EXOTIC VETTING: True Stories

A world leading expert in wildlife surgery, Romain Pizzi has caught, anaesthetised, diagnosed, operated on, medicated and then released some of the world's most endangered wild animals, travelling from the rainforests of Sierra Leone to the jungles of Borneo. From disease testing Polynesian snails to keyhole surgery in Sumatran Orangutans, sometimes this is high-tech work, such as the first robotic surgery on a tiger, or a giant panda cloning attempts. Sometimes the situations are more primitive from anaesthetising a bear with a bicycle pump, old plumbing tubes and a plank, to operating on a vulture using an old metal spoon. Mixing science, mystery and sometimes just plain guesswork, wildlife veterinarians treat the world's wildest and most endangered creatures and here Pizzi shares his extraordinary stories as well as his insight into the amazing breadth of biology and procedures needed to help get animals better. He also shares tips on where to run when the patients unexpectedly wake up! Chapters include Catching Crocodiles with Shoe Laces, How To Squeeze a Porcupine and Look an Owl in the Eye, Why Deer Don't Die of Sickle-cell Anaemia, Turtle Migraines, the Six-Fingered Woodpecker, Hippopotamus Dentistry with an Angle Grinder and Manatee Junk Food among them. 408pp in very large softback with 16 pages of amazing colour photos including a close up of a giant anteater and an X-ray of a swan's neck bones.