Feb. 17, 2022

# 63: A walk on the wild side, with Dr Rosie Booth.

# 63: A walk on the wild side, with Dr Rosie Booth.
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Season 1

Dr Rosie Booth is a wildlife veterinarian and has been one since before that was even a job description. 

Rosie has 40 years of experience in conservation and wildlife work, which started with a masters degree in koala adrenal glands in 1986 and sparked a lifetime of caring for this iconic species. Since that time she has worked in many of Australia’s most prominent zoos and wildlife hospitals. Rosie spent 7 years working for the Queensland government leading a breeding program for endangered species, during which time they released 170 individuals from several endangered species back into the wild. Most recently she worked as the director of the wildlife hospital at Australia Zoo. She has written more than a hundred wildlife related publications and has trained a small army of others to contribute to this vital work. Recently retired from her full-time role at Australia Zoo she is now focussing her energy on freelance conservation projects and educating and inspiring a new generation of vets.

In this episode, we talk about the challenges, the misconceptions and the implications of a career in wildlife, about staying motivated in a job where your best efforts can sometimes feel fruitless, about big problems, and big solutions.  Rosie also gives practical advice for those considering a career in wildlife, shares stories about some amazing patients, and so much more. 

 

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We're releasing this episode a few days after Valentine's Day 2022.And if you've been watching the news, you'd have seen that at around the same time, the Australian animal, that receives the most amount of love, not just on Valentine's Day.The koala is officially in a lot of trouble.
It was announced last week that in one decade, we've managed to push koalas from the vulnerable list onto the endangered list.If you listening to this, it'll be a fair.Guess that you're a fan of Animals and that this fact bothers you.
But what do we do about it?Especially in our profession, we have the skills, the passion and the inclination to help this leads to some pretty big question though.Like what exactly is the best way that you can help?And it's not just gualas, and it's not a uniquely Australian issue.
I've worked as a waiter in South Africa, the UK and here in Australia.And the reality is that, by default just, by virtue of the fact that we have Vets.We do help whether it's pangolins and vervet monkeys, swans and hedgehogs or koalas and lorikeets.
We see firsthand the end results of the wrong kinds of human-wildlife interactions.What have you decided to dedicate your entire career to this problem?That is exactly what our guest for this episode did.
I'm Gerardo Paulie.I'm Ubud him strapped and this is the weight belt.Before we introduce Our Guest for this episode, just a reminder about our clinical series of podcasts.
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Free two week trial.Now, back to our guest, dr.Rosemary Booth, or rosy, as those who know and love our caller, which is a large number of people.Is a Wildlife veterinarian and has been one since before.There was even a job description.
Rosie has 40 years of experience in conservation and Wildlife work, which started with a master's degree in koalas and their adrenal glands in 1986, which was the start of a lifetime of working to care for this iconic species.Since that time, she's worked in many of Australia's, most prominent zoos and Wildlife hospitals, spent seven years, working for the Queensland government leading a breeding program for endangered species during which time they released 170 individuals from several highly endangered species, back into the wild and most recently.
She worked as the director for the Wildlife hospital at Australia Zoo.She's written more than 100 Wildlife related Publications and has trained a small army of others to contribute to this vital work.Rosie has recently retired from her full-time role at Australia, Zoo and is now focusing your energy on freelance, conservation, projects and educating and inspiring a new generation of its.
We talk about the challenges the misconceptions and the implications of a career in Wildlife about staying motivated in a job where your best efforts can sometimes feel a bit fruitless about big problems and big Solutions.Rosie also gives practical advice for those considering a career in Wildlife share stories about Amazing patients and so much more.
Please enjoy doctor Rosie booth Rosie.Welcome to the VIP card.Yeah, thank you.So I do.Hello.Team.Hello Rosie.Yeah.Hydro generators.Back broadcasting with us.
It's his brain is mostly normal again.I know, I can't can't hide it now, it's very hard to replicate the cognitive.Deficits I had before which meant that I had a holiday from podcasting, but now that I speak to human and most days, he knows that I can start to articulate and speak properly.
So it's like so when you jump back on, Mmm, Mmm time and you weren't able to remember how to be professional, but the jurat Encephalitis.Oh, seriously, are we?It is Viral Encephalitis.Has yeah.
Got it from my daughter and from from daycare, but powerful winds to the brain to spent 10 days in hospital came out.The other end thinking, I was pretty cool until I realized that actually.No, not really, but that's right.The mmm, so good, but only, well, recovery is really well and we are very grateful for the experience actually learnt so much about myself life and what the simple things were important and re-evaluated many things and made a big shift in my career as well through the Let's do so excellent.
This is a complete detour.Nothing to do with the podcast but I listened to a another talk the other day by Sam Harris.And they talked about negative experiences and what is what's good?Is there a sweet spot for suffering?
Talk about suffering, do we need suffering in our lives and they talk about exactly that when people go through a negative experience.And then afterwards say don't want to do it again, but I'm glad I went through it and and that Be looking at data and research and they're going, they think possibly deluding ourselves.
