Being a wildlife veterinarian in Africa is a tough job! You have to be flexible, resourceful and work in often extremely remote areas under challenging conditions. And to make matters worse, training opportunities are very limited, so most wildlife vets end up training on the job.  They must understand a vast diversity of species, from the smallest antelope to lions to elephants; and that does not even consider the reptiles and birds that also come into the mix. Then there is the giraffe – darting, immobilising and treating the world’s tallest animal adds an entirely different level of complexity to the task and increases the challenges exponentially. As if that were not enough, African wildlife vets are frequently required to work in remote and isolated settings, often with little experience or training in the safe handling of dangerous drugs, darting and capture equipment or species-specific protocols. It can feel like what one might imagine walking a tightrope without a safety net while juggling knives may feel – daunting. 

The limited training opportunities in African wildlife medicine are generally expensive, restricting access for many veterinarians in Africa. Luckily for Namibia, things are looking a little different here. We boast a network of highly experienced wildlife veterinary professionals in our country, as well as the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Namibia (UNAM), which offers a solid introduction to wildlife medicine. As a result, Namibia is well placed to support local capacity and build that of wildlife vets from other parts of Africa.

Founded and headquartered in Namibia, the Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF) is dedicated to securing a future for all giraffe populations in the wild. It is the global leader in giraffe conservation. GCF started off by monitoring Angolan giraffe in the remote northwest of Namibia in what has become the longest long-term ecological effort of monitoring giraffe in Africa. While giraffe populations in Namibia are doing well, the GCF team quickly realised that the same is not the case in most other parts of the continent. From its humble beginnings in northwestern Namibia, GCF now actively implements and supports giraffe conservation initiatives in 19 African countries, often requiring the services of wildlife veterinarians as part of the conservation team. “Due to their unique physiology, giraffe can be particularly difficult to immobilise”, says Dr Julian Fennessy, GCF’s Co-founder and Director of Conservation. “To ensure their safety, we often bring along vets from Namibia or South Africa when working in other African countries. The problem is not a lack of local vets, but often there is limited expertise in handling giraffe and other wildlife, or simply a lack of confidence. Confidence that can only be developed through practical experience.”

Since this approach is unsustainable for a long-term conservation impact, GCF approached partners in Namibia to take matters into their own hands and develop a training course for African wildlife vets. In 2022, in partnership with UNAM and the Namibia University of Science & Technology (NUST), GCF organised the first dynamic, practical wildlife immobilisation course tailored for young African vets. The second course was successfully conducted in June 2023. Both courses hosted eight aspiring wildlife vets from seven and eight African countries respectively, who were mentored by a similar number of highly experienced wildlife veterinary and conservation experts. Participants experienced a unique training opportunity. They hailed from the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The 10-day intensive course was designed with the Lao Tzu philosophy in mind: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Each participating African vet was given the opportunity to lead the planning and immobilisation of at least one animal under the guidance of an expert vet. Open debriefing discussions after each immobilisation offered ample opportunity for a peer-to-peer skills exchange, analysis of what worked well and what did not, including the effects of different drug regimens used for comparison. Each of the participants contributed a host of real-life experiences from the workplace in their respective country to the discussions, creating a conducive and productive training environment. Furthermore, the participants gained extensive practice in dart gun handling and safety, as they practised darting from the ground, a vehicle and from a helicopter. They also had lectures on species-specific protocols and human safety protocols. The aim was to provide a unique opportunity for participants to develop wildlife veterinary and leadership skills through inclusive mentoring by experienced wildlife veterinarians, biologists, conservationists and game capture experts.