REBROADCAST: Making the rounds with Oregon Zoo veterinarian Carlos Sanchez

Dr. Carlos Sanchez has an unusual and challenging caseload of patients. For one thing, they have scales, feathers, horns and fur, and can’t really say where it hurts. But it’s his job to oversee the medical care and treatment of more than a thousand animals (not including fish) as the head veterinarian at Portland’s Oregon Zoo. In our latest installment in our series on professions, we accompany Sanchez as he makes his daily rounds to check up on some of his favorite patients. He shares with us the special bond he has with them, the invaluable role zoo keepers play in their wellbeing and the fateful encounter he had as a young boy in Mexico City that would forever change his life.

Note: This transcript was computer generated and edited by a volunteer.

Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. We’re going to spend the hour today on the latest installment in our series focused on people’s jobs. We’ve been talking to people about what they do and how they do it and why. We recently spent a few hours following Dr. Carlos Sanchez. He starts his day with a check in with the other medical staff to get updates on their patients.

Carlos Sanchez: All right. I have my meeting with Heidi at half past 12 and then a meeting with Kelly Gomez, too, to talk about tiger shipment, to talk about hoof trimming in giraffes and to talk about wild dogs going to Colombia. So it’s a pretty big team meeting. Alright so clinics for the day, we had to pretty much move everything for next week. So we’ll just be ready for emergencies today. Update on important cases. Do you want to give us a summary on the procedure from yesterday?

Emily Olszweski (veterinary student, Ohio State University): So we did PMP exams on two alligator lizards. So we had Al, the northern alligator lizards. We didn’t find anything exciting on his exam and he was apparently healthy. We do have a CT of his whole body sent out for a report that we’re going to wait to come back. And then we also did an exam on Betty, the redback alligator lizard. She also had a very unremarkable exam, apparently healthy. And we also have a CT sent out on her.

Sanchez: And the other thing that we did yesterday is did a visual on the juvenile female Bontebok antelope called Tutula because of her overgrown hooves…

Miller: [Narration] Carlos Sanchez is a head veterinarian at the Oregon Zoo. Together with the rest of the veterinary team and the zoo keepers, he takes care of all of the animals in the largest zoo in the state.

Sanchez: So we have over 1,000 animals without taking into account fish. We

have everything from little lizards, like the one that we were talking about this morning that just got a PMP or a routine exam, to elephants. So on any given day, we can actually see a small bird or an elephant for anything. Maybe it’s just a little boo boo or maybe it’s just a cut or maybe it’s just something that, hey, we’re just checking how they are doing. What we’re going to do with the elephants today is our routine visit. There’s nothing wrong really, but we just go there and talk to the keepers. Why? It creates very good teamwork with the keepers. It’s not like they only see the vet when the animal is sick.

Miller: Is there such a thing as an average day?

Sanchez: No. And I like that you asked that question because I always say that the most interesting part of my job is that routine is never routine. So even if we have a schedule for procedures and responses to emergencies. The way that we divide the duties for the veterinarian team is that there is a veterinarian doing what we call elective procedures, which is basically like routine checkup like humans. We go to the doctor every year or two years. Some animals have to go to the doctor every year for two years and a veterinarian has to do that. [Meanwhile] the other vet responds to what we call any emergency or any concern.

Miller: [Narration] But it turns out that knowing when there’s reason for concern is actually a big challenge.

Sanchez: We got to remember that although they live in a zoo under human care, they are wild animals and they do tend to hide disease. In the wild, an animal that is sick is not going to make it, it will be prey, it will be abandoned, it will be gone soon. So they tend to mask disease.

And a lot of our animals do not show any sign of disease until it’s pretty advanced or…

Miller: It’s an evolutionary advantage to hide it.

Sanchez: Exactly. So they are not eaten, they are not the first one eaten by the lions or by a tiger. And so, it makes our work a little harder. They don’t talk to us, they don’t tell us where it is hurting. But then also, if there is something serious inside, we sometimes do not see any clinical science until it’s pretty advanced. And then, we are actually running against time because the process has been advanced. And that is part of why we do these routine checkups. We call these routine checkouts PMPs or preventive medicine programs.

Miller: [Narrated] On the day we visited, Dr. Carlos’ first PMP was with the elephants. He said that the layout of the enclosure was designed with their health in mind.

Sanchez: One of the beauties of the new exhibit that we have is that they have a lot of room to walk around and to explore. And there is the same exhibit as you can see, there’s different gradients so they can go up and down. And also something people do not know, is that they also change the weight on the paw. So if it was flat, it’s always the same distribution of weight, but because the way it is, there is an inclination and there is like mounds, then basically the elephant weight just kind of shifts. And so that helps with the health of their feet.

Miller: And am I right that foot health is one of the most important, most challenging aspects of life in zoos for elephants?

Sanchez: Well, they have to be constant so I always like to say that our keepers do a phenomenal job. They do basically a pedicure once a week, not even people get that level of care. So they train the elephants to show the nail with positive reinforcement so all that stuff gets done with positive enforcement. So this is one of my favorite patients here. This is Chendra, she is a Bornean elephant. She is a beauty. She’s very hairy and we like that. Yeah, so we follow Gilbert.

