The elephant was one of the lucky wild elephants brought into Dr. Wisnu’s care at the small zoo in Bukkitingi, Sumatra, having just arrived from a regional elephant rescue camp. The bull had come into conflict with farmers in the Indonesian countryside and instead of being hunted and killed, was brought to the rescue camp for care. Fortunately for the elephant, Dr. Wisnu had the support of veterinarians from Seattle to Jakarta as well as conservation organizations from Woodland Park Zoo (WPZ) to World Wildlife Foundation behind him.

MORE: Dr. Fredrik Venold is Woodland Park Zoo’s first Simonyi Scholar. He began his 6-month veterinary fellowship at the zoo in March 2006 and is studying a variety of special projects with the zoo’s veterinary staff, as well as attending workshops and conferences around the United States. Woodland Park Zoo is grateful to Dr. Charles Simonyi and the Simonyi Foundation for this generous donation to establish this scholarship, with the aim of expanding the education of conservation science professionals worldwide by providing the resources for access to excellence.

The veterinarians intently listening to Dr. Wisnu’s exam are all participants in one of the workshops being held by the Woodland Park Zoo-based Indonesian Veterinary Training Program (IVTP). Dr. Darin Collins, principal in IVTP and Director of Animal Health at Woodland Park Zoo, had come to Indonesia to follow up the work the IVTP training program started seven years ago.

Groundwork for active conservation
The groundwork established since the program was first introduced in 1999 has begun to take root — it is now Dr. Wisnu that runs the workshop for his fellow Indonesian veterinarians and those veterinarians are in turn active conservationists for the indigenous wildlife in Sumatra. Many of the participants were integral in the tsunami relief effort of Indonesians helping Indonesians, including wildlife rescue. Dr. Collins was there to help to expand the program of professional collaboration even further.

Collaborators have been the core of IVTP since its inception. Woodland Park Zoo and the Indonesian Veterinary Medical Association (IVMA) joined forces to create a network of relevant conservation and medical professionals and non-governmental organizations for all to share their expertise. This exchange of knowledge provides benefits for all the participants involved; the support provided by the program helps each to build local capacity to care for and protect the health of wildlife in Indonesia and surrounding SE Asian countries.

Indonesia: a study in complexity
Indonesia is the third most populous country in the world with 225 million people and the largest archipelago, with more than 17,000 islands (6,000 of them inhabited) and over 25 percent of the world’s biodiversity. The complexity of the country geography causes the in-country network to be slow and communication is not always easily coordinated. Recent natural disasters such as last year’s tsunami and the recent massive earthquake have contributed to this. Dr. Collins believes that one route to conservation success is opening a sustainable working relationship between zoo and wildlife professionals in Indonesia and the United States. Conservation-minded IVTP participants now include organizations across several Asia Pacific countries involved in disaster preparedness, government wildlife policies, zoos, veterinary practitioners in domestic and exotic animal medicine, rehabilitation centers and sanctuaries.

Dr. Collins first started building the network knowledge base by traveling to Indonesia to hold workshops. There were initiated by the IVMA, and were eventually expanded by inviting individual veterinarians to the United States to pursue further study. Dr. Wisnu was one of IVTP’s first veterinarian participants in this Visiting Scientist program. The program also helps coordinate the visiting veterinarians travel to other zoos and professional conferences, where even more professional contacts are made.

Visiting veterinarians
Three Indonesian veterinarians have come to WPZ as Visiting Scientists since IVTP began — including Dr. Andriansayanah, now the veterinarian for Orangutan Foundation International founded by Dr. Birute Galdikas. This Visiting Scientist program includes two to three months of working alongside WPZ’s veterinarians and animal care staff as they share their knowledge of animal health care and husbandry.

Dr. Collins’ most recent visit was in September of 2005. His time spent on different islands and regions within Indonesia allowed him to make contact with veterinary professionals in a variety of locations. Most of the locations were selected based upon the species native to the area, primarily targeting elephants, sun bears, orangutans, hornbills and other species exhibited at the zoo. Targeting locations holding these species allowed him to share knowledge learned at WPZ on husbandry, captive management, biology and reproduction of these Asian Pacific species. This results in direct conservation for those anchor species in their natural habitat by conservation medical training and capacity building for the professionals faced with treating an array of medical issues.

