Hello everybody!
The last two weeks we started with the clinic on Isabela island, Galapagos. We are here for the Darwin Animal Doctors and are able to use the facilities of Isabela Oceanographic Institute! Since the animals here haven’t seen a veterinarian in 3 years most people are happy to bring in their animals!
Besides treading animals all day we are also spreading he word about us being on the island for about 2 more months! This through a car that has the function of a radio (driving around, while playing a message on a megaphone), giving flyers and information at schools and putting up flyers at all the restaurants and supermarkets.
On Isabela there are around 2200 people living, and probably far more animals. So we will stay here for 2 months more to be able to treat all the animals and give the owners more information. It seems that on this Island the owners are more awaren than on Santa Cruz, but there is still need for more information. Especially about the myths of castration and information about feeding and parasites. It seems that on each island the hunters have different ideas about neutering. (Yes, people hunt on the Galapagos islands!) On Santa Cruze the hunters were afraid that their dogs would get a heart attack if they would use them for hunting after castration. Here on Isabele the story goes that hunters castrate their male dogs themselves with a manchetta (big jungle knife) without anesthetics… So the next two months are a great opportunity to get to know the people and create trust and awareness!
And we have already had the first hunting dogs in for neutering!
We will keep you informed, unfortunately our internet does not support picture uploads but we will post them as soon as possible!
(Taken from Tjarda Reints Bok and Jochem Lastdrager’s blog, Travelling Animal Doctors)