Miller: Do you mind telling me who you are?

Gilbert Gomez (elephant keeper): Gilbert Gomez. I’m one of the elephant keepers.

Miller: OK, good to meet you. I’m Dave.

Gomez: Nice meeting you.

Aimee Bischoff (elephant keeper): Good girl. Can you lean in?

Miller: Is she eating some yams right now? There’s a bucket here?

Gomez: There’s sweet potatoes.

Bischoff: You are OK. Good girl, steady.

Sanchez: So when we do an exam or we want to do an exam, we actually can come here and these guys line her up and then we can basically ask them, is there anything that we need to look at and check it. And even when there is nothing wrong, it’s good for us to come here so the elephant knows, oh this guy is not going to poke me. This guy is OK. And actually we’d like to have that relationship not only with the keepers, but with the animals, too.

Bischoff: Trunk down. Chendra, drop it, drop it.

[Chendra rumbles]

Bischoff: Good girl, drop it. Come on, good girl. Drop it.

[Chendra trumpets]

Bischoff: Good girl, Chendra.

[Chendra snorts]

Sanchez: Good girl. Good stuff. Chendra speak.

[Chendra barks]

Bischoff: Good girl. Speak.

[Chendra snorts]

Bischoff: Good girl.

Sanchez: So you can see, the relationship between the keeper and the elephant is amazing. When we need to look at her eyes, she would let us because they are training her for that. We want to look at her ear or her mouth, they can say open mouth and she would show her mouth. And pretty much that is part of the work that we like to do with the keepers. If we want a new behavior then we would say, hey, Gilbert, we would like to do this in a month and it’s like, OK, we’ll do it, like radiographs of something. They train it so we don’t have to sedate him. Everything is a relatively good experience for the animals and they do not resent anything. So we like to have that good rapport with the keepers and the animals.

Miller: You mentioned that every now and then you just want to be able to touch an elephant’s skin.

Sanchez: Yeah. Aimee, can you line her up and maybe I touch her?

Bischoff: Chendra, lean in.

Sanchez: So believe it or not, some of our elephants sometimes have a little bit of an allergy to a bee sting or something and they create a little bit of hives. So we can come here and say, oh, OK, let me touch her and touch her and then feel if there are any lumps right now, there are none. But we sometimes see these hives and we can see that and their skin is pretty interesting because although it’s thick, the most superficial layer is not. You can actually pinch it.

Miller: Can I touch her?

Sanchez: Can we touch her?

Bischoff: Yes. Good girl.

Miller: Wow.

Sanchez: See. It’s just very unique.

Miller: It’s soft but there’s coarse hair. Wow.

Bischoff: That way if she leans in, he doesn’t get pinched.

Miller: You said it’s important that she has hair so that is good?

Why is that?

Sanchez: Well, in this case, she’s hairy. They protect themselves from the sun. Sometimes we can also in this case, can see she has hairy ears and this subspecies is more hairy than the other Asian elephants and for her, it’s distinctive so we can easily tell where Chendra is and what she is doing. And she likes to be checked by the vet. She doesn’t have any problem. We try to go there at least every week, one of the veterinarians, they all rotate. So the keepers know all the vets, the elephants know all the vets and we always follow the directions of the keepers. They are our eyes. They are the people who say she’s a little grumpy today, maybe stay back. Normally with her it is not the case, but they know the animals better than we do.

But it’s funny because they are such big animals. I always look at my feet because if I don’t check them like this, by accident she could step on me. So I always do this and I’m always very conscious that I’m doing this when I’m doing an exam. So it is not by accident. She doesn’t want to hurt me, but if by any chance she stepped on me, she weighs over 1,000 kg. So these are the little things that you learn with age, she’s trying to be safe, too.

Miller: Have you been injured over the course of your career?

Sanchez: Not severely injured. I got bitten by a monkey many years ago in the Mexico City Zoo. And the funny story was about an interaction with an elephant. We had a baby elephant at National Zoo when I was there. And then the female developed a little bit of what we call edema in her ventrum. So I was checking her and I was between her legs and, at that time, we had what we called free contact, meaning we met with the elephants and that was something routine for many zoos. And I was checking on her needs and I always told the keepers, let me know if you think she’s going to kick me or something. So I was checking that skin and one of the keepers said watch out. So I was looking at what leg she was going to kick me with or she was moving and she just defecated and the ballast just hit me in the head and the fecal ballast hurt my neck. I had to go to the doctor, actually, I’m not kidding. I don’t know if you want that on the radio…[laughter]

Miller: I absolutely do want that on the radio. [Laughter] I can hear it on the radio right now.

So I thought this was going to be a story about something that was gross, but you got injured by the mass of elephant poop landing on your head?

Sanchez: On the top of my head and because I wasn’t ready, it just basically hurt my neck. So the next day, I did go to the doctor and it just was unexpected. But I mean, you see, it’s just bigger than a football.

