I was born in Kenya in 1941during the years that my father was serving in the King’s African Rifles. After school and university in the UK I returned to Nairobi in 1965 three days after graduating from Scotland’s Glasgow Veterinary School. I then interned for a year at Kenya’s Kabete vet college. From 1967 to 1970, I worked as district veterinary officer in Meru, and then as a private practitioner in the town of Nanyuki, on the slopes of Mount Kenya, for a further five years.
In 1969 I fell in love with and married Dr. Joanne van de Riet. Fifty-seven years, and counting later, we have two children, Karen and Charles, and four adult grandkids, Sonia, Rachael, Mathew, and Gabriella. In 1975 we moved to Saskatoon in Canada where I joined the faculty of The Western College of Veterinary Medicine as a wildlife vet. Jo joined the Saskatoon Community Clinic as family doctor. We retired in 2009.
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 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 that can be seen on this site under their respective links. 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 Africa I have worked in Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa and Cameroon. I have also visited other African countries 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. Bird cases have included pelicans and owls. Lemurs and chimpanzees were two kinds of the primate patients.
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. My career as a wildlife veterinarian has taken me to many countries for work with a wide range of species.
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.