, our ZSL team gives to them necessary veterinary support. For example, we immobilized big stag named “Graph” in this spring (animal demands antlers’ cosmetic procedures). Animal came to the park from the wild so we also obtained necessary blood samples for Amur leopard and wildlife health project.
Consequently, we have opportunity to reveal infectious diseases among species which serve as the main   prey for big cats in Primorsky krai.

Though having a big number of friends from aboard, I have never left the borders of my country.  But I’m happy to say that such chance appeared a few months ago. The  Zoological society of London invited me to Great Britain, where I’ll have opportunity to visit ZSL London and Whipsnade zoos, Wildlife Heritage Foundation and Twycross Zoo, and see the work of zoo veterinarians and keepers.

To do this trip effective to the maximum as for me as well for Amur leopard and wildlife health project, our Russian ZSL team performed collecting of ticks (ectoparasites which can carry some infectious diseases) in several points of Lazovsky natural reserve for investigating in the UK by project consultant John Lewis.

Unfortunately, to have invitation is not enough for such trip and it is necessary to obtain visa in the British visa center. As happen there are not much British visa centers in our country. Logistically it could be strange, but most suitable visa center for me become Moscow one. But in this case I can leave Russia for the Heathrow airport right after visa approving (if it will happen). Last Monday I successfully submitted documents under assessment. But it is necessary to wait for result, and it is necessary at least to have the Moscow accommodation for such waiting.

I want to say great thanks to administration of the Moscow zoo for allowing me to live in their hotel while I’m waiting for my visa.

While document assessment lasts, I organize some project affairs. For example, in the middle of last week I visited scientific base of Institution of ecology and evolution of Russian Academy of Sciences in the place named Chernogolovka, which is not far from Moscow, where four months ago we successfully tested our samples. This time I had success to find out what new facilities for serological investigations appeared for our possible future collaboration in researching of wildlife diseases. Local scientific specialists also made a little excursion for me, where I had chance to watch how Eurasian lynx nurses its cubs.

At the moment I look forward to hearing from British consulate section. Hopefully I’ll get positive result in the beginning of the next week and leave Moscow for United Kingdom…

On 9 February an adult male Amur tiger (4-5 years old, 156 kg) came to the hunting base near Alexeevka, a settlement on the south-east of Primorsky kray.  It didn’t react when frightened and was captured and placed to the tiger inspection rehabilitation centre.

In spite of all our actions, this predator was getting worse every day.  Its lack of appetite, absence of any aggression, bad general appearance and complete indifference to humans were being observed.

Laboratory diagnostic tests revealed a high titer of antibodies, specific to the canine distemper virus, but an antigen was not determined.  Obviously, the animal had had the disease before as the  infection wasn’t active at the time of blood sampling.

On 26 February the tiger weakly rose to his feet but it appeared to jerk and paresis in its rear legs was observed.  After 1 March he was no longer able to rise and just lay on his left side; his head didn’t move.

Sadly, this tiger died. After his death a necropsy (animal post-mortem) was performed. The pathologists confirmed that its death occurred because of breathing paralysis and vasomotor centers, as the result of common dehydration and nutritional dropsy.

The exact disease was not identified. It assumed to be rabies, and further tests in the vet laboratory were carried out.  The result was negative.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. The same happened with an Amur tiger in Khabarovsky kray to the north of Primorsky kray in the “Utios” rehabilitation centre.

The symptoms were almost identical. Laboratory diagnostic tests established it as a case of canine distemper and toxoplasmosis. This animal died as well.

These cases clearly highlight that that wildlife diseases are a serious problem in our region and deserve particular attention.

We need your help

ZSL is working hard to secure a future for Amur tigers and leopards, as both species are critically endangered. To do this, we need your support.

Donate to ZSL’s work with Amur tigers

With the framework of Amur leopard and Amur tiger conservation program, the trapping of this two endangered species was performed on the fall of 2009. And I would like to tell about it in the details.

Trapping was being conducted since the middle of September till the middle of November in the flood-lands of Sanduga River on the territory of “Leopard” game reserve – South-West of Primorsky kray - the area where the single population of Amur leopard exists in wild nature.

Undertaking was provided by Wildlife conservation society (WCS) and Institute of Biology and Soil, Russian Academy of sciences. WCS team of field biologists provided capturing of animals.

