Vet Student Summer

6/13/06

Here's a picture of one of three arctic ground squirrels that lived at camp. They had burrows through the tundra and would pop out to check out what was going on. They were very brazen, and would come really close if you gave them some food (cheetos for example). I'm not sure which one this is, but the guys at camp had named each of them, there's Francis, Justin, and Ron.

Today was another data collection day. I began by entering all of the fecal results from yesterday into a database. Next I went with Nikki to Alaska Air Cargo to pick up the gear that we had shipped from King Salmon (necropsy equipment, formalin fixed samples, frozen tissues etc.).

Then I started thawing a NAP caribou abomasum from last October (the 4th "true" stomach of a ruminant). Once it was thawed, I emptied all of the contents, washed the lining thoroughly, and sifted through the contents for adult Ostertagia worms. I didn't find any in this animal, but that was expected, it died in October, which is when the larvae encyst in the abomasal wall and go dormant until the summer.

That was all I did during the day. I was home making dinner when Kimberlee called to ask me if I wanted to go collect some specimens for a disease outbreak investigation. I of course said yes.

So a family in the nearby town of North Pole had called to report a "field of dead rabbits" near their home. I went out to investigate with a Fish and Game biologist. We arrived to find that there was no field, but there were 2 dead rabbits (varrying hares, actually) in the woods. One was too rotten to use, but I took the other one back to ADFG. The people who called reported that there had been several other dead rabbits in the area recently.

The primary thing that Kimberlee and I were worried about was Tularemia, a zoonotic disease that periodically shows up in rabbits and small rodents up here. It is a serious disease, and can potentially be fatal to people. So tomorrow we will necropsy that hare and submit samples for Tularemia diagnostics.