We just humans are such good storytellers.Yeah, that will take any situation to go.Yeah, that was really good.That shouldn't happen.I'm glad it happened and I'm sure they didn't say for a fact that they say this is quite quite a possibility that we are just very good and reframing things to otherwise it would just collapse in a heap and go for me.
Yeah, I don't think if you didn't reframe or couldn't see the value of the experience.And pushing through it.Yeah, I think every experience would be just like you just yeah.Yeah, we wouldn't survive.You wouldn't survive.That's for sure.All right, let's talk about Wildlife waiting.Rosie at a premium to do with this question.
I like this one because it normally brings out good stories.Yeah, I once was driving down the freeway and Perth and I saw a graffiti on the wall that said, bad decisions lead to good stories.I like that statement and I always ask people, do you agree?You think that's true and if you do, have you got a story to prove birthday?
Yeah yeah.I know there's a lot of bad decisions that have led to good things for me, but the the one that relates to a wildlife is I decided to go from private practice into research and I had a choice between molecular biology and koalas.
The molecular biology thing was fully funded and probably would have taken me.Into a very lucrative career because it was just starting out back then.But of course, I chose the unfunded koala, research and struggled working part time and doing a masters.But then, the koala thing became my careers.
And even though, you know, financially, it hasn't been the best decision.It's been the most meaningful thing for me because, you know, just LED from Wildlife job to Wildlife job in an era where there were very few of us jobs Yeah, my experience old in discussions with people who work in what Wildlife.
It'd be very hard to get into orbit, save even harder to get into a like a wildlife zoo job than would be to get into a specialty residency or something like that.It's super.Is it super exclusive or just super not enough spots?Super super competitive.
There's very few zoos in the Australian region.You know, there's New Zealand and Australia for Australian citizens to choose from.And they'd be So many young people that want to do wild life residencies.And you got one at Melbourne, one at Perth.I don't think they do wanted a delayed.
So, and turanga, of course.So, that's three people taken care of, in our issues in a back, when I started, there were no residences and I was very lucky that I did that Masters in koalas.Because Lone Pine, koala Sanctuary was just looking for their first full-time vet at a time when I was helping them with some of the koala that work and With the other people applying at the time or was it not?
So it was that you just pick me because I'm the No.1.We want to do with koalas back then.Is that right?Nobody thought of it as a job and, you know, I just happened to be standing closest at the time that they were looking for things.
How far were you into your post qualification that?That's, I think that was in my first year when they were running into trouble.And my supervisor said, Rosie's event, she might be able to help.I showed up, I put a collar on a drip and everyone's like, wow of medicine back then, for wildlife like it away.
Like the Pioneer, I don't know.Can you give a koala, the methadone next time the koalas like wow.That's base for three days.Yeah atropine she pulled it out, let it was their medications that would known When you entered.It was there like a booklet on koala.
Was just, no, not at all.So it was let's give this a go.There was very little information about Australian Wildlife at all so this was 1986 were talking.So I just used first principles.Fortunately, we had very good lecturers at uq and they had trained Us in the art of principles and just apply those things to anything you're faced with and you will get by.
And so we just use dog and cat Doses and some Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't.I'm curious.Why did you pick the koala Thing versus the you say microbiology or that?Yeah, interesting question.
I'm not sure what the answer is.I was, I had spent a lot of time in National Parks.I love nature and I loved wild life, when I was growing up, but I think probably the big trigger for me was, I was working in a mixed practice on the outskirts of Brisbane, Pine Mountain, and a koala got hit by a car and brought to the practice and it had a fractured And I thought no I should try and fix this.
The boss wasn't terribly opposed to me wasting valuable time on a non-paying customer and it just was such a different animal.You know, just trying to meet its needs, trying to get it to cooperate and feed after the surgery, you know, it just was fascinated.
That's more interesting to me than the molecular biology.I still think they can biology is interesting, but But yeah, it's hard to know where you make the decisions.You make you said there was like a like net as it is upon reflection.
That you feel that heading down the koala pathway is turned out to be more meaningful and more purposeful for you or even back then did you when you made the choice you felt that was a more meaningful purposeful thing or you just flip the coin, you know.
I think I'd probably thought it was more purposeful because I like to help the underdog whereas molecular biology More often helps humans, probably not that.It's not my thing to help humans are doing okay koalas needed to help more.
They need all the help.They can get, they need to help more.But I tell you, as I get older and I reflect on how I've spent my career, I thought I was really helping, I thought I was breaking new ground and working for the conservation of koalas.I think this is Meaningful, but now, What he is on the same issues, they're facing the same issues.
I feel less like I've achieved something because, you know, put all this energy in and the problems are even more severe and more urgent than they were in the 80s.That's facing white deforestation or loss of loss of habitat and things.
Yeah, the habitat loss.So the you know, fragmentation for human habitation, Urban Development primarily but you know, I can't be held accountable. for that because I have no control over the human population but it's just My daughter often says to me, well, you didn't do very well.
Did you know your generation of really made it bad for us and you know, he's not for lack of trying, I know what are your, huh?But at least now.Yeah, it's something I, you know, I struggle with it when I worked with Rosie like listeners, don't know.
