Tales of an African Vet – October 5, 2010

Tales of an African Vet Hardcover – October 5, 2010

Author: Visit Amazon's Roy Aronson Page | Language: English | ISBN: 1599219425 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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Tales of an African Vet – October 5, 2010
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For a veterinarian, it’s one thing when one’s patients are cuddly pet cats, dogs, and the occasional hamster. It’s quite another when the cats turn out to be cheetahs, the dogs are part wolf, and the hamster? Well, that could be anything from a gorilla to an elephant, a puff adder to a crocodile. Through equal parts luck, timing, and desire, Aronson augmented his 25-plus-year career as a small animal veterinarian in South Africa with house calls to treat some of the world’s largest and most dangerous creatures. Except that in Aronson’s case, the “house” was anywhere from a rhino’s cage at the renowned Pretoria Zoo to a lion’s pride in the densest African bush. The case histories of the animals treated in these treacherous locations provide an exhilarating glimpse into the lives of numerous valuable and endangered species. As intrepid as Indiana Jones and as compassionate as Dr. Doolittle, Aronson shares harrowing, and sometimes humorous, adventures in an engrossing memoir about an unexpected career. --Carol Haggas

Review

"In this delightful book, the Crocodile Hunter meets James Herriot for an engaging look at the trials and tribulations of being a veterinarian in South Africa. Aronson’s . . . collection of stories is totally entertaining, and his deep commitment to wildlife and conservation comes through clearly. Readers will enjoy venturing into the African bush with Aronson but will be grateful to do so from the safety of their lounge chairs. . . . This fascinating book is hard to put down; it will be enjoyed by a wide variety of readers of many ages."

—Library Journal (starred review)

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Books with free ebook downloads available Tales of an African Vet – October 5, 2010

Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Lyons Press; 1 edition (October 5, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1599219425
ISBN-13: 978-1599219424
Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #555,786 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Reason for Reading: I enjoy travel books and although I am not an animal activist I enjoy memoirs of vets along the lines of James Herriot and Gerald Durrell. This book simply caught my attention.

Roy Aronson has been a veterinarian in Cape Town, South Africa for twenty-five years and while he sees his fair share of cats and dogs, he's also had some unique African wild animals brought into his office. Plus he has friends who are vets on Wildlife Reserves and they often call him in to assist or simply to have a look-see at an interesting case and thus Aronson has led an eventful life caring for wild animals both clinically and in the bush. Each chapter of this book is a separate vignette and there is also no real chronological progression either making this an easy book to pick up, read a chapter and come back to again later.

While a couple of cases take place in Aronson's practice most of the stories take place out in the African bush on wildlife reserves or the Pretoria Zoo. He also goes out to farms, specifically fish farms, both trout and koi, and an alligator farm. Each chapter was interesting telling tales of elephants, lions, hedgehogs, snakes, rhinos, cheetahs, gemsboks, and many more. Each story usually involves some sort of danger, either to the animal or the animal handlers, so there is a sense of excitement to the reflections along with the author's apparent love for animals of all species. He also spends some brief time, without preaching, on educating against needless slaughter/poaching of animals for inane reasons. For example, rhinos are still killed in the wild for their horns which are sold for tremendous amounts of money to be ground into powder to make teas which supposedly are an aphrodisiac.