Miller: Right.

Sanchez: And it is heavy. It’s solid. And obviously I had to take a shower, too.

Thank you, Aimee, Gilbert. Appreciate it.

Bischoff: You’re OK, drop it. [Chendra rumbles] Good girl. Drop it. Good girl, Come on. [Chendra trumpets]. Good girl, good job [sound of patting]. That’s a good one. Good job.

Miller: [Narration] At one point, I asked Dr. Carlos about his origin story as a vet. It went back to his childhood.

Sanchez: When people ask me, did you always want to be a zoo vet, which is a zoo veterinarian. I say yes, my story, it’s a little cheesy. Everybody that is in this field loves animals and I love animals. My mom always taught us to love animals. We have always had dogs at home. And so Mexico City Zoo near where I was born and grew up had the first giant panda born outside China. And obviously, he was a celebrity. Songs and everybody was there.

So finally, when they were unveiled, the panda and public could go to the zoo. I was a kid and my mom took us there. It’s a free zoo at the time. It’s a city with 12 million people so they were basically closing the zoo at 100,000 people per day and it was insane. And I remember as if it was yesterday, we probably were in line for three or four hours just with my mom, my sister and my brother when she was a baby and just walking in to see the panda and the police there was like move, move, move, move, move, everybody wants to see the panda. And I saw this panda for 25 seconds. And I was like, oh my God, look at that and I just walked and move, move, move. And I was like, I want to work with these animals. I do want to work at this zoo. I want to work with pandas.

I’ve been lucky enough that I ended up working at that zoo and I ended up actually being one of the doctors for that giant panda, Tohui or Tohua, because it ended up being a female, not a male. And I took care of that animal for five years.

Miller: Wow.

Sanchez: And then I had been involved with giant pandas in my residency in the Smithsonian. And so I worked at the zoo and I worked with the pandas and that’s why you see my office is full of pandas because I have a special relationship with them.

Miller: How accurate was your dream? Now you’re living the reality. You’ve achieved what you wanted as an eight year old or whatever, which most people can’t say. How accurate was your conception of what the job would be?

Sanchez: I think it was close in the sense that it’s a super satisfying job. Again, working with my dream animal, a giant panda, being able to go to China multiple times to train the veterinarians at the Chengdu Panda Base and working with 15-20-40 giant pandas. So that part of the dream is to be a doctor that can actually improve the lives of these animals to challenge and study, I think that part was very accurate.

What I wasn’t prepared for is that sometimes it is a tough job. And when I teach a class called Career Path for the veterinary students that want to go into this field, I tell them this is one of the most rewarding jobs you can have. It’s never routine. You sometimes are out, sometimes you are doing surgery. Because as I told you, we are the ultimate generalists. We do a little bit of everything. So that is very rewarding. You don’t get bored and the highs are very high. We had a giant panda born in a National Zoo during my time there. And I mean, it was a dream come true, but the lows can be very low, too.

Miller: What are the lows?

Sanchez: So losing a patient in which you put so much work and you just couldn’t figure it out. And an example was Lily, the elephant calf that we had here that we lost in 2018 to EHB which is a viral disease with a mortality ratio of 84%. That is the number one cause of death of elephant cows in the world. And when we lost Lily, it was devastating and still to this day, it is hard for me to talk about it. We tried everything that was available at the time and still five years later, we still don’t fully understand this virus.

So those are the parts that will break your heart and they happen, if you lose an animal or an anesthesia or you lose a patient or we have patients that we have worked with for 10 to 15 years, even if they’re healthy. But there is a point in which just like all they get old.

Miller: How do you think about your emotional connections to these animals? And I guess I’m wondering if as time goes on, if you purposefully create more of a distance because of the loss that you’re talking about.

Sanchez: That’s a very good question because as we grow old, I think you start protecting yourself a little bit and exactly what you do. And I thought I was immune. When we lost Lily at that point, I’d been working in this field for 20 years. I had a lot of experience. I have had the highest highs and some lows. And I thought, well, I am detached. I am a doctor. I need to be focused on what I do, but that was a tough case in the sense that we really tried hard. The way that this disease works, it’s a pretty fast disease. So within 48-72 hours, you lose a patient. And it didn’t even give me time to process my distance and when she died, I just know the keepers lost it. I lost it. It was just very emotional.

So you basically train yourself to say, OK, it is a patient. It’s an animal. I’m doing my best, but it’s impossible not to get attached. Here I have a special collection with Chloe, our very old chimpanzee. She likes me alone and I like her too because she likes me, but she’s old and now I feel a very special connection with her and I know the day that the time comes whether I’m here or not, I know I’m going to feel it because it’s impossible not to have a relation with an animal that you are so connected with.

Miller: [Narration] So we headed off to see the special relationship that Dr. Carlos has with Chloe and with Jackson, another chimp at the zoo. He happened to be healing from an injury.

Sanchez: [Speaking on radio] “Primate keepers from Vet Carlos. Hey, we are here outside.” [Conversation] So this is Jackson and that’s Chloe and for her to come here, it’s pretty good. It’s normal.

