My new passion is swimming, and I’m quite proud of it. I realise that to Australians this is about as interesting as the remarkably witty comment to Scots about “what’s under your kilt” whenever we wear one. But that’s the point?
Us poor Scottish people don’t do swimming. Although, like you, we live on an island; and although, like you, we’re a bit rough around the edges; unlike you, none of our watery bits ever gets above two degrees; and we’re simply not that rough and tough. Continue reading Kiwipost: Mark Bryan writes from New Zealand.
As the National Institutes of Health (NIH) reduces its use of chimpanzees in invasive biomedical research, it is moving more chimps to retirement homes. But the agency could face a problem in paying for their continuing support. At the beginning of 2013, the NIH announced that it would move 113 chimpanzees it owns from the New Iberia Research Center in Louisiana to Chimp Haven, the national chimpanzee sanctuary, also in Louisiana. The sanctuary is set in 200 acres of pine woods in Keithville and is currently home to 132 chimps that live in more natural surroundings and social conditions than those available at research institutes. Chimps live in a variety of cages and enclosures, including concrete-walled play yards of about a quarter of an acre, open to the sky, and two forested habitats, one four acres and the other five, bounded by a moat and fences.
Biomedical research on chimps helped produce a vaccine for hepatitis B. Another vaccine is aimed at hepatitis C, which infects 170 million people worldwide. Nevertheless, there has long been an outcry against the research as cruel and unnecessary. As it is, the United States is one of only two countries that conduct invasive research on chimpanzees. The other is the African nation of Gabon.
Using captive chimpanzees for research in the US dates to the 1920s, when Robert Yerkes, a Yale psychology professor, began to bring them into the country. During the 1950s, the Air Force bred chimps for the space program, starting with 65 caught in the wild. Chimps were also bred for AIDS research in the 1980s, which met a dead end. By the mid-1970s, support for preservation of threatened species had grown, and the importing of wild-caught chimps was prohibited. Continue reading Eagle Post: January 2013
Do you remember the British drought … that never was (Pigeon Post, April 2012)? We’ve just ‘enjoyed’ the wettest June on record throughout most of the country and July seems to be following suit so far. The reservoirs are full, all water restrictions lifted and the newspapers ‘splashed’ with images of watercourses in spate and unfortunates mopping out their front rooms and businesses. It’s highly unlikely that Andy Murray would have managed to lose his Wimbledon men’s singles final on schedule, but for the roof on Centre Court.
The consensus seems to be that climate change is bringing Britain warmer, but wetter summers than ever before. Is our capricious weather finally going to become more predictable … i.e. wet all the time?! Continue reading Pigeon Post from the UK
Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, DRAGON, Snake, Horse, Sheep, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig
January 23 marked the beginning of the year of the water dragon for all who celebrated the lunar new year. For many in Asia, this is perhaps the most celebrated day of the year. A highly anticipated year purely from the fact that it is the year of the water dragon. The Chinese zodiac is based on a 12-year cycle, with each year represented by a different animal. Interestingly, the dragon is the only ‘animal’ in the cycle that is a mythical creature and not a real animal at all. It is generally accepted and believed that the year in which one is born holds great significance in the person’s life. Your character traits, personality, temper, outlook on life, mindset and even your future partner depends on the year you were born and the animal which you have been inexplicably tied to. Essentially, many of these character traits can be tied into a very general understanding of these animals, or even subscribed to a popular belief of what these animals should be. For example, a person born in the year of an ox is a hard-worker, the snake year is a sly one, dogs and tigers are energetic and you can already make a guess about the pig year. Growing up in a Chinese household, my upbringing was fairly liberal and ‘westernised’, however, I could never escape that hold that the Chinese zodiac had on my life and how ingrained it was into my family, friends and society. I could never accept that there were only 12 character traits in millions of people, however, I will find myself unknowingly musing about certain similarities or coincidences. Continue reading Crimson Post: Welcome the Year of the Water Dragon!
