VN July 2020

Vetnuus | Julie 2020 48 Life plus 20 without parole Mike Lowry Mike Lowry has been in veterinary practice for "life plus 20" years. In this column, he shares his experiences and opinions . Regulars I Life plus 20 Was it a co-incidence? Do you believe in co-incidence? We were at a Book Festival and one of the speakers was James-Brent Styan. Hehadwrittenabook about the illustrious Prof ChristianBarnard. This book includedmany of thebehind the scenehappenings at Groote Schuur. It took me back 40 years to May 1980; the month Robert Magube took Rhodesiaby the throat anddestroyed it. Iwas inCapeTownwith the task of moving the entire High Noon Game Park. The owners had all sorts of exotic and indigenous animals and had sold the entire contingent to a client of mine. This, in itself posed several challenges because the entire animalspectrumwasinvolved:rhino,giraffe,mountainzebra,Bengalese tigers, lions, bears, chimps, coatis, tapir, andmany bird species including ostriches and rheas. In 1980 the available immobilising drugs, sedatives and reversals were far from today’s spectrum. On arrival at the Park we were confronted by several other major problems like rhino crates that looked rather dilapidated and two transport vehicles that looked like theymay not make the first hill. A furthermajor challengewas that the only dart gun I had availablewas a gas charged hand pistol that took a dart with a .22 blank to activate the syringe. It had a range of less than 25 meters. This resulted in a few day’s work when it came to themountain zebra that were in a hill camp of close to 100 hectares andwere extremely weary at the best of time All went very well until we came to a group of tigers that were not going anywhere. They got themselves into a tight group and refused all coaxing tomove them into crates. One of theworkers eventually had had enough and came out with a very typical statement “Gee vir my nog‘n doppie rooiwyn en ek sal daai donnerse tiermetmy hanne vang.” Eventually a solution was found by way of a water cannon. The zebra proved to be a very real problem and ultimately the path that they had used regularly to get to a water source was used to drive them down and by taking refuge behind a substantial tree I could get to within 10 meters of the moving herd. With four passes all were eventually darted successfully. Unfortunately, all the driving resulted in severe capture myopathy, a relatively recently diagnosed problem in game capture at that stage, and two were lost. Thenwe got towhere this story started.Therewas a single chimp, Jacky, in a fairly large enclosure with a sleeping shelf at the back and high up. On the shelf was a substantial quantity of haywhichwas obviously used by the inmate to sleep on. The keeper warned me that this inmate got very aggressive if anything out of the ordinary was attempted. This surely proved to be the case. He obviously knew what a dart gun was! On pointing the little gun at him he went absolutely ballistic as only a male chimp can. Faeces was hurled all over the place and his screams were deafening. He roared around the cage at a frightening pace and refused to remain in any one spot long enough to get a dart in to him. After a considerable duel he eventually settled under a blanket of hay which he had covered himself with. A dart was a risky option because one could not see the intended target adequately. I waited very impatiently and after some time he exposed his ample buttock and the dart did the rest. Within minutes he was totally sedated and moved onto the lawn outside the cage. Jacky was lying on his back with his crown jewels totally exposed. My local helper who had commented on the tigers earlier walked past and made another memorable comment “Hel, Maria, ek wens ek het so ‘n paar. Dink net hoe lekker ons sou kon kuier!” To put the story into perspective. Jacky and his friend had been given to Prof Barnard by the people of Spain to use in a heart transplant experiment. Prof Barnard had somehow used the one and this fellow had been left in his cage in the vivisection unit at Groot Schuur where he became unmanageable. The press also got word of the two chimps and therewas an outcry by the people of CapeTown. Prof Barnard in his usual way appeased the people by giving Jacky to the people of Cape Town. There was little they could do with him and he was moved on to High Noon Reserve where I was tomeet him. Jacky was moved into a chimp colony at a sanctuary I was looking after, and I was to see himonmany subsequent occasions to the extent that we became very friendly. I used to wear a peak cap when working and if I visited and did not have my cap on he would clap his hands and then touch his head and open his hands – a pure and easily read gesture“Where is your cap?” He spent thenext 25 years in the sanctuary successfully siring many baby chimps before succumbing to severe tuberculosis. James Styan, after presenting the book he had written asked if there were any questions. He got a few but of interest was the fact that in the audience were two ladies who had nursed at Groote Schuur; one had been the sister in charge of looking after Louis Washkansky and the second was the nurse who had helped with the harvesting of Denise Darvall’s heart, which was used in theWashkansky operation. Then I related the story of Jacky. James was very excited about getting the conclusion to the chimp story because he had been worried about what had happened to this animal that was an intended heart donor. Co-incidence 40 years after the fact? v