Miller: Can you tell us about Jackson?

Sanchez: Jackson is 51 years old, which is an advanced age, long-term resident from the Oregon Zoo. And one of the probably most challenging species or animals to work with as a zoo are apes. They’re very smart and if you do something mean to them, whether it’s a dart or something, they will remember that. So we try to create a very good relationship with them. So the vets come here every Monday to just feed them treats or give them something so they know that there is no negative interaction with them.

Miller: So you have to spend more time with them than most other animals in the zoo

Sanchez: Yes.

Miller: On a regular basis where you’re not sticking them with needles?

Sanchez: Exactly. And I come here also, helps me to talk to the keepers and learn if there is any issue with any other animal or not or how is everybody doing? So, we are now seeing Chloe and Jackson. Chloe is the oldest of our chimpanzees. You can tell she’s small.

“Jackson, Jackson” (fun voice).

And sometimes he displays.

“Right, buddy? Hey, buddy!”

But he’s not aggressive. He’s not trying to intimidate me. He’s not trying to challenge me. So even by watching them from a distance, we evaluate how their gait is, like Chloe has some medication because she’s getting stiff at an advanced age with some probably like a little bit of arthritis. So we have it on medications that will be used by humans that age. And then we look at Jackson and see if he is doing OK? He does have some battle wounds from some interactions with other chimpanzees, but they love each other and they like each other and they like to hug.

Miller: So who’s Chloe hugging right now?

Hannah Carbonneau (primate keeper): Chloe is hugging Daisy and then they’re kissing each other too, which is very sweet.

Sanchez: This is our fantastic keeper, Hannah.

Miller: Hi, what’s your name?

Carbonneau: Hannah.

Miller: I’m Dave. Nice to meet you.

Carbonneau: Nice to meet you, too.

Sanchez: And Daisy is one of the chimpanzees that arrived a little bit over a year ago from the East Coast. And so it’s a new group of chimpanzees that came. And so for Chloe to be this loving with her, it’s great because it’s not an animal that she had spent most of her life with. And that’s Delilah and Delilah, Jackson and Chloe have been together for a long time.

“Jackson!”

Miller: And is there a reason you want to get Jackson’s attention today?

Sanchez: Well, and then we are looking into a couple of his battle wounds and to be sure that they are healing well, we just finished a course of antibiotics. So we decided not to immobilize him to take care of those wounds because they weren’t as severe as we thought, but we also don’t like them to get infected. So we just finished a course of antibiotics and we wanted to be sure that the wound is looking good and so that we don’t have to have any more medication. So I’m evaluating what we call his ambulations, his movements and is he walking normally? He’s putting weight on that foot. Is he interacting with other animals? He is eating. So I’m looking at him walking. He seems to be walking okay. He’s responding to Hannah’s, our keepers’, call and we’ll see if he comes here and wants to take treats.

Miller: It does look like Chloe and her friend have come to get some treats that are intended for Jackson. He’s here now.

Sanchez: He is here now. So he’s there.

Miller: What are they drinking?

Sanchez: So it’s diluted apple juice and we try not to give him a lot of sugars, just to keep him healthy. And so we talk to the keepers and ask them, hey, how are we doing? He’s showing his food, that’s his injured food. And so we can tell, OK, the wound is healing well, we are not seeing any inflammation, we’re not seeing any pus. He’s trained to show different things, like he’s showing he’s going to show his ear.

Miller: Wow.

Sanchez: There we go and then he gets a little bit of juice, he can show his hand, he’s showing his feet. They are able to take temperature. He’s trained to show the shoulder that’s for injections. So we want to inject them and then they’re asking him to turn around, hand up and his belly. So he’s trying to show his belly. So the keepers can palpate it and they actually try to do cardiac ultrasound awake. So they put their chest against the mesh and we put a probe and then we can see cardiac function because cardiac disease in chimpanzees is very common. So it’s something that we do as a routine and now Chloe wants some juice, too. So he’s showing us the affected foot. See this foot.

Miller: He is putting his foot up against the fence now.

Carbonneau: I don’t know if you can see it, Dr. Carlos, but it looks really good

Sanchez: It looks good. Any discharge or any inflammation?

Carbonneau: So, the affected part, like the top part of the foot looks really clean and dry. It’s just this bottom part by where his little toe was, that is just a little bit wet, but otherwise it looks like it’s really cleaning up well. It’s drying up and he’s not bothering it. He’s leaving it alone, the other chimps aren’t bothering it…

Sanchez: Excellent

Carbonneau: ..which is usually the issue. They’ll try to help and they’ll groom it, but yeah, he’s been doing really well and he’s been taking his meds really well, too.

Sanchez: And so we are a team trying to get him to heal. So they tell us, it does look like he’s uncomfortable. He looks like there is discharge, there is bleeding, there is pus and then we take action. And then again, they see him all the time. They know him better and even like him taking his meds is great. So showing his affected foot, he was a little painful. He will not let him touch it. So it is important that we hear what they think about the wound and then we make a decision based on also what is their opinion on that.

