Pictured above are the NINE rats from Miller Park Zoo. One male and eight females! This past week was full of exotic experiences. Let’s start with Ivana. Ivana is currently doing a prospective research study on rats. Summary: she wants to see if there’s a less invasive, but still accurate method to record [...]
What is that dinosaur? Its an alligator snapping turtle! Quite a unique species, huh? Ivana performing a blood draw from the dorsal tail vein of an alligator snapping turtle Let’s start with the highlights, shall we? On Thursday and Friday morning Bryce and Ivana had the opportunity to help with annual [...]
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 [...]
The first week of Blanding’s turtle work has been fun, hard, hot, cold, wet, and awesome. We have had a great time getting to know the wildlife biologists and techs we will be working with throughout the summer, and getting settled into our new roles as part of this collaborative team. Every day has been [...]
Welcome to our blog where we will be sharing our experiences this summer as we work with the Lake County Forest Preserve District to assess Blanding’s turtle health! As part of Dr. Matt Allender’s Wildlife Epidemiology Lab we have the opportunity to monitor and evaluate Illinois’ largest known population of Blanding’s turtles in a small [...]
Blanding's Turtle Research I am excited to be spending my final summer break of veterinary school hiking through forest preserves looking for turtles. As part of Dr. Allender’s Wildlife Epidemiology Lab and along with Dr. Dana Lindemann, the first-year zoo resident at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine, I am completing a project [...]
