Dr. Lamar Hunter has just joined the Carolina Tiger Rescue team as a wildlife veterinarian. After he graduated from NC State’s vet school, Dr. Hunter studied under Dr. Angela Lassiter at Carolina Tiger Rescue. He helps with physicals, medical procedures, and loves seeing the animals improve under the care of the awesome vets at the rescue. Dr. Hunter enjoys working with all the animals at Carolina Tiger Rescue, but his favorite is the lions.
Dr. Hunter’s Blog 11/9/18
Rainy days make my job a bit harder. Sometimes it’s difficult to get a good look at the animals on rainy days because they hide out in their den boxes and can’t be bothered to emerge. Other times, if they do come up, they are covered in mud! Though, I can’t say I mind a good roll in the mud myself sometimes.
On rainy days like this, it’s a good time to catch up with the keepers to see how the animals are doing and to do some much-needed housekeeping. There’s always paperwork to be done and cleaning to do.
Because we have an older population of animals, it’s always important for me to know what’s going on with them. We have a few animals who are starting to slow down and winter is a harder season for them. We are keeping a close eye on Simon Serval who is 20 years old! In the wild servals will only live to about 12 years old. As Simon has started to slow down, we monitor how much he is eating and how eager he is to eat. Sometimes, if he looks dehydrated, we will give him fluids to help keep him feeling his best.
Shenandoah Tiger is another one we are keeping a close eye on. She has shown some signs of pain in her feet. When Shenandoah was a cub, someone declawed her. When someone declaws a cat, they remove the part of the toe they walk on. This, as the cat grows older, can become extremely painful. For Shenandoah right now, we are giving her some pain medicine to help her feel better and we are going to decide soon if we want to do a physical on her to look at those feet. A physical requires sedating the animal, or giving them medicine to go to sleep, so we can put our hands on her. We want to do this as a last resort but may need to if she doesn’t start to feel better. I will keep you posted on how she is doing, but today she is looking good!