“Jackson”

Carbonneau: “Good boy. Are you a good boy? Yes you are.”

Sanchez: And he sometimes gets so excited when we’re here that he starts displaying and making a little bit of noise, but he’s being quiet today. He’s shy, camera shy. That’s OK. Chloe is not.

Carbonneau: He’s like this is usually the Chloe Show.

Sanchez: She’s like, why are you guys focusing on Jackson? I am the Diva.

Carbonneau: Chloe loves Dr. Carlos. Every time Dr. Carlos comes over, it doesn’t matter what she’s doing, she gets up and comes over and has to say hi. So we love when Dr. Carlos comes because oftentimes it just gets her up and going and starting her day. So if we need her to get up in the morning, we’re like, Dr. Carlos, do you want to come and do a visit?

Miller: Are you jealous of Dr. Carlos?

Carbonneau: And his relationship with her? Sometimes. Yes, because they get along really well. It’s actually really great. We want the animals to get along well with the vets and to trust them. We see them every day so it’s not as bad if she doesn’t want to come over to me, but we really need them to trust the vets and to not be afraid of them. So that relationship is vital to their health, especially as they get older.

“Yes, Chloe, I know.”

Sanchez: We are talking about you, girl.

Carbonneau: “I know we are.” She knows.

Sanchez: She knows.

Carbonneau: I know she knows they understand a lot, a lot more than I think we give them credit for.

Miller: [Narration] After the chimps, we headed to a different part of the zoo to see more patients. It gave me a chance to ask more about Dr. Carlos’ professional journey.

[Conversation] I understand that you were the first person from Latin America to get into a US zoo residency program.

Sanchez: Yes, exactly. So in 2000, I became the first Latin American ever to be accepted.

Miller: What did that mean to you?

Sanchez: It was a huge responsibility. I’m not going to lie. When I learned that…I didn’t know that, but I start kind of getting an idea how hard it was going to be when most people told me, you know that you’re not going to get it, right? And I’m like, OK, but I’m still going to try and it’s like you shouldn’t even bother applying. I was like, well, I am going to do it. And when I applied to the National Zoo, they said that’s one of the most competitive programs. It’s like they have never taken somebody that is not from the US. I’m like, OK, that’s fine. I will give it a shot.

Miller: Oh, not even just not from Mexico or Colombia but anywhere in the world?

Sanchez: In that specific program.

Miller: Wow.

Sanchez: Yes. And so the long story short is that I ended up at National Zoo doing a three-year advanced training in zoo medicine and then they offered me a fellowship for a year. So I ended up doing four years. Yeah, it was a lot of pressure to be able to perform well and leave the door open for other Latin Americans.

Miller: Oh, the pressure was that you thought that if you didn’t do well, then the next person who applied..

Sanchez: That was what was in my mind. It’s like, yeah, we gave it a shot, maybe it won’t work.

Miller: But they would generalize the lesson.

Sanchez: And we all do a little bit of that, right? And so I was like, I had to do super well and I think I did in the sense that they kept me there after I finished. They offered me a job and I stayed there for six years as a first, as a veterinarian,

then as a supervisor veterinarian. And I know there have been a few more Mexicans and Latin Americans accepted after me. I didn’t imagine how difficult it would be to be a zoo vet. You can be a vet but then to be a zoo vet is actually rather difficult. And in the United States, particularly for an immigrant, it is harder because I had to learn veterinary English, not just English, but veterinary English and then just basically validate all my studies that I did in Mexico and do a series of exams but at the end of the day, I can look back and say, oh, all that was worth it.

Miller: How do you think about the humans who come to the zoo? Your focus is on your patients..

Sanchez: Yes.

Miller: ..who are the animals. But now, when we arrived, it was before opening time so we could talk and now there are families walking around who would come to just look at all your animals. What’s your relationship with humans like?

Sanchez: If I happen to be looking at an animal for whatever reason. And there is a group of people, I do like to show them some facts and tell them some facts and then they see my badge and it’s like, oh, are you one of the doctors here? And I’m like, yes. And then they have questions and I really love to explain to them because what we do as veterinarians for the most part in any zoo is behind the scenes. People do not even know that we have probably one of the best hospitals in any zoo in the country. You can see it from here and it’s super beautiful but inside is not only beautiful, it’s practical. We have all the tools that you would have in a human hospital to do diagnosis, CT scan and everything. But people do not know that. So I like to educate them a little bit and tell him what we do here and why.

And I think the misconception is that, oh, animals get sick. I always tell people a zoo is like a city. We have elderly citizens, we have citizens that may not do well. We have infants, we have all these kinds of people with different habits and they eat something different. And for me, I see it like that and I like to teach them and say, yeah, there was a little bit of a fight here just like sometimes people get into arguments and now we’re watching this situation. And so I actually like to teach people and particularly when you see somebody interested in the job we do.

Miller: When you are just going around in the world–on vacation or just walking around in the streets of Portland–are you paying attention to wild animals? I mean, if you look at a squirrel, what do you think oh, it has a problem with its foot?