I did a stint working at the zoo and even when I applied for the job, I try to be mindful of We invest your time and for the same reasons I thought, well there's an opportunity for a find, it very hard to turn down an opportunity and same thing.
I love all the wildlife and you want to do something meaningful, but exactly that question.Where is the, what is the most meaningful way to invest your time and talents for the biggest outcome, because And I don't have the answer spending the time at the zoo.
I think there's definitely meaning in that I don't end up, I found a lot of value and saying, well there is this individual animal.There's meaning in that and relieving suffering, but I still exactly.As you say, you go, well, maybe if you were a molecular biologist, you could have fixed plumerias.
It's a God.Yeah, I don't know.It's a very tough one.What about you Jim out of after your meningitis?Have you, you want to spend your time in the most meaningful way possible.Is it your loved ones that become the focus or is it how you spell?
Ya think.I question what I felt during that time is because we like went going going through, Encephalitis rage, my lost him, a lot of emotional regulation and resiliency and I'm still developing that now.
So I used to spend many hours.Had a kind of just few Min and really angry and put a lot of pressure, my family, and coming out, the other end of that.Still going through it, but it was super important for me now that I literally schedule in time for family and also make sure that what I do now has a scalable impact.
It's really hard to explain that means, but there's lots of Choose the come through because of knowledge skills or whatever.Maybe but I have a bit of a filter now I've had to create a filter of my decision-making process to go.Okay what is good use of the time they have available and how could help as many people as possible.
So moving into a role within an emergency is Australia, where we going to break down all our clinical content, and despite its size pieces and share it with the world.So that, as many people as As possible get access to emergency Critical Care, clinical protocols but also how to transition into emergency, how to be successful, how to make emerging practice work for you.
Those kind of things which are rulers resources, really hard to find.So I feel that I can share that with as many people around the world.Then that will be you a meaningful use of my time.Yeah, so exactly.I have a similar feeling for the Wildlife work, is that, you know, being towards the end of my career, I want to spend the last bits of it.
Sharing the information so that more people will benefit.Mmm.That's great.So let's go back to your journey Rosie.So you started with take with a, was it a PhD and then where did that take you from that?
How do you end up?How do you go from there to Australia Zoo?Wild life bait and been able to talk about what's behind ya?So I think I mentioned it to Lone Pine, koala Sanctuary offered me full time employment before I've even finished.My masters and that was beyond my wildest dreams to become the vet in an organization that had.
I think, at the time 80 koalas suddenly I heard about iguanas.Wow.And that depended on me and they had all sorts of issues.You know, there was chlamydia osis in that captive populations, which we needed to eradicate.And so it was super exciting.
I'm leaving spent 18 months there when I got head hunted for a job in Victoria in a bigger and better.Nate.So in the sanctuary healesville Sanctuary, beautiful place.And so the focus for them is not koalas.It was threatened species.So, getting into the conservation.
Field captive.Breeding would you feel like, as if you look back over and you still tackling the same problems but not feels if?No, no.Is it, is it the marker of your impact for know?That is that, is that the right marker for your it like for evaluation of your impact?
And what you've been doing?Or if the animals are still all And yeah, that's so obvious.You know what I'm saying?You would like I do, I do.I like you could argue that if they weren't people like you, they'll be gone by now.They still threads and but they still here.
Yeah, some of them are still here.The the Bramble came Eloise sadly is gone but you know that was a little rodent that lived on an island lived on it.Okay.Bramble K the oceans Rose because I'm not changing the government didn't want it.
Take them into captivity and they just drowned.Oh, with that Bramble K, it's in Queensland.The this is an example, of a species where captive breeding would have definitely kept them alive, but given that Bramble que no longer exists is the philosophical.
Question of does that Melanie's exist if it's not existing in its natural habitat?So it's literally gone the way they lived is gone.So when people talk about right it's coming and it's going to change.That's not coming.
It's here.Yes, it's here.There's so much evidence like when you work in the threatened species area, you see, in a Richmond, Birdwing butterflies, the whole breeding cycle is changed by the difference in temperature and so they're all confused about when they should pupate and when they should emerge as butterflies and they're coming out at the wrong.
Time.And there's so much evidence when you're working in this area, just think.So now, okay.Now the last, you know, that's a need you at the end of your career, but What does it look like for you?
What would have been meaningful impact?Look like for you now?Oh, what a good question.Hopefully, passing on a passion for wildlife to the Next Generation, and to see that people value nature enough to fight for it.
I fear that as a society, we're becoming more and more separated from nature.And if we become completely separated, and we think it doesn't matter.The planet is doomed.We clearly are part of Nature and imagine the majority of people Planet Kid about nature as a major thing to protect.
We could prolong the life of the planet that success would look like seeing a Groundswell that I contribute to in some small way where the majority of the people care.Yeah.
And a lot of people do care, there's a I see this a lot in veterinary science and I definitely saw it.And I know why working at the wildlife hospital this whole thing whole thought that people suck.So we're all animal lovers or most people have reached me.Science are attracted to the career because we work with animals and then you often see it in in small animal practice but certainly in Wildlife when people do dumb things or they do selfish things or they do ignorant things.
