This week, Turtle Team traveled up north to the land of the Blanding's. For one week each summer, we hold a competition to see who can trap the most Blanding's turtles, an endangered species in Illinois. A turtle tech is paired with a veterinarian (or vet student). The turtle techs are the trapping experts, and [...]
New! This week! And all future weeks! Introducing…..Eliana! Eliana is a rising second year veterinary student who recently joined Team Beardie with Bryce and me. Scroll to the bottoms for a GREAT picture of her. She is a delight, and helped me this week with my personal research project on pet rats. We did physical [...]
A beautiful juvenile Eastern Garter Snake (Thamnophis sirtalis) that we found under some foliage Now that all the Lake Erie water snakes have officially moved into the Wildlife Epidemiology Lab and treatment shifts are officially underway, we thought it would be fun and important to go over something that many people may have [...]
Left to right: Dr. Matt Allender, me, Dr. Erin Newman, You Na Jeon This week, we added a few more helping hands to the Kane County Blanding's team! You Na Jeon, our visiting fourth-year veterinary student from Wisconsin, stuck around to help for the week and on Wednesday, we had a surprise visit [...]
The sixth week of summer research has been a busy week for bearded dragon team. The week started with Bryce and Dr. Keller working together to complete the first trail of the thrombocyte/ leukocyte rich plasma study. Together they drew blood, spun down the blood to get plasma and used a hemocytometer in conjunction with [...]
Back at the lab, after getting all of the LEWS in their tanks after the long drive, we maintained a quiet week to give the snakes a chance to settle in and get used to their new surroundings. They joined our other clinical case snakes at WEL, some of whom have SFD and are currently [...]
With Week 1 of Nerodio 2019 officially in the books, Team Snake packed up all of our things Team Snake processing a LEWS back at the field house, documenting and swabbing each lesion found one last time to head out for Kelly's Island. For the next week, we would be staying at the [...]
In a world where Blanding's roam freely but are impossible to find... WE SET TRAPS. Ok but seriously, trapping is a huge part of what we do here in Lake County. Every Monday, the lovely wildlife and turtle techs head out in the field to set anywhere from 20-30 traps throughout the swales. Each morning [...]
Exciting news this week! Bryce and I have started working on our personal research projects under the mentorship of Dr. Krista Keller. Dr. Keller, scientist extraordinaire and assistant professor at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, allocates her time between teaching in the classroom, training young veterinarians during their clinical fourth year while [...]
A plethora of boats, one Great Lake, and A LOT of snakes. Our first of two weeks out in Lake Erie has been quite an adventure already! Although we still have one more week here and plenty of more snakes to catch, Team Snake has been getting a lot of work done and has been [...]