Sanchez: Yes. You know exactly how we think and it’s not only that. In my apartment, sometimes I see another person coming and I think their dog [might have] hip dysplasia. I don’t say anything because it’s not my place. However, some of them, they figure out that I’m a vet here and they’re like, oh, I know you don’t know these dogs, but what do you think? Like, I think you need to take it to the vet because it seems like that hip is not good, but you are right. I mean, sometimes we see animals here and it’s like, oh my God, that squirrel has an abscess on his face. This is one of the things that we noticed right away. We’re just vets full time.

Miller: [Narration] At one point on our tour, Dr. Carlos stopped to point out the home of Amelia and Nora, the zoo’s polar bears.

Sanchez: Yeah, this is a super nice habitat for the polar bears and they do have a choice so they can go inside, they can go outside, they can go into the other habitat. And that’s the part that is sometimes fun because now she’s there and she’s exploring the other top with also probably a lot of ice and then she’s eating ice, just chewing on it, keeping herself cool. And then probably some treats inside the ice because she’s definitely very interested in staying in the pool.

Miller: So, there could be sardines floating in the ice?

Sanchez: Sardines, pieces of salmon, sometimes fat. Now, these polar bears are very unique and I call them the Portland polar bears because they love lettuce, iceberg lettuce. [Laughter] I’m not kidding you. That’s how they used to train them. Sometimes we offer them a piece of meat and they’re like, no, I want that lettuce. It’s like, oh, my God, they live in Portland, of course,

Miller: Plant-based polar bears.

Sanchez: Exactly. They’re vegetarian polar bears and they do love it. And that’s how…

Miller: They need fat. Right?

Sanchez: They do and they do eat a lot of fish. They love salmon and other fish, but the treat that they use to train them is the lettuce, iceberg lettuce. [Laughter] Yes. And yeah, you can tell they respond very well to it.

Miller: You’ll know they’re real Portlanders when they hold their nose at the iceberg and say I want kale.

Sanchez: That’s true. Yeah. So now we’re on the way to the penguinarium. So, something that we have been doing with the penguins is trying to do the preventive medicine program exams, the routine exams. And so we had a list of 15 penguins that needed to be looked at this year and we looked at most of them. But there were few that were into molting and that’s basically like shedding the old feathers and getting new ones and they do get a little grumpy when they sometimes molt. Sometimes they just don’t cooperate with the keepers as well. So we decided to hold on for a couple of the penguins exams till completed with the molt. And so we’re going to check on them and see where we are at and if so maybe we can schedule exams for the very near future. Hello.

Marcus Jason (area supervisor): Hey. Come on in.

Sanchez: Hey Marcus, how are you doing?

Jason: Good

Sanchez: This is Marcus, supervisor in this area. How’s everybody, Marcus?

Jason: Oh, well, so far [good] today, yeah.

Sanchez: So the two penguins that we didn’t do the PMP exams, which ones are those?

Jason: Those left to do are Lotto and Linus.

Sanchez: Ok. And how are those penguins? Are they done?

Jason: They are done with their annual molt, yes.

Sanchez: Excellent. Are they nearby now?

Jason: She’s out there feeding right now. That’s Jill and she is wrapping up a little bit.

Sanchez: Is that the chick?

Jason: No, the chicks are these ones.

Sanchez: These ones here? Yes. (makes swishing sound to attract penguins)

Miller: What kind of penguins are these?

Jason: These are penguins Humboldt penguins.

Sanchez: This chick was hatched here, what, three months ago?

Jason: We’re about three months old now.

Sanchez: Yeah. You can tell that the feather coloration is different from the adults.

Miller: But the size is almost the same.

Jason: They grew up quick. They have to be out there in the wild; it’s a dangerous world for a penguin.

Miller: Yeah.

Sanchez: Yeah. Here they have it easy but there they have to grow fast. But you can see the colors between an adult and the chick. It is more grayish than black and then the white is still not as white. And then his head looks a little smaller than the other ones there. [penquin noises in background]

Miller: There’s an entire tub of fish there but they’re waiting to be fed by hand.

Is that just because they’re so well behaved? Why aren’t they just sticking their faces in the tub of fish?

Jason: That’s the relationships that we need to build with these birds in order to maintain quality of life. It’s a health exam. It’s a physical exam to make sure that these birds are healthy. We need to be able to interact with these birds on a daily basis. We need to be a factor in their lives in order for us to be able to make sure that they thrive.

Sanchez: And they trust the keepers.They trust that they will get food and they don’t need to steal the food.

All right, we’ll get those scheduled and we’re done for at least this year.

Jason: Thank you.

Sanchez: No, thank you guys.

[Penquin noises in background]

Miller: So the way you described it, one of the best tools you have for knowing how an animal is doing is talking to the humans who spend all their days with them.

Sanchez: Exactly.

Miller: But still, unlike humans, an animal’s not going to say this is why I’m not eating or is it hurts here.