As earlier, John Lewis (Wildlife Vets International) was the leading veterinary specialist on this trapping. Though, there were other representatives of our profession – Tamie Paterson (zoo technician vet, US), Kholis Munawor (wildlife vet, Sumatra, WCS) and me.

The leg hold snares were used for trapping. The places of setup were chosen according to the tracks, scrapes, marking trees, predator kills and data from camera trapping.

It was decided to put snares in three different places – two ones were presented by ridges and there was another one in the fold between ridges. Snare putting took few days. Almost all our time we spend on the ridges and in the folds in this few days. We returned to the camp only to tonight.

Though, snare setup is laborious process, the success of whole trapping depends from it. Every snare had sensor with individual frequency, which was activated after animal was caught in the snare. Signal checking was provided by telemetry. There was also control daily snare checking by walking through the ridges and fold.

The first animal – black bear - was caught after two weeks of trapping. Though this species is not target one for Amur leopard biologists, it is important from veterinary point of view as this species have number of diseases which may affect panthers as well.

It was female of huge size  (at least for female). Animal was quite aggressive to us, but it was easily immobilized with anesthetic dart. Biological samples were taken for the next laboratory analysis.

Unfortunately, our first animal was the last one as well. There were no captured animals anymore. But we didn’t say goodbye to our hopes till the last moment.

We continued trapping in spite of snowfall and low temperature (if it was one of short duration). In these cases we just closed snares for the cold period, cleaned the territory around snares from the snow and waited for thaw.

However, veterinary work was provided in spite of lack of captured animals. During our daily snare checking we found a lot leopard and tiger scrapes. Some of them contained excrements which were analyzed on internal parasites and their eggs by microscopy.

Another important moment is to maintain rules of safety in the course of trapping and be prepared for conflict situation with wild animal.  According to this we made small trainings with discussion of different situations and with using of flares, which quite effectively can scare aggressive animal.

In the upshot, would like to say that lack of success in capturing of targeted species didn’t make this work useless.

We received undoubted experience, which will serve as incentive in perfection of Amur leopard and Amur tiger capturing techniques, and will help us to achieve more success in the future trappings. Next one will be very soon, - in the next spring.

Providing health monitoring of wild animals in the Lazovsky natural reserve, we capture different species, including ungulates, small carnivores and rodents. All of them are potential prey of Amur leopard.

However specie that we consider to be most valuable for us is not potential prey of this big rare cat (though, it’s possible in very few cases. I speak about Amur leopard’s smaller fellow - about the Amur leopard cat (Felis euptilura).

We consider this animal to be most valuable for us according to following reasons. For the first, leopard cat (differently from other carnivorous species - canids and mustelids) has big number of infectious deseases which are common with Amur leopard.

Biological samples from this animal can give us more valuable information about presence high risk diseases for Amur leopard in the region.

For the second, this cryptic and cautious animal is not easy to be caught. This fact gives to this event some value. Capture of leopard cat is always big delight for us.

Not long ago fortune smiled to us and the leopard cat got to our cage. It was young female about two years old. It is astonishing how color of this gracefulanimal agrees with its name “leopard cat”.

She was really looked like little leopard. Its ability to remain unruffled in cleft stick and remain immobility till the last moment provokes admiration by this animal.

Our cat began to show agression only when we approached to her on one meter for anesthetic injection.

Procedure was an immediate success; we obtained all necessary biological samples and made examination of the animal. It turned out, that she probably had kittens at that moment, because her mammal glands were enlarged and sucked.

This fact made us as happy as it disturbed us, because her children stayed alone on the time of procedures and animal’s recovery after anesthesia. But our cat had short recovery period (usually it takes little more time) and we released animal to the kittens even before the sunset.

This project is funded by the UK’s Darwin Initiative.

There are a lot of purposes of our Amur leopard field conservation -  health monitoring of this species in the wild is one of the main ones.

Since October 2006 a joint team from the Institute of Biology and Soil Sciences and Wildlife Conservation Society (Russia) has been involved in trapping of wild leopards in the Southwest Primorsy Krai. This aim of this is for clinical examination and biosampling of the existing leopard population.

