WEB Vetnews May 2015

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The Flying Syringe
(Part 1)
Dr Raoul van der Westhuizen
Reprinted with permission from the book “Veld
Stories” (ISBN 978-0-620-55784-9), published
by and available from Kejafa Knowledge Works
. “The Flying Syringe” is Chapter 4 in
the book, and will be published in VetNews in three parts.
Mei/May 2015 21 vetnuus•news
Story I Storie
Tn 1963 a UK veterinarian,
Dr Tony Harthoorn, came to
the Kruger National Park in
South Africa to test a new
drug that could be used to
immobilise wildlife. It was called M99
and turned out to be a wonder drug. He
later published his experiences in his
book “The Flying Syringe”.
In the same year of 1963, my old friend
Dave Longland and I were fourth-year
veterinary students at Onderstepoort,
the world-famous veterinary research
institute and faculty. We did not have
the luxury of free holidays and had
to work with veterinarians in various
fields. That year we had to work with
a government veterinarian. Dave
and I went through the list of state
veterinarians.
“Look!” said Dave, “there is a state
veterinarian at Skukuza.”
“Wow, let’s go there!”
Skukuza was and still is the main camp
and administrative centre of the Kruger
National Park. Our field service period
was in December and part of January,
when a large part of the Park was
closed to tourists because of malaria.
So we applied to go to Skukuza. The
faculty bosses were very reluctant
to comply with our unusual choice
and claimed that it was not typical
government veterinary work. We
countered that it was of international
importance, at least because of the
presence of foot-and-mouth disease in
the national park, which bordered on
major cattle ranching areas. So in the
end they had to accede.
Dave and I worked as technical
assistants to the veterinarian, Dr Johan
van Niekerk. We came to know the
technical staff of the Park – young
scientists such as Dr U deV (Tol)
Pienaar (whose sister Annelise was
also a vet), Neil Fairall, Piet van Wyk
(who had a “tame” spitting cobra in his
office) and Peet van der Walt.
They have since become international­
ly recognised for their break-through
work in various fields of science and
conservation, and they have authored
several books and countless scientific
publications.
The park head was Mr Dolf Brynard,
a courteous and kind man but a solid
scientist and very competent manager
whose “yes” was “yes” and “no” was
“no”. He also hailed from my town of
birth, Calvinia in the Hantam Karoo,
and I got on very well with him. In later
years he was a driving force in the
establishment of several national parks
in which I was involved, including the
Karoo Park at Beaufort West.
Johan van Niekerk showed us how to
immobilise wild animals with various
tranquillizers and hypnotic drugs. The
drugs were not simple to work with
and most had severe side effects and
a slow recovery time. On one occasion
the working staff stole the meat of an
impala which had been immobilised
and kept for post mortem and ate the
meat. Later Johan van Niekerk received
an urgent call for help because the staff
had been paralysed from the tainted
meat and had to be
rushed to hospital in
Nelspruit!
Dave and I had the
privilege of viewing
the release of rhinos
from the Natal
Parks Board in the
presence of the son of the legendary
Harry Wolhuter, who was the first game
ranger in the Park and who, back in
1904, killed a lion with a knife. Dr Dave
Longland remembers: “In 1900 there
were only a hundred rhino left in South
Africa. As a result of one of the most
successful conservation programmes of
all times by the Natal Parks Board, the
population of this magnificent animal
had by 1960 recovered from the brink
of extinction and the Board could start
relocating rhinos to the Kruger National
Park, where they had meanwhile
become extinct.
This relocation was done under the
most difficult of circumstances. How
the Natal Parks staff managed to cap­
ture these animals with the available
drugs is mind-boggling. The drugs
they used included Scoline and
Themalon. How they manoeuvred the
half-paralyzed rhinos into a truck was
in itself a special feat! They captured
them in the afternoon, then trans­
ported them during the night and the
next morning they were released in
the Kruger National Park.
When the drugs started wearing
off (and in the absence of modern
tranquillizers) the animals became
very aggressive and to release them
safely from the transport truck was a
Picture above: Dr Johan van Niekerk, who
was the first veterinarian stationed in the
Kruger National Park, with the first wild
zebra to be immobilised with the wonder
drug M99 (etorphine)
Dr Dave Longland
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