Sanchez: This is a lot of detective work. Internal medicine is start putting together the clinical signs that the animal gives you whether it is one or 10 and they could be what we call non-specific. So not eating. OK. Well, it’s not eating but it could be anything, right? That’s a non-specific clinical science. Then we, as you say, use the keepers as our translators. They tell us it’s not only that he’s been sleeping a little more or the animal has been acting a little off with his partner and that actually gives us some clues. And then we start formulating what we call a list of differential diagnosis. What could possibly be happening? And then we formulate a list of what tests we need to do because remember some of these animals, even if they don’t hate us because we do spend time with them, they’re not going to let me go in and open the mouth of the tiger, right? So we need to immobilize him. Now, the keepers can train the animal to open the mouth to a certain degree, but if I see a lesion in the back of the mouth, nobody’s going to put their hand there.

Miller: Into the tiger?

Sanchez: Correct. So it’s still pretty dangerous. And so we need to decide, is it worth the immobilization, which is the anesthesia of the animal with the associated risk. Is it worth it to do all these diagnostics? And all these are discussions we have with the keepers, with the managers, with the veterinarians, with the group saying yes, we need to do this base. Or we’ll just put it on three days of Ibuprofen and see how it does and maybe it resolves and we just keep notes, resolve on its own, maybe just, twisting an ankle or something wasn’t anything major. But that is where it is challenging because it’s all about a risk assessment, right? Is it worth anesthetizing a lion that weighs 600 kilograms? You have to transport him to the hospital. This is a dangerous animal.

My definition of anesthesia is the long periods of boredom interrupted by moments of panic. Because they start getting light or they start getting too deep. You cannot lose the patient, but you also need to be mindful that you have a team in the room that are your colleagues, they are your keepers, they are the team that you work with and you cannot have a lion wake up in the middle of a procedure. It could happen, anesthesia has a half-time, right? And then you need to supplement and all this is what makes our job very challenging but at the same time, it is very exciting in the sense that anesthetizing a lion is very different from anesthetizing a chimpanzee or a bird or a fish. And we do all these with the objective to try to improve their quality of life and as a result, their animal welfare.

Miller: What’s next?

Sanchez: We’re going to be checking a goat’s TB test. So this goat had her routine exam. That’s like what we do every year and then get a tuberculosis test. So we just need to check it, be sure that it’s negative and once it’s negative, then that exam is resolved. It is also a regulatory test. So we have to do it and we try to do it on time so there is no issue. So that’s what we’re doing today.

So as you can see, we also have few domestic animals and that’s what we call domestic animals. They are program animals, we have goats, we have rabbits, we have guinea pigs, we have some tortoises which are not domestic, but we also take care of those animals. So we’re not completely doing only zoo animals, sometimes they call us saying the rabbits are having this issue like today. We do actually like it. Sometimes we joke that it’s nice to work with animals that do not want to kill you. [Laughter] However, you saw that the relationship with the chimps is great and with the elephant, but in general terms, not every zoo vet has this relation with their patients.

Knock, knock. Hey, Kat.

Kat Barnum-Palit (Oregon Zoo Family Farm animal care worker): It’s all set over here.

Sanchez: Awesome. So she’s a good animal. She has big ears.

“Hey, girly girl. How are you? What happened to your ears? Don’t be silly. OK. OK. Don’t be silly.”

So what I’m doing is basically touching the skin, looking at the skin and looking if there is any reaction to the injection that was given to her to determine if she’s a reactor and everything looks good. It’s negative. It doesn’t really take that long, but some animals do not like to be touched in that area because she’s close to her butt. But she did really well, she’s kind of like, freeze. But other than that she’s like what are you doing? What is happening here? But, she got her exam and it looks pretty normal.

How’s everybody else doing?

Barnum-Palit: Good.

Sanchez: Good. Do we want to put him back with the group?

Barnum-Palit: Yeah.

Sanchez: Oops.

Miller: Now we got a runner.

Sanchez: Escape! They’re wondering what’s going on. Where is Sonia? What happened? What did you guys do to her?

Miller: Does she have TB?

Sanchez: She does not. She’s healthy.

Miller: The test was negative.

Sanchez: These are fun animals to work with. I actually like working with goats. You can see they have a lot of personality, they’re fun and the kids love them.

Miller: Do you have favorite animals here?

Sanchez: I do. I love the rhinos. Black rhinos have always been kind of my second top along with giant pandas that we don’t have here, but I love rhinos. I always say they are like a safe box with legs. [Laughter] They are massive, but they are also super smart. And for me, it kind of hits all the points. They are strong animals, they’re beautiful, but also they do represent challenges from the medical point of view. And I am attracted to species that have conditions that are harder to diagnose or animals that are harder to anesthetize. It’s just kind of my mind. I like the challenge.

Miller: [Narration] It turns out that one of the many challenges in taking care of black rhinos is finding the right equipment because no one sells medical gear specifically made for these massive animals.

Sanchez: We do dental examinations on black rhinos. We don’t do all animals, but we know one of the main considerations to have black rhinos is that you have to be on top of dental health in this species. So when we have the opportunity to immobilize a rhino, for whatever reason, we’re very methodical about looking into their mouths. And then if we need to do more work, that is more specialized than we call Dr. Lowder, which is the rhino dentist. That’s how he’s known.