During the last capture (2008 Fall), there was situation when Dr John Lewis – acting capture veterinary specialist and ALWHP advisor from Wildlife Vets International, UK – had to leave the Russian Far East for London for one week before capturing was complete.

Though all members of this team are quite skilled specialists in the questions of veterinary procedures (immobilization and biosampling), the presence of another vet was necessary until the end of capturing . And that wasn’t just mere formality. A veterinarian was really necessary for sample storage preparation, clinical examination of captured animal and for making a few biosample tests that are available in the field.

Working for ZSL as veterinarian in Lazovsky reserve (a proposal area for possible Amur leopard reintroduction - southeast of Primorsky Kray), I was invited to take part in the capturing in the Hasansky region (the habitat of existing leopard population – Southwest of Primorsky Kray) . I considered it to be a honour to accept such an invitation to take part in the Amur leopard capturing among famous specialists. After our current tasks in Lazovsky region were completed, I left for Southwest of Primorskiy Kray.

I arrived at the camp a week before Dr.Lewis left for the UK to learn details of the veterinary work in the camp. There were many interesting people in the camp at this time. The basis of the team was provided by the people of WCS Russia with John Goodrich in charge.

There were also Andrew Harrington - a professional photographer from UK, Clay Miller – a biologist from USA, Lorna - a student from Mexico and few state inspectors. It was good and experienced team. As for the camp – it was excellently organized for work and habitation.

They were using leg hold snares for capturing the leopards. Almost all snares were put along the top of the huge ridge, which was called “The Wall” – an area, where, according to photo traps, leopards like to walk more often than anywhere else.

Though all snares were equipped with radio transmitters, which were activated after animal had been captured to the snare, a group of people walked through this ridge to check the snares every morning.

The team had caught two leopards before I arrived. One was a mature adult female who was called “Alyona” and the other was an adult male “Alexey”.

“Alexey” had already been caught three times in previous seasons. This time the animal was captured in the night in the snare farthest from the camp.

It was not so easy to get to the snare through the “Wall” in the night time. “Alyona” was captured in the day time and was found during morning trip through the “Wall”.

The animals were immobilized, biosampled : blood was taken for haematology, genetic and virus tests; urine for testing on different biochemical indexes; faeces - for biochemistry and for determination of internal parasites eggs; general physical examination was provided, including heart sound recordings & ECG. Each animal was also thoroughly checked on presence of ectoparasites.

After Dr. Lewis had left camp for UK, the veterinary responsibility put on to me. Although there weren’t any other captured animals after these two cases, I still gained a lot from this work in the field.

Moreover, I met new interesting people and consider my participation in this expedition to have been very valuable for me.

This project is funded by the Darwin Initiative.

The fall of the year. A beautiful time, when you have a chance to behold with one’s own eyes all colours of nature. This time is especially beautiful in the Russian Far East. My very favorite time of the year. It’s not hot and it’s not cold. Pleasant coolness and charming calmness, together with a foretaste of impending work.

Moreover, this time of the year is special for me because exactly in autumn one year ago I began my work as wildlife vet. Though just one year has passed, those days seems to be so far for me. During this period I’ve met a lot of interesting people, and, though I shall have to learn a lot, my professional level has been increased so much, that it is incomparable with the level, that I had a year ago.

At the present moment our team consists of four people: Linda Kerley -  an American biologist who works in the Russian Far East for the Amur leopard project, Mikhail and Vladimir Borisenko – Russian trappers and myself. We do our work in Lazo. This is town near border of Lazovsky reserve.

Here we take blood samples from domestic animals of Lazo (who are also necessary for revealing diseases that can affect health of possibly reintroduced in the future Amur leopards).

We also analyze data from the municipal hospital and state veterinary station on fact of presence tuberculosis among humans and cattle in this region for the last 10 years. Though present conditions are far from field ones, we have already success in capturing a few wild species.

While necessary preparations for our expedition are taking place, we decide to put traps in the garbage dumps in the forest area not far from Lazo.

We hoped to catch some feral dogs and cats, but, parallel with feral cat, we had some luck and caught a raccoon dog. And two more raccoon dogs were caught in the next four days. Necessary to note, that this animal is also common prey for leopards. So, this species is of our interest in question of infectious diseases.

