Vets Come Prepared for Anything

Admittedly, the cantaloupe was just a distraction. Terai--a 2 1/2-ton Indian rhino--slurped, slobbered and snorted as she crunched the melon in her giant jaws.

Cynthia Stringfield figured she had about 10 seconds to insert a needle into a vein in the rhino’s ear and draw blood before the beast finished her snack and realized that she was a pachyderm-sized pincushion. “Hi, girl,” Stringfield cooed as she poked at Terai’s skin. “Be good. . . .”

But with a powerful shrug and a deep grunt, Terai sent Stringfield running for cover behind a set of protective steel bars. The blood test would have to wait.

The next task: clean the teeth of Liberace, a tiny orange tamarin monkey with a slightly more amiable disposition.

So goes the unpredictable day of a zoo veterinarian, a job akin to working as a doctor on a “Star Wars” planet, tending to a variety of beasts so strange and foreign--compared to the garden variety dogs and cats seen by most vets--that they might as well be Wookies.

Stringfield is one of five Los Angeles Zoo veterinarians whose tenure coincides with the zoo’s struggle to regain its reputation after a series of troubles. Those include the 1992 death of Hannibal, the African bull elephant who died after being sedated and placed in a crate for shipment, and a critical report issued a year and a half ago by a panel of zoo experts that found many exhibits so substandard that animal health was jeopardized. The panel recently returned and marveled at the progress the zoo has made, including hiring several new vets.

The current crop is quick to denounce the bad old days and to report that they have so far avoided the kind of controversies that have dogged zoos in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Part of a corps of no more than 200 zoo vets nationwide, their daily challenge calls them to adapt to the unknown, working as surgeon, dentist, parent and even psychologist with some of the most exotic animals on earth.

“From a scientific point of view, it’s incredibly challenging,” Stringfield said. “Every day there’s something different.”

Over the years, the cash-strapped city zoo could only retain one to three doctors to tend to its 1,200 animals. Under pressure to improve, the staff was expanded last year to include five veterinarians--among them Charles Sedgwick, 64, a retired Tufts University professor who is considered one of the patriarchs of zoo medicine.

The vets can be a little quirky. Sedgwick writes poetry and tinkers with an anesthesia machine that he built from scrap metal years ago. Dr. Ramiro Isaza, 35, loves snakes--a fondness that dismayed his mother while Isaza was growing up in Florida.

There’s Gary Kuehn, 53, who has no qualms about telling strangers that he would much rather hang out with animals than people. Jennifer Conrad, 30, spent two months in Africa, treating rhinos and cheetahs. And then there’s Stringfield, 32, who is known for her gentle manner and the fact that at least three primates at the zoo have a crush on her.

Zoo Director Manuel A. Mollinedo, hired last year with a mandate to turn the facility around, is banking on this team of veterinarians to help prove to the American Zoo and Aquarium Assn. that the Los Angeles facility deserves to have its accreditation renewed.

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On a recent summer morning, it was Isaza’s turn to make the rounds. He picked a clipboard from the hospital office, located in a cluster of old trailers hidden on a tree-covered hillside.

The tasks were mostly routine: check on a porcupine that had undergone surgery for a stomach disorder, take a blood sample from a monkey, check an abscess on the foot of an elephant.

Grabbing a plastic toolbox filled with supplies, the Cornell University graduate climbed into a white truck with the words “veterinary patrol” printed on the doors.

“On the first day of class, a lot of people raised their hand when asked if they wanted to be a zoo vet,” Isaza said, driving down the zoo’s winding back roads to the primate exhibit. “But over the four years of vet school, that number really dwindled down.”

“Out of a class of 80, I know of four who are now zoo or exotic animal vets,” he said. “There’s not that many jobs and people realize that it’s difficult because there’s so much diversity in the types of animals that we see.”

For as long as he can remember, he wanted to work with exotic animals. “Growing up in Gainesville, I used to catch snakes as a hobby,” Isaza said. “Just the local common ones. My parents wouldn’t let me keep the venomous stuff.”

He laughs: “I would have if I could.”

Not long ago, Isaza discovered that an emerald tree python had a tumor on its liver. The lump had grown so large that it was pressing against the reptile’s stomach, making it impossible for the snake to consume food.

“It was tricky,” he said. “There were a lot of blood vessels in the area and you had to be careful not to disturb those. You had to peel away the bad part and leave the good part.”

The operation was a success. “Now he’s back on exhibit,” Isaza said. “And he’s eating.”

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Sedgwick--simply known as “Doc”--spent most of a recent Friday afternoon in meetings, including one with a local gorilla activist, seeking the zoo’s support in a campaign to stop the slaughter of gorillas in the wild.

