It is with a huge sense of grief that we regret to inform you of the passing of Themba this Sunday morning. In his compromised state he failed to remove himself from a waterhole he had been drinking at. In spite of efforts to assist him he passed away just after 9am. The whole Kariega team is devastated by this loss after such a dedicated effort to save his life. Our heart felt appreciation to all those that have extended their support over the past 3 weeks. We will miss him dearly and re-commit ourselves to keeping his legacy alive in an effort to spare all rhino from suffering the same fate.
Previous update:
Kariega update Sat 24th March 5pm
I went to Kariega today convinced that I was going to have to put Themba to
sleep. The first report for the day, was not good, as he didn’t start today
off very alert. Yesterdays situation combined with this news added up to
only one thing. So with much trepidation I approached the reserve knowing
that unless his circumstances changed my mind, euthanasia was not going to
be avoided. By the time I had got there he had perked up and seemed no
different to what he had been for the past 4 days. He passed more loose dung
overnight which is not good but he did do a bit of grazing during the two
hours of deliberation I spent with him.
The lab finally received the blood samples from 4 days back and they ran
them onto their analysers immediately and let me know straight away, which
was such a help. I consulted with Prof Reyers who has been assisting with
the interpretation of the blood tests and of so much benefit when there are
elements of doubt creeping into this case. Clinically he has deteriorated
since these samples were taken so any sign of a marked deterioration in the
major indicators, compared to the week before that, would have confirmed
the worst for me. Surprisingly, although many indicators are still very
worrying, there were signs of some improvement in his liver circumstances,
his kidneys showed a very mild deterioration but these were only
fractionally over normal limits before. His indicators of inflammation do
show a shift some up and some down but there was still regeneration of these
cells indicating that his bone marrow was still functioning. The most
concerning indicators were that his protein levels have been dropping and
there are indicators of dehydration although mild. The conclusion was that
there are not indicators of major system collapse or organ failure. Four
days old, but positive.
I then approached Themba on foot to guage his levels of alertness and went
in very close on purpose to force him to use his leg. His temperament is
still encouraging in that he is responsive and while I was close to him he
took a few mouthfuls of food. The use of his leg remains the same as he can
hardly take any weight on it. The discharge from his leg has improved mildly
over the past 2 days and is more bloody than before. With this information I
decided to immobilised him with a very low dose of anaesthetic. The final
barrier for me was to do a quick evaluation of his leg which, to my great
relief, hadn’t got any worse since I was last in there. The decision to
delay his euthanasia was made. We kept him down just long enough to give him
a full spectrum of injections before waking him up. He recovered well and
has taken a few mouthfuls of food since.
This is such a tough call to make and I am sure that many will question my
judgement given 23 days of struggle for him. I am comfortable that full
consideration to all circumstances have taken us this far and consultation
with other veterinary experts has given some guidance from outside of his
case. Should I have to go back on this decision and put him down tomorrow or
later, we will all look back and know that I have made the wrong call. For
now, without the benefit of that hindsight, he lives to fight another day.
Will fowlds
