Chatterbox 1010 - Rotary Club of Belper

Elizabeth Henson to the meeting – an omission which cost him dearly at the end of
the night.
It was announced that on the 25th October a murder will take place in
Milford. As this statement was made by Sheilagh Harnan, Peter Shepherd looked a
bit worried until he realised Sheilagh was actually talking about a Murder Mystery
evening at their home. Things then started to get really out of hand with talk of
blood capsules and all sorts (and all this just after we had eaten).
Chris True reported that her planned speaker had had to pull out so she was looking
for suggestions for alternatives, so John Scotney proposed a quiz. By now, Ron
Giffin (our retired accountant) has managed to balance the books for the night and
we moved on to the “main event”.
David Henson introduced us to Ruby
Sharrock, a 13 year old student from Ecclesbourne
who had come to talk to us about her
experiences working with a Vet in South Africa.
Ruby explained that she wanted to train as a
Vet and was therefore taking every opportunity
to gain work experience, including a spell
with the Scarsdale Clinic. She had found ACE
(African Conservation Experience) on the internet
and they had recommended the Shamungwe
Vetinary Experience, so off she went for
two weeks.
She was assigned to a small village
called Swindsbury and was with another trainee
vet called Lydia and a Wild-Life vet who
worked alongside a small-animal vet. Ruby
lived on a Wildlife Estate which was five minutes from the clinic and in the middle
of a wildlife park. Amongst her experiences she can list failing to trap a Hyena but
finally managing to “dart” one the following day and then fitting a tracking device
to be used in a research project. She visited a herd of trained elephants, where one
of the bulls had trodden on something which had resulted in an injury to its foot. It
turned out to be a very big splinter of wood but then I guess it would need to be to
impact an elephant. While the vet worked on the animal the rest of the heard was
forming a boundary to protect it until it could stand.
Ruby was able to visit the Kruger National park, where she saw Buffalo,
Rhino, Elephant and Leopard (in other words four of the “big five”), but didn’t see
any Lions. She did however finally encounter a hand-reared Lioness which needed
a contraceptive capsule placed in its neck. She also came across 11 Rhodesian
Ridgeback puppies which came into the small-animal clinic for vaccination, and she
also met “Tiger” and “Bullet”, a pair of “ambassador” Cheetahs which were replacing
two older animals which were being retired.
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