All animals were thoroughly examined , all necessary samples were taken and microchips were put for future identification. After procedures every animal was placed back in the wild near the area of capturing.

We will continue to collect samples from domestic species of Lazo and to capture wild and feral species in the area of the garbage dump until preparations for the expedition have been finished. In a week our team will leave for deep areas of the Lazo reserve.

This project is funded by the UK’s Darwin Initiative. 

Wildlife veterinary has a lot of difficult aspects. In my opinion, immobilization and anesthesia are two difficulties which are particularly worth noting - especially, for the beginner. Practical trainings, under the supervision of experienced colleagues, play a great role in getting over these obstacles.

Thanks to ZSL and the Moscow Zoo, I have had the opportunity to take part in such practical trainings. The most recent was conducted June 23-31 2008 under the supervision of Dr. Lewis, Sarah Christie (though she wasn’t in Moscow), Tanya Arzhanova, Robin Kachka and veterinarians of the Moscow Zoo. There were five people from Primorskay State Agricultural Academy who attended the training, including me.

The main purpose of the trip was immobilization training and the main subject of immobilization was the Amur leopard. Procedures were done at the Moscow Zoo Breeding Center near the town of Volokolamsk 200 km from the capital. It was planned to check health and take samples, which are necessary for the project.

We spent the first night in Moscow and left the capital in the morning. After we’d arrived to Volokolamsk, John, Robin and Dmitry Egorov (head veterinarian of the center) began preparations of the room and of necessary equipment. Meanwhile, we had a chance to look around. That was amazing! We sawa lot of rare and interesting mammals and birds. After all preparations had been done, we began working.

Stress level plays an important role in immobilization. A high level of stress makes anesthesia less effective and produces objectionable rising of temperature. To reduce excitement of the animal, immobilization procedures were made by Dmitry and his staff.

Meanwhile, we were thinking about possible obstacles, which could appear during our work. The weather was hot, and Dr. Lewis drew attention to this fact. It could produce rising of body temperature in the leopards.

To prepare water for cooling the animal down was the best decision. By this moment the first leopard, female and mother of the next leopards, was immobilized. As it is said –“you must spoil before you spin, practice makes perfect”, but this was not the case with our leopardess. Everything turned out well.

Troubles met us during work with her sons. Here we were faced with the situation, which John had warned us about. The second leopard had a fever, and the third leopard did as well. Water, prepared in a good time, quickly helped to remove this abnormality. This was just another example how it is necessary to think about all details before immobilization! By the end of the day all samples had been taken and all three cats had been fully examined. The interesting day had passed quickly.

The next morning, after breakfast, we were going to the veterinary point to discuss details of that day’s work, when the director of the center ran into us and told us that there was some funny veterinary work in store, which had not been planned. He didn’t say anything more about it but just suggested we visit the pair of polar bears. We saw this pair before – there was a big funny male, who liked to jump into the pool and sprinkle people with water, and supercilious female, who didn’t like anything nor anybody.

When we reached place, we saw a concurrently sad and funny situation. There was a plastic jug torn in half on the head of the female bear, and she couldn’t remove it. She got it stuck on her head during playing. Supercilious princess “Uma” (the bear’s name) was quite friendly at this time (probably because of her ridiculous condition) and she looked like she was trying to ask for help. All of our attempts to remove it were useless, and there was only one answer – immobilization.

We needed a good plan again. Firstly, it was necessary to separate “Uma” from her friend to a special small room, where the bears were usually immobilized. But it wasn’t simple, because she didn’t like immobilization any more than she liked the jug on her head. We had to encourage her with fish. Secondly, this species has a lot of fat on the areas of the body usually usedl for darting.

As we were using lipophilic drug, it would all just stay in fat, without any effect. So, it’s necessary to know vulnerable places on the body of such animals. In our case it was forearm. The animal was successfully immobilized by Dmitry again and the jug was removed. There were not any troubles during anesthesia, as it was fresh weather. We could go back to our plans of impending work.

According to these plans we had to immobilize a wildebeest who needed a hoof trimming. The wildebeest was an interesting case for a few reasons. Firstly, the drugs of choice for immobilizing wild hoof stock such as wildebeest are not available in our country as they are illegal to possess.Thus, we had no choice but to work with drugs and doses which have not been validated in this species. This was a good lesson - you often have no choice but to improvise and work with what you’ve got – an area in which Dr Lewis has a great deal of experience. The chosen dose was perfect and the animal was down with the first dart. All procedures had been passed without any troubles again.