Miller: [Laughter] All around the country?

Sanchez: All around the country. He flies all around the country. He has specialized equipment that he’s made himself to extract molars of a rhino.

Miller: Wow.

Sanchez: So the way that we open the mouth of a rhino or an elephant when they are immobilized is with a carjack. [Laughter] Yeah. So we also have to improvise and try to figure out how we’re going to do these things when we don’t have the tools. So yeah, a carjack, you just put them back [sound effect] gently, open them out and then you can work inside the mouth. Because otherwise you don’t have enough space.

Miller: [Narration] Our last stop of the day as luck would have it, was to visit Vet Carlos’ favorite animals.

Sanchez: So we have two rhinos, we have King and Jozi. And they came, I think over a year ago, from two different zoos and it’s always a little bit nerve wracking when you introduce a massive animal that could potentially not liking each other.

Miller: And it’s just just a chance, right?

Sanchez: Sometimes it’s just chance and a lot of its chemistry like people, right? Like you get along with some people, you sometimes do not, but these two got along really well. There was a lot of work that the keepers did prior to putting them together. So it is what we call how to gauge interest, right? Between two different stalls, they smell each other for weeks. They saw each other, they smelled their urine and everything just to try to know that there’s another rhino next to you.

And it’s very interesting because they are, their personalities are very different. So King is the male, but he is not the king. She’s the queen. [laughter] So he is literally like a puppy. He’s a very well educated animal. You can scratch him, you can touch him, you can pinch his cheeks. She is a handful. She is a handful, even during the trouble that she had from a zoo in the Midwest to us. She wasn’t very happy.

Miller: She’s bigger than he is, too.

Sanchez: Yes. Right now she is. So we were always afraid if the male is dominant and they are bigger than the females, is it going to hurt her? But as soon as we saw her temperament, it was like she’s going to be the boss and she is the boss. So, intros were a little scuffle here and there, but nothing major for an animal that it’s impossible to stop and they get along well. They now actually love each other and I can say that because they don’t like to be apart and they spend time together. And you can see there is really no antagonistic interaction, but she has calmed down a lot and I think having him there has helped because he is super mellow.

The hope is that they actually breed and have a calf. We’re hoping. We’ll see. They arrived here a little bit over a year ago.

Miller: What are you seeing right now just in terms of health? What are you paying attention to? And we’re 30 feet away?

Sanchez: So, they’re doing well. But now I’m looking at the contour and I can actually see if there are any lumps or bumps. That’s how the colloquial term that could be suggested is an abscess. Is he walking normally or not? Is he having some lameness? I can see his face. And then I asked the keepers how they eat because as I mentioned earlier, they have dental disease, not these animals, but black rhinos tend to have some problems with dental disease so the first thing you see is like dropping food but so far so good.

We did exams on both of them a year ago or so and they look beautiful. Yeah, when we did the exam on Jozi, the keepers called us and there was some blood on the walls and I was like, that’s not normal and you don’t see where it’s coming from because sometimes she was very nervous, like she hit something. They called us the next day. I think she has a bump on her nose. So I came here, she had a mass on her nose and black rhinos, another disease. That no other rhino presents is called eosinophilic granuloma, which is basically a mass that is caused by an allergy to something and only black rhino and it presents in the mouth, on the nose or on the genitals. And so we knew what we needed to do, but immobilizing her is not an easy task. We have like 25-30 people helping us to rotate her to the side just so she was in a good position.

Once we had her down in a good position, mats underneath because otherwise they get a lot of pressure on the limbs, that was not hard. We just do cryosurgery with liquid nitrogen, remove the mass, cauterize it, inject it with some steroids, really took advantage to look at her mouth and you use the, the jack to open the the mouth, look at her teeth, took samples, do a full exam, woke her up and yeah, the result.

Miller: Before we talked, I thought that and I still think that one of the biggest challenges of your job is that you have to deal with basically every kind of animal there is. Would you be bored if all you did were one animal day in and day out?

Sanchez: So I think for me, I don’t know if I would be bored. I did small animal medicine in Mexico City. I work in the city in the morning and then I would go to work in a small animal clinic. I did that for three years. It wasn’t boring. We had very cool cases, but I think for me, I do need to get out sometimes. I do need to feel the texture of the skin of an elephant or another animal. I just need a constant challenge, the constant change.

Sometimes I even wonder how long am I going to stay in the zoo? Not this zoo, but a job because I have worked for zoos and I love them, all of them, but they offer me something different. When I came here, I had never worked with sea otters, which are phenomenal. And I love the challenge to work with them. So I think I’m settled now saying I love this place. I love the collection. I love the city. Oregon is beautiful. I see myself here and I still get the challenge every day.

Miller: Thank you very much.

Sanchez: My pleasure.

Miller: It was great to meet you.

Sanchez: Same.

Miller: That’s Carlos Sanchez. He is the head veterinarian at the Oregon Zoo.

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