And there's this view that People are bad, but then you see the flip side.You see all these incredible people.Like yourself and other people who don't suck.We do a lot and again, it's so great.We just see, because I've got little kids and they do a lot of nature Focus teaching at this school when we've been in two states.
And then we go with.They took them to the zoo and it was literally almost a whole term where my eight-year-old it was all about nature and Wildlife and stuff.So it's really encouraging to see that.How do you feel do you feel Like we're on the right track when it with a lot of it.All right, I fear.
Sometimes the greedy bad, people might outnumber the good caring people, but I don't have clear statistics on that Western Society, certainly seems to be divorced from nature, and from, they don't even know where milk comes from.
For example, comes from the fridge.It's a, it's frightening to me to see how T seems to be getting a little bit.Our Western Society seems to be out of control with technology and everybody is on their phone and on the computer.
And here we are talking through this but this is good because we communicate it.But I fear that people are losing sight of their dependence on forests and on Green Space, not spending enough time going outside and breathe.
Being in the fresh air and remembering not to be caught up in this treadmill that we get on, get up in the morning, check your phone, stay all hyper for the whole day and collapse.And begin again with there is an option.Yeah, I think it would comes down to.
I think there's also a lot of people who, who care.But then, when it comes to a choice between, do I care about Something, that's not me, or my family, or my financial success.How much do I care?I care enough to make decisions that might cost me in some little bit of luxury or some something else.
I think that's where we fall down.I think people have great intentions, but we also inherently really.When I raise the kid, I always look at my kids and go.We self such selfish little creatures, we are so said and chosen by Evolution for our own.
Own Survival and what's good for me and what's maximizing my comfort?And my family and my direct crew to prosper at the cost of anything else.And how do we get that passed in to say these kids?Yeah, these are cool animals that but don't just be excited about it.
Make Life Choices.Then the that whole selfishness is very Primal, isn't it?I mean even animals that they're trying to protect their own genetic material, their own families.Yeah, one thing I found interesting, the when I was When we started looking into us as a business, and how we can stand for something that is in alignment with our values, but is outward facing towards the community or to environment.
And the reason being is we can get focused on the numbers and metrics and the profitability of a business and it's important to have a proper business so you can help and maintain the Health and Welfare of pets.But also provide a the money for, for the staff.
But beyond that point it's almost like sometimes having an outward facing in goal or choice or or objective where people can come around and be involved in.
And we started looking at bringing practices and making our hospitals, environmentally more sustainable.And we had this consultant come out and had a chat to work.Us.And He was talking about the impact that one person could have on like a normal person, you know, deciding to do Recycling and deciding to buy a small car or maybe ride the bicycle and stuff, because that's great.
And it in a definitely helps.But then, where the impact starts to scale, as the impact of of big business corporations and Industry and things, but it's going to start from people to put their hand up and want something to shift or change within their employer or the door.
In their organization.And it was from that that I realized that, yeah.Like we could still have that the fibers may be big and huge but then if we speak up and put pressure and and stand for something that that may make an impact on a 40 million dollar Hospital like company, then that's a massive impact.
But in might only take 10 of you, 20 of you of the staff to put their hand on, get Haley.This really need to change and we need to support something.Yeah.One of the things that's frightening from working at Australia Zoo, Wildlife hospital is we get a lot of donations of medical waste what they call Waste.
You know, the things that they throw out at the hospital and so being a wildlife hospital is an opportunity to be donated.A lot of the things they would otherwise throw out and it's frightening.Quantity of things, you know, it drape that is opened but not used.
Can't be used for another humans.I had the same experience when we organized a spade trip in Indonesia and went to a hospital through a friend in Perth looking for stuff to take with us.Oh, she took me in the nurse.Took me into a room of all the throwaway stuff.
It's literally a room with Stephen me talking about closed sealed metal, surgical instruments.It's just beyond the date that they said they no longer classified as surgically sterile and then the chuckle.You know that there's a lot that needs to be done in that industry that at the wildlife hospital.
We get to reuse things like the anesthetic machines that are worth thirty thousand dollars knew that they were Going to scrap and we were able to acquire that for a mere 3,000 dollars.And yesterday, we used it on a giant turtle for a slipper amputation and the ventilator was working beautifully.
And so it's so fantastic for us.That was a piece of equipment that we got for next to nothing compared to its value.It was going to landfill and we were able to ventilate a turtle for hours where normally we wouldn't have to do that because Under killer turtles like a human.
So the ventilator worked well on him the human ventilator Ruby doing prank work and Australian zoo and there was a turtle big.Maybe a big leather back or something as a huge turtle and he was in a pool next, the hospital I think.
So I'll swear to pull behind it must be one of her at the residences on on and I was in the pool but I'd helped out this pool.This turtle is down the bottom of the pool in the deep end and a couple guys are the jump down and kind of lift him up out of The pool and then like five of us, lifted him out to put the creams for his Barber papilloma ptosis or something.
But that was a life-changing experience.That that was incredibly cool.We have all those fantastic lifting equipment.Now we have electric hoists and black students.Yeah, this is very cool.We still have to catch him in the pool but yeah it's a that's the best part of the job.
