Animal Care Tech II – the Veterinary Technician

by Charissa Nasrallah   

The park’s Veterinary Technician had worked at there for about 15 years.  Once she was lowered down by her ankles into a wolf den to vaccinate the cubs, since she was the only employee small enough to fix in there.  Despite her size, she was strong enough to load up a dead carcass of a bull bison in a tractor to take it off the reserve.  She had also been involved in a wrestling match with a bull elk that had grapevines caught in his antlers.  She could stand 5 feet away from a 12 foot alligator and feed it fish. 

I could not feed the alligator this way, not many people can, and nobody should.  There were a few times when the big alligators chased me and I had to fling the fish I was feeding them and run.  I have always taught my students the best way to outrun an alligator was in a zig-zag, but every time I’ve ever ran from one in the reserves I ran straight for the exit.

The Vet Tech was proof one that you should never mistake a Southern accent as a sign of ignorance.  She was one of the nicest ladies I have ever met.  She was naturally an open-minded person, which, I believe, resulted in her being a very wise woman.  She had an instinct for the art of animal care and I was honored to have the chance to work with her.  In time we became good friends and I enjoyed many evenings hanging out around her house.

She had a soft heart for all kinds of critters, and had already gathered her share of stray dogs.  She was one of the people who enjoyed freeing the over population of mice that we bred to feed to the snakes in the Animal Forest.

The Vet Tech continuously checked the animals in the reserve for parasites and other illnesses.  She did an excellent job nursing sick or injured animals and maintained the health of the others.  So when the alligator died, she was very concerned, especially since she had been unable to establish any direct cause of its death before our supervisor gave the orders to bury it. 

One day at work we discussed what we thought about this reptilian fatality.  The Vet Tech agreed that pollution in the waters was a probable cause.  She also agreed that the disinfectant we were using on the cages could be a source of contamination to the water.  She was among the several other employees who believed disinfecting the cages every day was not necessary and not a good idea.  She had mentioned her concerns to management when the new disinfectant was brought in, along with the instructions to use it everyday, opposed to once a week.  The Vet Tech didn’t think these official instructions took into consideration that there was no septic system in the animal forest; therefore this product was being flushed directly into the marsh.

The Animal Care Tech II had crazy old neighbor, who’d been a gator hunter for a while.  He used to hang out some evenings at the Vet Tech’s house.  He informed us that if the salt water had come up into the streams, combined with the extreme heat of the summer, the alligator could have died from dehydration.  At that point in time, both the Vet Tech and I decided it was time to test the salinity and pH of the waters in the reserve. 

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