“I think it’s important for us to cooperate on a worldwide effort to try to give these animals the best chance possible,” Sedgwick said. “It’s worth a shot.”

For now, however, Sedgwick must address issues in his own backyard. The negative report issued last year led to a shake-up in the zoo’s administration.

The national zoo regulatory agency has threatened to withdraw the facility’s accreditation if improvements are not made. Loss of the accreditation would mean Los Angeles would be hampered in trading animals with other zoos and in obtaining grants.

A decision is expected later this month at a conference in Hawaii, although a preliminary study has found that the zoo is on the right track.

Sedgwick was recruited by Mollinedo, who lobbied the City Council to set aside enough funds to hire a nationally respected veterinarian. He earns $70,000 a year, while the starting pay for the rest of his staff is about $40,000.

David Towne, director of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle and a member of the accreditation panel, said Sedgwick has “become invaluable to the zoo,” bringing years of training and scholarship to the post.

Kathi Travers, director of the exotic animal program for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said: “You have got one of the best zoo vets in the country underneath your nose. Is he to die for? What a difference. I can see such improvements.

“You’ve got a team in there that’s actually working for the good of the animals.”

The Los Angeles job was a sort of homecoming for Sedgwick. He got his start as a Los Angeles Zoo vet in the 1960s, then went to work for the San Diego Zoo later for the veterinary schools at UC Davis and Tufts University.

Upon his return, he noticed that the hospital facility had deteriorated. Over the years, the city janitors had done such an inadequate job that large streaks of muck--spread across the floor in the operating room with a dirty mop--had been covered with a thick layer of wax.

In 16 months, officials said, he has upgraded equipment and cleaned up and reorganized the hospital, which was difficult to work in. He has also requested $9 million to build a replacement for the 32-year-old medical facility.

Perhaps most important, Sedgwick is viewed as the dean of the campus, taking on a mentor role to the veterinary staff.

“They have good information and good skills, but there is a lot of things they haven’t experienced.” Sedgwick said. “It’s helpful to have someone older say, ‘My God, that was a good job!’ ”

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After cleaning the teeth of the tamarin, Stringfield decided to stop by the primate exhibit to visit Noel, a howler monkey born last Christmas.

The monkey’s birth had been a proud moment for Stringfield. “When she came out, she had a good heart rate, but she wasn’t breathing,” said Stringfield, who earned her veterinarian’s degree from UC Davis before joining the zoo staff several year ago. “So I did artificial respiration on this brand new, little slimy monkey. It was worth it, because 15 minutes later she just took a big breath and started to pink up.”

Stringfield is experienced with babies. She once bottle-fed a newborn giant eland, which resembles a cow, because its legs were deformed and it could not nurse from its mother.

Much of what the doctors do requires creativity, faith and quick adaptation. They are required to know that giraffes take cow medicine because they are, in fact, ruminants or cud-chewing animals with long necks. Elephants get horse medicine for their aches and pains. The best time to draw blood from a rhino is on a summer afternoon, when the veins in their ears swell from the heat.

“What’s wonderful about being a zoo vet is being able to do anything from ophthalmology to orthopedics to obstetrics on anything from a butterfly to a whale,” said Conrad, a part-time vet who took a trip to Africa this summer for her 30th birthday. “This is so fascinating.”

Once she was perplexed by a monkey who was pulling out its hair, suffering from what would be viewed by the human species as an obsessive-compulsive disorder. After consulting with her mother, a psychiatrist, Conrad administered a few doses of Prozac to the troubled monkey. (That treatment has since been discontinued.)

Kuehn, who has worked at the zoo since 1974, said he simply prefers dealing with animals instead of people. “We owe it to them to make their lives as comfortable as possible,” he said.

He makes fish popsicles for the polar bears and catnip cushions for the felines--in addition to providing the creatures with medical care.

But having an affinity for wildlife is not enough. With zoos under constant scrutiny by animal rights activists, they also need to watch their step.

Two weeks ago, when a beloved 26-year-old polar bear died at the San Diego Zoo, apparently from a bacterial infection from eating raw fish, animal rights activists blasted the zoo. Los Angeles vets said they sympathized with San Diego but also took steps to avoid potential problems of their own.

Sedgwick ordered his crew to postpone an examination of one of the Los Angeles polar bears, which called for placing the bear under anesthesia. Sedwick said given the circumstances, the procedure wasn’t worth the risk of losing another animal so soon after San Diego.

“Losing an animal is a traumatic experience for everyone,” Isaza said. “From a professional point of view, I realize that every zoo isn’t perfect. But one of the things we are trying to do is improve the standard of care.

“Other people may come in and second-guess me, but if I know I have done the best I can for the animals, I feel better.”