We were privileged to be visited by Jonathan Cranston at our lunchtime meeting on 22 May 2017.
He told us that although his father is a surgeon, he always loved animals, and prefers the fact that as a vet he can work on a variety of animals. In his ordinary life he does general practice working on a variety of domestic pets and farm animals. However he had always dreamed of Africa – it is such an animal playground!
In 2011 he did a course in conservation medicine at the Kruger National Park, working with Cobas Raath. Having taken the course Jonathan now tries to go back annually to help out and lecture.
The Kruger National Park is in South Africa, near the borders of Swaziland and Mozambique. It is approximately 90 miles wide x 390 miles long at its widest. Although the national park itself is a protected area, there are also lots of private game reserves.
Whilst working at the Kruger, the vets get to enjoy a wide variety of work with wildlife animals. The approach they try to follow is that if the cause is nature, then they let nature take its course, but if there has been human involvement then the vets get involved in treatment. Jonathan told us about this through his photographs and stories, which varied from:
• A rhino given first aid after a younger rhino took over the herd;
• An ostrich with barbed wire wounds needing stitches;
• An antelope with a porcupine quill injury;
• First aid to a buffalo;
• A rectal examination of a black rhino with a broken pelvis;
• Moving antelopes by trailer (and treating any subsequent injuries);
• Injury to a giraffe’s foot.

As well as treating day to day injuries, the vets are conscious that there is a lot of poaching. Jonathan has seen some tragic sights such as the dehorning of rhino – unsurprising when 1kg of rhino horn is worth £60,000. On the other hand Jonathan was sensitive towards the causes of this – it is a third world country and communities are impoverished. They set snares to feed their families and that can lead to injuries to animals.
Kruger also has a lot of diseases present, such as TB and foot & mouth. In order to be able to trade domestic meat, strict controls are needed to ensure there is no transfer of disease, and the vets also get involved in that domestic veterinary need, such as through dipping cattle, checking for disease, and vaccinating farm animals against rabies.
Another factor of their work is that in South Africa wildlife game can be bought and sold. Vets need to be involved in any movement of animals, for example anaethetising and translocating animals from place to place. They may be involved when stock is sold to another farmer, or there are undesirable escapees from neighbouring properties. He showed us some impressive photos of the time they were involved in the sale and translocation of a one tonne crocodile being sold as a breeding male.
Finally Jonathan shared some phenomenal film footage of the funnelling involved in a mass capture, using a helicopter like a sheepdog to round up and herd the stock.
Jonathan left us with the sobering thought that there are only 5,000 black rhino and 20,000 white rhino left in the world, yet three rhinos are being poached every day.