My career as a wildlife veterinarian has taken me to many countries for work with a wide range of species. I enjoy telling stories about the work and experiences, which I have done on six continents and many countries. They range from having soldier ants up my shorts, to pregnancy checking a lion, to giving an enema to a rhino and encounters with a shaman from the Tsaatan reindeer herders in the mountains of Mongolia.

I have written seven books and many magazine articles. The first, in 1993 was a text book titled Farming Wapiti and Red Deer, Mosby Year Book Inc. St. Louis, written with my friend and colleague Bob Hudson. The other were non-fiction publications, in order:

Wrestling with Rhinos: The Adventures of a Glasgow Vet in Kenya. ECW Press 2002.
The Trouble With Lions. A Glasgow Vet in Africa. University of Alberta Press. 2008
Of Moose and Men: A Wildlife Vet’s Pursuit of the World’s Largest Deer. ECW Press. 2012
Porcupines to Polar Bears. Adventures of a Wildlife Veterinarian. Dragon Hill Press. 2015
Reindeer Reflections: Lessons from and Ancient Culture. Rocky Mountain Books. 2015
In Velvet: Elk, Wapiti, and Deer Stories. Universal Book Publications. 2025.

In Africa I have worked in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Cameroon. I have also visited several others in a professional capacity. These include Botswana, Malawi and Tanzania. Among carnivores I have worked on lions, leopards, cheetahs, serval cats, lynx, wild dogs, jackals, hyaenas and bat-eared foxes. I have translocated and treated both black and white rhinos as well as elephants. In more-or-less descending order of size the list of hoofstock that I have dealt with includes hippo, giraffe, Cape buffalo, eland, bongo, wildebeest, waterbuck, oryx, roan antelope, Uganda kob, impala, bushbuck, reedbuck and dik dik. I have also dealt with zebras of both the Grevy’s and Burchell’s species and even a zebrule, a cross between a Burchell’s zebra and a horse.

North American species (other than deer) on which I have worked include all three species of bears (polar bears for six field seasons) grizzlies and black bears. Also wolves, skunk, beavers, porcupines, and muskrat, as well as a variety of bird species. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on Sable Island I worked on hooded seals and grey seals respectively. I also had several field trips to work on wood bison in the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary and the Nahanni Region of the Northwest Territories.

For the best part of forty years I have worked on a wide variety of deer species on four continents. These include wapiti (aka North American elk), red deer, Pére David’s deer, rusa deer, white-tailed deer, mule deer, fallow deer, reindeer, axis deer and moose. The most unusual of the many trips I took to work with members of this family was to the island of Rota in the Commonwealth of the North Marianas where I worked with a deer whose origins were clouded in some degree of mystery. They were probably rusa deer, but that is not known for sure.

For three field seasons I traveled to the aimag (province) of Hosgvol in the most northern part of Mongolia. There I worked with members of the Itgel Foundation on some of the disease problems that occur in the fully domesticated reindeer of the Tsaatan people. The journey involved many days on horse back, crossing high mountain passes and enjoying the hospitality of these nomadic people in the valley camps where the families moved with their animals.

You can see some of the photos I took on those trips in the Mongolia gallery on the photography page of this site.

My thesis work was on the reproductive seasonality of male wapiti and I was the first person to successfully carry out artificial insemination in any deer species (the white-tailed deer) and carry out the commercial collection and freezing of semen in wapiti and red deer.

For sixteen years I was also employed as a zoo veterinarian and my duties covered the medicine and management of a wide variety of captive species.

I was involved in the game farming industry (deer and bison and a variety of African species) as a consultant in many countries for over twenty-five years.

I have over three hundred articles in a variety of scientific journals, conference proceedings, textbooks and extension pamphlets. Most of these are listed in my CV that you can find at the end of this page.

In Africa I have worked in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Cameroon. I have also visited several others in a professional capacity. These include Botswana, Malawi and Tanzania. Among carnivores I have worked on lions, leopards, cheetahs, serval cats, lynx, wild dogs, jackals, hyaenas and bat-eared foxes. I have translocated and treated both black and white rhinos as well as elephants. In more-or-less descending order of size the list of hoofstock that I have dealt with includes hippo, giraffe, Cape buffalo, eland, bongo, wildebeest, waterbuck, oryx, roan antelope, Uganda kob, impala, bushbuck, reedbuck and dik dik. I have also dealt with zebras of both the Grevy’s and Burchell’s species and even a zebrule, a cross between a Burchell’s zebra and a horse.

North American species (other than deer) on which I have worked include all three species of bears (polar bears for six field seasons) grizzlies and black bears. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence and on Sable Island I worked on hooded seals and grey seals respectively. I also had several field trips to work on wood bison in the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary and the Nahanni Region of the Northwest Territories.

For the best part of forty years I have worked on a wide variety of deer species on four continents. These include wapiti (aka North American elk), red deer, Pére David’s deer, rusa deer, white-tailed deer, mule deer, fallow deer, reindeer, axis deer and moose. The most unusual of the many trips I took to work with members of this family was to the island of Rota in the Commonwealth of the North Marianas where I worked with a deer whose origins were clouded in some degree of mystery. They were probably rusa deer, but that is not known for sure.

For three field seasons I traveled to the aimag (province) of Hosgvol in the most northern part of Mongolia. There I worked with members of the Itgel Foundation on some of the disease problems that occur in the fully domesticated reindeer of the Tsaatan people. The journey involved many days on horse back, crossing high mountain passes and enjoying the hospitality of these nomadic people in the valley camps where the families moved with their animals.

You can see some of the photos I took on those trips in the Mongolia gallery on the photography page of this site.
My thesis work was on the reproductive seasonality of male wapiti and I was the first person to successfully carry out artificial insemination in any deer species (the white-tailed deer) and carry out the commercial collection and freezing of semen in wapiti and red deer.

For sixteen years I was also employed as a zoo veterinarian and my duties covered the medicine and management of a wide variety of captive species.

I was involved in the game farming industry (deer and bison and a variety of African species) as a consultant in many countries for over twenty-five years.

I have over three hundred articles in a variety of scientific journals, conference proceedings, textbooks and extension pamphlets. Most of these are listed in my CV that you can find at the end of this page.