In what sport do competitors at times lie down in the middle of the course, unmotivated and bemused? The answer is cat agility tournaments, a competition in which cats run through a miniature obstacle course crammed with hurdles and tunnels. The phenomenon of cat agility contests started about 10 years ago when two couples involved in cat shows were at dinner and started talking about the tricks their cats did. They modified selected dog agility obstacles and showed them to their cats. From that chance meeting, International Cat Agility Tournaments (ICAT) was born. In 2004, cat shows began featuring agility contests, and they are now a fixture on the cat show circuit. As promoted on their website (catagility.com), ICAT is devoted to “creating a new category of cat competition in which cats negotiate an obstacle course designed to display their speed, coordination, beauty of movement, physical conditioning, intelligence, training, and the quality and depth of their relationship with their owner, who trains with them and guides them through the course.” Continue reading Eagle Post
So what does a song written in 1967 by the great Paul McCartney have to do with veterinarians? Probably everything. In Singapore, a small country of five million people where there are 52 clinics (in my last article in June, it said 48 clinics – the numbers have gone up in only four months!), we do not have the advantages of a veterinary school or a register for veterinary specialists. It will probably take a couple more years for our local veterinarians being trained overseas to come home and set up a good network of veterinary specialists. However, this doesn’t stop clinics from providing the standards of care of modern veterinary practice. Thinking outside the box was one of the important steps, next comes calling in the favours. Continue reading Crimson Post October 2011: With a little help from my friends…
What passes for summer on the Damp Isles is running its usual course: cool, cloudy days, unseasonable flu outbreaks and vague memories of a warm, dry spring fading into folklore. As usual we’re dreaming into autumn … part of the reverie is that as I write India are struggling to save the First Test at Lord’s! It’s the final day of the 2,000th test match in cricket history. The four match series has been billed as the decider for the ICC Test Ranking crown. Before the series began India topped the rankings with 125 points, followed by South Africa on 118 then England on 117. (Australia were fifth on 100 points). If England can get two clear wins over India this summer they will be propelled into the world no. 1 spot … and for a change some of us believe they might just be good enough to do it! It makes a refreshing change for England cricket fans wearied by match fixing allegations and Murdoch media monopolisation.
Continue reading Pigeon Post: August 2011
The crimson sunbird is an extremely small nectar feeding bird found as a resident throughout Asia. It is tiny, fast, efficient and extremely vibrantly coloured, a true reflection of the country that it represents.
Singapore is the smallest island nation in Asia and with its strategic location; it functions as a centralised trading zone, allowing Singapore to grow rapidly since its independence in 1959.
Singapore is also a melting pot of cultures with the 5 million population made up primarily of the three major ethnic races, Chinese, Malay and Indian. The vibrant mix of cultures and traditions has a major role in the treatment and attitudes toward the domestic and stray population of animals in a highly urbanised developed country.
The veterinarians here in Singapore are almost 100 per cent small animal practitioners, all of whom have graduated overseas, about 85 per cent calling Australian universities their alma mater. Vastly different to our neighbouring countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand) where rural mixed practice and agriculture still predominate.
The 48 veterinary private practices with no registered small animal specialists, this is a highly unique situation where the veterinary community is small, energetic and always having to think outside the box. Continue reading Crimson Post
We arrived at a dairy farm the other day to find out just how much of a shambles dairy farming currently is in New Zealand. Of course, we all know things are changing fast, but none of us ever guessed it could slump so low.
There were three of us, on farm at 4AM, to pregnancy scan and record an 800 cow herd. We pulled most of the gear out of the car, got set up, and went back to the car to find we had managed to somehow lock it with our car keys and –most distressing of all- all our phones inside.
No problem, we had most of our gear and could carry on scanning while someone broke into it and unlocked it. Plenty of half-employed drongos on a dairy farm to do this in five minutes. So we started up scanning.
But modern dairy farms have changed. And, when it comes to a bit of breaking and entry, not for the better. Nobody employs drongos anymore. These days on Kiwi dairy farms the vast majority of staff are likely to be from overseas and have a tertiary degree. So, if they’re not from Europe with a science degree, they’re from the Phillipines with a veterinary degree, or Asia with an agricultural degree.
So, a little over 3 hours later when we came to wash up we found that nobody had broken into our car because nobody had any idea how to. Worst still, even if they could, it would be simply unthinkable for them to carry out such a wanton act of crime. On the farm that day, including us, were 8 people from 7 nationalities with at least 9 degrees amongst us, and not a single Kiwi. Continue reading Kiwi Post July 2011