You keep to get in the pool and it will ya.Became very philosophical.Let's get a little bit practical or as if I'm a young.Yeah, let's say they're young without the listening and going.Yeah, I think I want to do wildlife.What's the journey these days?
What does it look like?How do you get involved in it?Oh, it's so much easier and you can follow a sensible path.So you can do a residency at one of the major zoos you can do a master's in Wildlife Conservation.Massey in New Zealand and you can also do exams to become Specialists.
So there is a more traditional path now to follow together your education.And your skills but nothing beats practical experience and doing your back work.When you're a student at one of the major Wildlife hospitals of these three in southeast Queensland is all of the zoo's have Wildlife hospitals.
The young, the medicine.Like one thing I found like this is a while ago when I came through and did break.Work at Australia Zoo, man was talking to a couple of the nurses there and had nurses.And we're talking about like the medicines Miles in the styles of medicine at One hospital, might be different to the style of medicine and different hospital like and the management care of the qawalli.
Here, they do this, but they do that.Like, is there more of a standardization of the medicine associated with Wildlife?Or is it still a little bit more?Kind of location dependent?That's it, that's a good question.There are variations between the hospital's depending on, you know, who the primary Veterinary influences and you can get trends that are not always, you know, Science-based.
So there is a good thing happening at the moment.The department of environment, got all of the southeast Queensland Wildlife hospitals into a network with a memorandum of understanding and we share our protocols and we meet regularly to try and come to a consensus with science-based decision-making, and moving Egos, and and trying to make the protocols.
Based on consensus, which is good because it wasn't always like that.Well, I think it's in part because there's still so much that is unknown and I invite stint there.It says it was a first.
I thought this is a bad thing and then I found it potentially is a really good thing.Career-wise, if you decide that's what you're going to commit your life to initially.When there was a things that that I had to do, there was some vagueness around where I'd say well what do we do you?And and We would say, well, not 100% sure we try this, there's no evidence, but we think this works and I find that quite hard because, you know, in emergency practice that such standardized, this is the proven current best therapy and I've got it, I got it.
I want to know what I'm doing.I don't want to try but then on the flip side, it's also really exciting because you can there's so much opportunity to go.There's this thing that we don't know and I could be the person to figure this out if you commit the time to this.That's that's scope for discovering new things.
If your Curious person, I could be an awesome career.Absolutely.The the everyday is a fresh challenge.There's always something that crops up that you haven't done before in it.That's one of the things I love about Wildlife medicine is the unknown, which instead of domestic and will work with, so much more is set.
Now, there's still plenty of unknown in the world Li field.So, yeah, well, what did what you just said there?They are known, right?And finding that Exciting or interesting is the mindset associated with that is like being okay with uncertainty.
Yeah and and stepping into that.So yeah exactly.I found that confronting.We see some private practitioners who come to the hospital.They freeze when they see something that is unfamiliar and and the difference between a wildlife that I think in a domestic animal vet, is that comfort in the unknown?
It's like galvanizes you in to stay.Out of excitement to solve the problem, as opposes to stopping you from acting the, I don't know what to do.I don't want to do any harm but it's a maybe it's a borderline personality disorder that we all have won that game and but it's you can really see the difference between but I don't think it's a personality thing.
I think it is just been comfortable with it because again you go through uni and and the you get taught, this is how you do it.Not a lot of wiggle room.There is a right way.There's the papers and I know how to do it.Don't do it different because it's wrong and then when you confront a situation that is, that doesn't fall within that scope you go.
Well, now, I don't know what to do because I haven't read the book.And I've actually found it really helpful for my small.His work is it still is having gone to the zoo to go?Yeah.Sometimes you don't know, but you have knowledge and you taught me a lot of this that you have some knowledge that you can draw on, hmm and improvise and figure something out.
So it's actually been really good.It's shifted my mindset a little bit.Yeah.You have lots of knowledge somewhere there somewhere.Yeah, I didn't make that gz.So locked in your little box of.Well this is where My knowledge ends and you can well no just extrapolated.
Yes and you could fly.So we're talking about career as a Wildlife veterinarian and their misconceptions.They are the things that you think.Yeah.Which student or young?The things I want to be a wildlife with.You have to learn to love lorikeets.
There's an evil bastard.
Yeah. 02:00 like it, that would be Armageddon and death in my mind.So she's like that sounds.You know, you're going to have walked Walked walked in the morning.I said in morning, right?A big thunderstorm come by with the coast and walking in, it's just chaos.
Everybody's dead is literally 200 plus lorikeets beated up invented by hailstones.Yeah, I suppose you know where the old Roost in one or two trees, a whole on drinks for Miley.And they got smash, So they had bruises on their heads and Comcast the dragons because Bender.
I feel bad for the lord gave you and then you like, we were able to say, yeah, yeah, yeah.Yeah-yeah about half of them and that's the thing that most people don't understand when they become Wildlife.
It's is what the mortality rate is because you can't Up everything from dying and sometimes euthanasia is the kind of thing to do for them.So you know, it's almost 60 40 where 60% of the animals need euthanasia because they can't be returned to the wild because of the chronic injury.
So what is the impact of that?Because general practice like I don't know what the unit euthanasia rate is in general practice.For when an emergency it's somewhere between 50 to 15 to 20 percent on average but 80% like yeah like what's the toll there this differently there's differently till every day.