The 2005 visit was coordinated by IVMA members and the workshops were held by the individual regional chapters. Dr. Collins met with IVMA members, including zoo, aquarium and wildlife professionals as well as meeting with several university and Indonesian government officials. Several core groups participating in the workshops were WPZ, IVMA, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI). Former IVTP Visiting Scientist Dr. Anand Ramanthan represented IFAW and his wife, Avanti Ramanthan, Ph.D., of WTI, were also traveling in Indonesia and participated in IVTP workshops. The Drs. Ramanthan presented wildlife disaster preparedness plans, emergency care and rehabilitation medicine. Sharing a broad knowledge base such as this ensures that everyone can draw needed information from a variety of expert sources.

In addition to extensive professional veterinary knowledge, IVTP provides moral support for conservation champions who face huge and seemingly insurmountable obstacles every day. Much of the traveling Dr. Collins did throughout Indonesia in just thirty days is more than many of his fellow professionals do in a lifetime. For example, Dr. Linda Tjhin, a veterinarian who works at the aquarium in Jakarta, had never been to Borneo. Dr. Collins brought her along with him to visit Camp Leakey in Borneo and to meet her colleagues in the field. Seeing her native wildlife in its habitat and learning of the support available to her instilled a pride in her national wildlife that could not be reproduced any other way. For a North American veterinarian, this is equivalent to seeing a free-ranging wolf in Yellowstone. Dr. Tjhin is looking forward to continuing her knowledge-base networking as Woodland Park Zoo’s Visiting Scientist for 2006.

Collaborators in wildlife rescue
Dr. Collins also found the Indonesian Veterinary Medical Association has grown in members and member awareness. Indonesian veterinarians are becoming more involved in the responsibilities of zoo and animal rescue operations and the veterinarians are now key to their respective organizations. Wildlife rehabilitation in Indonesia comes with an array of issues that makes their work significantly different from programs commonly found in North America.

To address these issues, five Animal Rescue Centers (whose Indonesian acronym is PPS) were created in Indonesia in since 2000. These PPS facilities are a new non-governmental approach to wildlife rehabilitation and release throughout the country. Indonesian zoos have historically functioned in this capacity and often found themselves overwhelmed by the number of animals needing temporary housing and veterinary care. Each PPS has full-time staff veterinarians, and can now begin to join the network of IVTP professionals to inspire innovative use of resources, maximizing the resources available.

Good veterinary care is important for all animal species, both domestic and wild. Unfortunately, veterinary schools do not typically include non-domestic species instruction in the course curriculum. Sharing information learned from treating domestic species provides significant support to veterinarians faced with cases not seen as frequently, such as those in exotic species. Rabbits and other animals such as reptiles are also kept as pets and IVTP hopes to encourage these as excellent alternative to exotic animals, such as sun bears which are often taken from the wild. Rabbits are also a source of meat and are also an alternative to chickens and ducks; this is important in light of the impending crisis of the emerging threat: avian influenza. During Dr. Collins’ visit to Jakarta, the zoo was ordered closed by the government due to concern over an avian influenza outbreak. Dr. Collins was able to take this opportunity to meet with government officials and IVMA veterinarians to open discussions concerning this important worldwide health concern. Working together and mentoring interconnected open relationships will be critical in monitoring global health for wildlife and humans alike.

Dr. Wisnu’s IVTP workshop was just one building block in the growing network of conservation medicine. This fall, WPZ’s Simonyi Scholar, Dr. Fredrik Venold (see sidebar) will be continuing his studies in Indonesia. He will be traveling to Indonesia with the Partnerships for the World International Field Study Program, one of the field conservation programs supported by WPZ. Led by Randall C. Kyes, Ph.D., professor at University of Washington, Partnerships for the World holds field training courses in conservation biology for university students and park rangers. The program’s goal is to establish regional experts who will implement successful in-situ conservation programs — who will, in turn, continue to share their knowledge. Dr. Venold and Dr. Kyes will be traveling to zoos and wildlife sanctuaries in Java, meeting veterinarians and other conservation professionals across Java.

The Indonesian Veterinary Training Program ultimately comes down to one-on-one connections. When Dr. Collins travels to Indonesia, he travels as one veterinarian. But he brings with him a global network with wildlife health and management information to share and to connect individuals to one another. These connections have the potential to impact endangered wildlife, along with the people who share their world.