Hanoi Zoo workshop

Following the Government veterinary workshop held in Vietnam, veterinary nurse Roxanne Woodrow and veterinary surgeon Dr Heather Bacon travelled to Hanoi Zoo to provide a 3 day teaching course to zoo vets from all over Vietnam.

The course which focused on captive animal welfare and preventative healthcare, was hosted by Hanoi Zoo and supported by Animals Asia. 

Around thirty vets attended, travelling from all over Vietnam to come to Hanoi zoo for the course. It incorporated both theory and practical demonstrations, with one day of lectures followed by two days interacting with Heather and Roxanne plus the Animals Asia team Kat, Diem and Huong throughout health checks on the Hanoi zoo bears. Preventative healthcare in captive animals seemed to be a subject that is hugely under-taught to the Vietnamese vets who listened avidly to the lectures delivered by Heather and requested further resources to learn about the specific species they cared for. 



Timelapse video of the practicals

It was great being able to relate the theory to practice with the two days of bear health checks. The vets were requested to arrive early morning so that every step of the process was demonstrated and explained. The enthusiasm from the vets was fantastic who were all very eager to get involved helping Heather while she performed the dental, or joining Roxanne and Kat at helping preparing medications and monitoring the anaesthetic. Minimal monitoring equipment was used to emphasise the importance of knowledgeable and experienced staff over expensive monitoring equipment. The positive feedback from the vets highlights the importance of this training and the continued teaching required in this field.

Dr Cuong of the Hanoi zoo said:  “During the last three days I (and I also believe I’m speaking for every participant of the workshop) have gained a great amount of veterinary knowledge as well as have learnt about basic principles and steps of animal anaesthetic process, which I consider highly practical and helpful for our work at Hanoi Zoo. I have been far more aware of the various issues which can rise in our work as zoo vets and also been provided ideas of how to prevent and solve these potential problems”

The JMICAWE team hope to continue to offer support to vets in Vietnam and have already been invited to coordinate a follow-up workshop with Hai Lam from Save Vietnam’s Wildlife, who said “Thank to your workshop, I learned so much and applied it to anaesthesia of our animals… To bring up the best outcome, I would like to organise a workshop for vets and animals people in Cuc Phuong as well as vet students in Ha noi and in vets of local animal practice. I truly want to improve animal welfare of the area and motivating more vet students to work for wildlife. For that reason, I think that this opportunity would be an exciting occasion to spread out the skill and the animal welfare spirit.”