There's an animal.You have to euthanize.That really gets to either it's suffering and so extreme or, you know, it's same came.So close to being releasable and then it doesn't quite make it.So there's an enormous impact on the people in the world.
They every animal means a lot to you, but I think the ability to end suffering.This is such a beautiful thing and you would see that in domestic animals to some animals are so in need of having their lives terminated that you feel good about it because you have ability to give them that gift not suffering anymore.
So that's how I try and get people to remember that.That is an honor to be able to relieve suffering, but it does damage, the people differently I think.Sometimes there's almost a used by date, where is too much and you have to go and do something else on wash cars for a living or something, because it just goes, oh God, there's so much, it's like being in a mash unit sometimes.
The number of critical injuries that come in you just don't want to see it anymore, especially when these wild animals mean a lot to you and then you see them so injured.So how do you, how did you what strategies did you put in place to?
I know do you You Palm off the old euthanasia to the new vessel, or do you definitely not reinforce that message of you're giving these animals a gift often?Because I see it crushing people, you know, the nurses in particular, okay, so much and I've just astounded by the because you think that you could jaded or people would get jaded and and blunted to the suffering, but I was just astounding to see See if people and then especially the nurses, how much they cared there was that Veterinary?
Nurses amongst my favorite people on the planet because they are so nurturing and they try so hard every patient.And when you watch how much energy they put in to their job, there's I have to have tell the story.There was a we didn't anesthetic on a koala and it was going back out to the Run post and aesthetic and then suddenly there's this nurse.
Shout out to Daisy, running back in in a panic in tears and have she's got this little bum bag with pins and instruments and they freaking flying all over the place.You see pigs flying and look, what's happening.And it's this tiny little Pinky and I hands and I just really quite emotional.
I'll see nurtured it in this little pink.A hands going.Yeah, it's dying with.So the pouch and get the little pink had fallen out of the pouch.But it's based on a stick off the nipple and just to see that level of care and going this whole thing.Save it just really managed to get that baby back.
They came back in and had another anesthetic and reattach.That was, that was a happy story because, you know, there's a size where you can't get them back on and it was probably just got a video that'll put it on the other website.No, that was.That was very Be cool.
And yeah, she was so distraught that one little life.Yeah, love them.That did that answer your questions?Your honour, I got went off track a bit, I know, but it is, it's good to hear because I always think it's an honor in like I do I stall euthanasias.
Get to me sometimes, but it's, it's not like a that I used to think that I should just be a man of steel, despite the fact that I may be in some Madness.Now, I've just accept the fact that sometimes, they do know that, sometimes I do get to me despite the fact I've been doing PT euthanasias for 10 years now and and it is still, it is still the gift and it's an honor.
I love what you said that honor that was good.You told the story in a meeting Rosie once about that, I go it was somewhere.That is the Tiger in Katmandu, remind me the one of the Reasons I value euthanasia as an option is traveling to a country where euthanasia is not an option.
Mmm, lucky enough to travel to Nepal and we visited the Katmandu Central Zoo back in the 90s, and they had a tiger there.That was on display to the public that had been captured because he was a Maneater.
So he'd been taken prisoner and in the process of being captured, he'd been shot.Civil time, he had a fractured femur and other fractures that had not been treated.And so he was crippled And he had grown to adulthood in the wild and he was now in a cage, in a zoo being stared at by humans.
Yeah, with a horribly healed, smashed femur and the suffering in his eyes.I love tigers.They are like the symbolism of the wildest most successful creature on the planet.
To me, you know, nice competent.Predator who also extremely good at, raising a young and and just to see that suffering in the eyes of this animal who had once lived under his own, he had master of his domain control of his own destiny.
And now he was trapped, and I really wanted to arrange for him to be euthanized in the time, I was there because I couldn't stand seeing him like that and it was such a struggle to get the other people involved in his care.To see what I could see, interesting problem.
Unfortunately, I was unable to make that happen.There was no Lisa Bob in the country, you had to get it from India.Put some steps in place and I hope that it eventually did happen but Yeah, that was traumatizing.I can still picture his eyes to this Bay.
Yeah so you're right it is a strictly if you imagine not being able to do it, what a that would be heaps with much much of it.Sometimes when Laura keep biting me, I threatened with euthanasia.Oh, a phrase and dogs all the time, you get crazy duck.
So I always say to them, dude, I have the power to kill you.I can go ahead and I will write what is it with lorikeet talking?We just see lots and lots of our kids because they like high flying demons.That's that fly around at like 100 km/h and can't see well, or something like they do well in an urban environment, but you're right, they do have a lot of flying accident.
So fly into And so fly into windows, they fly very fast with no concern for their safety, but there are a lot of them, you know, they live in large flocks, they do.Well, in an urban environment with all the flowering plants of liberalism bottle brush that little so fond of it's just because there's so many of them that we see lots of them.
It's not that just they just all bit hmong and can't like fly with something.If you get a chance go to currumbin sanctuary and watch the rainbow lorikeets feeding This is flocks of hundreds of them and periodically, they will start will because, you know, maybe a bird of prey goes over and then they all fly out of the Arena at this high speed and if you stand still they'll fly around you.