Our immobilization trainings were to an end. There was only one animal left to look at a little goitred gazelle, who had a swelling around his carpus. There was no need for serious anesthesia to examine such a small animal, so we used just weak tranquillization to avoid objectionable stress of the goitred gazelle. Dr. Lewis examined the gazelle and took a sample of fluid from the joint for cytology. The veterinarians did not suspect an abscess.

Our practice in Volokolamsk had been finished and after dinner we left to return to back to Moscow Zoo.

On the morning of next day we were scheduled to immobilize a tapir with a submandibular abscess. Despite its intimidating size, the lowland tapir is a surprisingly docile animal and thus Moscow zoo head veterinarian Dr. Mikhail Alshenetski and Dr. John Lewis were able to easily hand inject anesthetic (as opposed to having to blow dart from afar).

Once the tapir was down, Moscow veterinary staff began procedures. They took over to clean the abscess and take samples for cytology, bacteriology, and histopathology . In addition, they used their portable radiography machine to radiograph the tapir’s teeth, jaws, and skull. The tapir was left to recover in a padded shed as we watched her come out of anesthesia. It was the final immobilization procedure on this trip.

There were three days before our flight back to the Far East. During this period Moscow Zoo staff organized interesting informative tours around all sections of the zoo. Specialists told us about specific diseases of different mammals, birds and reptiles. Later I even visited cheetah for breakfast inside the cage and had the opportunity to approach to him very close. This zoo animal was quite friendly with me. We also visited the Darwin’s State Museum. On the 1 of July we flew back to Vladivostok.

I gained invaluable experience, which I could not have gotten anywhere else, and I met a lot of interesting people. This was an unforgettable trip.

This project is funded by the UK’s Darwin Initiative.

Hello, my name is Mikhail Goncharuk (Misha for short). I’m 23 years old and a veterinarian working in the Russian Far East.

I was born in Primorsky Kray of the Russian Far East in a small town near the seacoast. There was always a pet in our house – dog or cat. As my mother is a doctor, we tried to treat our pets on our own.

I was interested in veterinary work exactly because of such independent treatment. So, after school I entered to the Primorskaya State Agricultural Academy in the veterinary faculty. During my studying I learned English. So, it was always interesting for me when any foreign specialists organized different lectures in our academy.

One day, the Wildlife Conservation Society organized lectures for students about Amur tiger conservation and I was inspired by working in wild nature. Because it is and exciting, and romantic, and, at least, my favorite work – veterinary. But at that moment it was just dreams… In 2006 I successfully graduated from Academy and got my certificate of degree. After that I continued to study at the Academy as postgraduate student. At the same time I started practical work in a private clinic in Vladivostok treating pets.

At that time, ZSL was training Russian students in immobilization of Amur leopard in Moscow and Novosibirsk zoos. I got on this training. There I met Sarah Christie and Claudia Schoene of ZSL and John Lewis of Wildlife Vets International, and got my first experience in work with wild animals.

In autumn of same (2007) year Primorsky Bio-Soil Institute was at capturing Amur leopard cat and they needed a veterinarian for blood sampling. I was glad to take part in the expedition. Dreams were going to become reality. There was no end of my gladness, when I’d known that WCS and ZSL were at capturing of Amur leopard for biomedical tests just about 8 km from our camp.

I met John and Claudia again and continued to learn from them. Later they took me, with other students, on training at the rehabilitation center for wild animals “Utios” in Khabarovsky kray. There ZSL offered me to take part in the Amur leopard project at Lazovsky Zapovednik. I accepted this offer and currently continue to work there for ZSL with American biologist Linda Kerly and other team members. That was my way to wildlife veterinary work.

Purpose of our work in Lazovsky is capturing, collecting of blood samples and health checking of small carnivore and potential prey species of Amur leopard for health checks. We need this information to know the epidemiological situation in Lazo reserve for possible future reintroduction of Amur leopard to this place. At the same time I collect material for my own scientific work which is about particular qualities of immobilisation techniques for small and medium sized carnivores.

This project is funded by the UK’s Darwin Initiative.