Consultancy

Post-Mortem course

Due to a deficiency of experienced wildlife vets in Namibia, and the long distances to be travelled to most game farms (with the obvious time delays and financial implications), few farmers have regular post-mortems done on game or livestock mortalities. We feel that farmers will benefit greatly from being empowered to do a proper, systematic post-mortem examination, collect the appropriate diagnostic samples and then have these submitted to a competent laboratory for analysis. Over and above the obvious benefit to the farmer, who will soon have a much better understanding of the health status of his herd (game and domestic), and will thus be able to take appropriate management steps, we as members of the farming community will all benefit by getting a better understanding of disease processes affecting game in Namibia. With time, this knowledge will be of great value in overall herd and disease management.

We offer 1.5-day courses where we will teach you how to conduct a proper post-mortem examination, including appropriate sample collection and photography. This will be an intensive yet practical hands-on course! If you are interested in such a course, please contact us. 

Animal Crime Scene and Evidence Handling course

One of the biggest threats to both wildlife and livestock is poaching for the trade in ivory, horn and skins, but also for meat. Especially the latter one is not much highlighted by the media, but it impacts game- and livestock farmers economically, and undermines conservation efforts and tourism.

When an animal has been poached, it is important that the right steps are taken to investigate the case, and to find and handle the crime scene and it's evidence in such a way that it will lead to the arrest and conviction of the culprits.

This course is meant for farmers, managers, anti-poaching units, game rangers, police officers, and all others that might encounter wildlife crime/poaching situations. In this 2.5-day course we teach you about the proper handling of a crime scene and evidence in case of poaching, stock theft or another wildlife or livestock-related crime. 

Dart immobilization course

We started this 5-day course in 2016, aiming at people who are involved in wildlife research and/or working with wildlife vets. But if you are a game farmer, a vet student, or just somebody with an interest in wildlife work this course could be also very interesting for you!

In the course we teach you more about the Namibian legislation surrounding the use of drugs, we give an introduction to the various (remote) drug administration systems, darts, physiology, pharmacology and the drugs we use. We also teach and show you how to monitor an immobilized animal and what to do in emergencies and drug accidents. Practical work will involve practising shooting with a dart gun, and we will immobilize some animals and monitor their immobilization.