Like they'll make the flying it like knows what speed per hour and they'll suddenly mean they won't crash into you, so they're not wrong.They're actually, they're actually extremely good care of it.Invisible barriers.
They can't see, which makes sense.You know, almost feels like glass.Yeah.And and they're, you know, often feeding close to the sides of the road, so they eat a muffin, I'm getting the feeling that no rainbow, lorikeet leaves the hospital with you.Gerardo, if you're on shift, I've got to ask Another patient that I saw.
I was gone by this time, it came in the little platypus that you guys had.Yeah, what happened to that?I'm sure they tell us the story at what.Yeah, okay.So a platypus was found swimming in circles at Mulaney near the shopping center.So there's a beautiful OB.
OB Creek runs through Millennia and past the Shopping Centre car park and viewing area there.And somebody observed.This platypus swimming in tight circles and could tell it wasn't normal.So they captured it and brought it into the hospital and did a full exam.I happen to be a bit of a platypus vet.
So I've worked with a lot of them and I love them.So I was aware that there's a logical and disease and you stranglers countenances.We've seen that in a platypus before hookworm rat.Lungworm rat.
Lungworm.That's right.That's right.Yeah.So we had differentials were head trauma.She had some abrasions on her bill and on her feet.Hypoxic brain injury from being in trapped under the water sunken shopping trolley or even Nets.
People put in the catching fish and crayfish or and your struggles or something.We hadn't thought of we'll talk.So we did a CSF tap to see if we could see eosinophils or any evidence of the NGO strongest.
And that was normal.We did blood work, and she does have a very elevated globulin, which says to me.She's mounting an immune response to something, I'm fearful that it is.NGO strongly.Okay, so we've been treating her with anti-inflammatories antibiotics in case, it was a bacterial meningitis.
Differential, I didn't mention and Support feeding her because she can't be put in deep water or she would just swim in circles but in shallow water she feeds very well.Okay, so she still there, she's not at the zoo.
I have centered to Walkabout Creek, where they've been displaying platypus for years.And the Rangers are very expert at keeping platypus alive.So initially she was doing brilliantly and then she's just had a recent setback.
So there.There is mounting evidence that I think she has periodically migrating, through the cerebellum in particular, you can't kill him and then the brain, well, if you kill them, you know, from the human literature humans, get it to and dogs, but if you kill them, the inflammatory response can be fatal.
So better to let them leave.They're on a mission to migrate out and spread the cycle.So I let them migrate out of the brain.Back into the gastrointestinal tract and but she's still alive.
Unfortunately, the brain damage hasn't affected her ability to forage, so that's really exciting because it was ambushed.Yeah, so I'm so sad I missed that because I've been dying to see what I'm confessed.What's next for Rosie?Um well I'm in a semi-retired state now so I'm hoping then the last year's teaching to encourage more people to go into the wildlife field and help.
Re-embrace their relationship with nature like to say, if you are a young vet to wants to do I love with you.Might have the privilege of raising teaching you soon.Yeah, I couldn't get it all out before.I forget things, she's already too late.
You've been in the in the profession a long time Rosie.Is it anything over the last five years or so that you've learned that it's changed your mind about something or that you didn't know or or felt differently about There is actually, but it doesn't stem from work.
My parents have both passed away in the last five years and that has been an incredibly sad experience but also it's triggered.A nice change in the way I approach life because, you know, it's the issue of remember you are mortal like till your parents die, you kind of think they're going to be there forever and then to have them disappear off the face of the planet.
It's like Mmm.We're all Mortal is anything that I still want to get done, I better get on, and get it done.And also, it galvanizes you to reprioritize everything in your life.And that's why I have stopped working full-time.
And I am now moving towards the things that are most important to me, where my family, my daughter in particular and making sure that That the energy that I expend every day is directed towards things that are really really important to me and I think Jurado, you'll Encephalitis experience has done something similar.
I think it's very important for us to remember that our time is finite and stop procrastinating.Look after yourself.Look after your loved ones and do what you have always wanted to do in terms of productive things.
I'm thinking not just selfish challenge though because it was even there to decide.What what are those things can be really hard?Because I struggle with it off because I'm very well aware that in this research, that shows their family and relationships is what matters.
There's literally there is that when I looked at the other day, there's the Harvard Harvard Wellness study or something like that.They attract people from when they students at Harvard all the way to death and then they check who's the happiest quotation.Mark was happy and it is the people with the best relationships with those questions.
Hmm.But then also I also caught because I try and prioritize my family, my kids, but then Community stressful because you can also have other stuff I want to do.I want to contribute to the world.I want to be held by the people that takes time and energy.So there's that fine balance that Whole time of.
What's important but where's the balance?It's in a workplace to your workplace.You spend so much time there.Those people become your family and they matter to you as well.So that's challenge to leave a place where I've used a family like experience but I think I got overly task focused and was expending every last bit of energy in the workplace and you can you know, as you get older, you feel that it's having an impact on you body in, you affecting your own Survival.
