Dr. Brianna Beechler, an assistant professor in OSU’s Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, goes to Kruger National Park in South Africa twice a year for two months at a time with fellow CCVM professor Dr. Anna Jolles to research foot-and-mouth disease in African buffalo. She is home this fall and shared here about her work.
Image
A student researcher watches a herd of African buffalo during capture at Kruger National Park in South Africa.
Where were you working?
We stay in a research camp in Skukuza, a small town in the middle of Kruger National Park in South Africa that has all the things you’d expect in a small town — a little store, gas station, tennis courts, lions.
How much time have you spent there?
I lived there for two years during my Ph.D. and post-doc; I’ve been more than 15 times and my trips have been one to two months long, so quite a bit.
What is the focus of your work?
Foot-and-mouth disease is very common in African buffalo — it’s like a buffalo cold — but it is a big deal when it spills into cattle. Countries with foot-and-mouth disease in their cattle population cannot export meat to countries without it, so it has a serious economic impact as well as leading to mass culling of livestock. We are collecting samples from buffalo within the park to try to predict which strains of foot-and-mouth are most likely to spill over into nearby cattle so vaccines can be tailored to those strains and help protect cattle from becoming infected.
Image
Dr. Beechler collects samples from a sedated African buffalo.
What languages are spoken there?
South Africa has 11 official languages, including Zulu, Afrikaans and Swati. English is a commonly shared one, so I communicate in English, but most people are multilingual.
What’s the coolest thing a local has shown you?
Around the park, they have “dip tanks” where local farmers bring their cows through a tank to remove all the ticks. Participating is really unique because you get to work with these small local villages.
What’s the best food you’ve eaten there?
Biltong — it’s dried meat but better than jerky. South Africa also does a lot of their own candy manufacturing so they have a lot of unique candies I enjoy.
What’s the biggest challenge of working there?
Jet lag; it’s nine hours ahead. Also adjusting to another country’s holiday schedule. They take their holidays very seriously, and they take a lot more time off than Americans do.
What’s one thing you’ll take away from your trips?
In South Africa, they do a lot of “sundowners:” It’s pretty customary at the end of the day to go watch the sunset with friends or family and hang out. I really like that dividing line at the end of the day where you pause for a moment.
Image
Dr. Beechler and two student researchers enjoy a South African sunset.
What were you most surprised to learn?
In all my international travel, one of the things that surprises me repeatedly is how similar the environments and people really are. We have a lot more in common than we think.
Besides family, what do you most miss from home?
Running in the forest. We’re in savannah, so I miss the forest specifically. Also my dogs, but they’re family.
What piece of advice would you give others who might travel there?
South Africa is an incredibly varied country with so many different ecosystems and cultures, so you don’t want to go to just one place. It’s really nice to travel around and see the different ecosystems and people.
This article was originally published by a today.oregonstate.edu . Read the Original article here. .