I think she take charge of this is how much energy I have.Well, that activity in a reserve, some, mmm, I heard something the other day that help me.Hmm, I can't remember where I read it but Let's say that tonight.
That the problems that are worth solving pick a bigger picture problems, except that you're probably not going to solve it in your lifetime because I think that's the problem.We think this is this thing I need to do Gerardo, you've got your impact.
You want to make, you want to change the world.We're going to save the koalas or something and you you're aware of the finiteness of of your time on Earth.So you've got to constantly work at it because you got to finish the job.Bob and actually accepting you probably not, you'll probably individually, not going to finish the job as a species.
We move towards that goal and you bring your bed and you do what you can.But make peace with the fact that will probably not be done.And you're going to pass that job to the next person behind you.Yeah, which helps me a lot to go.Okay, well I don't have to achieve everything this week's right?
You have two weeks to do it.Life is a really you pass it on.I think if you If you it's all for you and like I wouldn't the word in scalable impact, but scale impact means that you created no emission and movement or a vision that other people can be inspired by or can follow along.
And then that's where you start to scale the message and it's difficult to create that movement to create that change.But I think technology these days enables us to be able to reach much more people and have a bigger impact provided any.
Oh that true provided the real strategic with our time and strategic with how we do it too.We only do have a certain amount of energy in the day and that that's relationships now, really important for me at work, in a way that if I can help people find their careers, create their Arrears, or if I find people who have aligning visions and values than then I'll take those people along for the ride with me, but alongside if not help them create their own vision and values and create their own career Pathways and that has been very rewarding for me.
Yeah.When you can see the results of your influences, probably the most satisfying things, you can spend a lot of time saying things to people, it won't necessarily have an impact but when you do see that you've had an impact of Well, that person listened and took it further, especially, you know, the younger people.
I don't know.You possibly don't have this problem Dorado, but younger people are so much smarter than me because yeah, Veterinary profession is getting harder to get into.And so you see these Bright Young Sparks and certainly got the intellect but they haven't necessarily got the experience.
So it's nice to be able to influence them to use.Use their smarts to do better than I look.Mmm.But we can have a chat about that.We've got a scale Rosie's passion knowledge and how much you care and find a way to scale it.
This is really going to your teaching is going to be there.Yeah scaling of thinking and platforms think laterally find some find some ways very easy.Let's wrap it up with the you don't listen to podcasts I think of as Ask you before.So it's no point asking you about your favorite vodka.
Well she only has one of the moments has to be a favorite.Yeah, it's great book, then books that you've read in the last year or so that you found particularly impactful or I brought it with me, I brought a book.I just had a holiday road trip to Far.
North Queensland.And I bought a book in a secondhand shop up there.And it really is, I couldn't put it down, it's called Venom.And it's a true story about The Adventures of a few amazingly brave people to try and capture a taipan so that they could make anti-venom for the almost Jared percent, fatal bite that were happening when people first inhabited fun of Queensland makes you think it's so many levels because the the people who had to catch the taipans to make the anti-venom were risking their lives.
And in fact, the first young man who caught a taipan to make the first anti-venom died in the process, the snake bit him while he was trying to get it in the bag, he knew.He was going to die and his final Act was to get it in the bag and clamp that bag off in a safe way so that that snake would definitely go to save, other human lives.
And you just think, wow, what we spent.Yeah, and then, then the other things to think about, this is what happens to the snakes.The very first snake that went to make the first anti-venom was handled by David Flay, that Venom was collected by David Flay.
He No, that's a great Australian zoologist.Other David Flay, Wildlife Park and bred the first but of course that were bred in captivity.I think I don't know yet I'll come back to my book but he was called into the modern museum to capture the snake and he was taking his life In His Hands.
Hmm to do that as well and the Never facts and back then take the Venom unconscious.Snakes.But taipans faster than humans.They're smart they're and they're super deadly.
So, you know, they're just an exciting animal.But then you have to think, you know, that that first snake died because of very poor animal husbandry and everyone was so terrified of it that they ended.Keep it locked up and look after it very well Animal Welfare issue there.
And not that many people get bitten by snakes, but a lot of Thai fans have been captured how, how much, how many people risk their lives trying to catch that snake to save the one or two people that were bitten per year.It's almost like get the probably saved female dogs down the line, but it's a really exciting book did talks about the one person who survived without antivenom.
And it talks about the first little boy, whose life Life was saved because of and again, and it talks about all that all of the heroes that searched for the snakes and it, you know, I was Bush walking in shorts, in Far North Queensland.After reading that book and I was freaked out stories about they bite first and ask questions later because, you know, that's the kind of Predator.
They are their unique super aggressive, but very admirable animals, okay?So, let's fast forward a year or two.Reiji is hosting a talk and international talk.And you have all of the young veterinarians, the new graduates of the world tuning in and listening because they want to know how to be a wild.
Love it.You have one little bit of advice that you can give them all what's your bit of advice?It would definitely be to keep learning, never never.Think, you know, it all keep learning, I learn things every day and you can learn things from everyone around you.
Not just that, Smartest person in the room.We learn things from the animals that you work with.So keep learning when you learn something new, pass it on to the next person it forward.

Dr Rosie Booth.