Animals at sanctuaries vaccinated?

[melmar02]

 

I was looking at going to one of the animal sanctuaries at Roatan - most likely Daniel Johnson's or Victor Bodden. My husband brought up a point I never would have even thought about - are the animals vaccinated at the sanctuaries? I'm sure it's safe because people go every day, and no weird zombie outbreak has occurred...yet. 

 

[twangster]

Call and ask them.  

[twangster]

You might also consider the taxi driver, bus driver, food server, bartender, ticket agent at the entrance and all the other people you interact with at any port.  Like animals, anyone can carry a disease.  

It’s an interesting point you raise and I’m not trying to minimize it.  

No airline or cruise line can offer any suggestions about the conditions you will encounter in any foreign country, animals, people, wild or at a zoo included.

Fly there or cruise there the risks are the same.  

[melmar02]

45 minutes ago, twangster said:

It’s an interesting point you raise and I’m not trying to minimize it.  

No problem @twangster; no offense taken at all. It was a passing question my husband had, so I thought if anyone knew, they would be here. 

[SpeedNoodles]

It also completely depends on what kinds of animals you are talking about.  If they are domestic animals (rescue dogs, for examples, or the donkey sanctuaries - be still my heart) that's one thing, but there are very, very few vaccines that are used on wild animals (former zoo keeper here).

I did a cursory search - Daniel Johnson's emphasizes sloths and monkeys - nope, no vaccinations are used on these species of animals.  It appears that it may be the same with Victor Bodden.  The things you'd really want to be diligent about is thorough hand washing after handling any wild animal - getting salmonella is about as much fun as getting norovirus. I'm sure most of their animals are very used to being handled - but that being said, any animal with teeth can bite and any animals with claws can scratch (I could post my scar photos, lol) and there are never any guarantees.  Just always follow the staff's directions. I'm all about sloths.  I'm not a huge fan of non-human primates, having taken care of them for a decade. But that's just me.

I don't know if they allow people to handle their toucans - I cared for several toucans and they purr (rattle) when they are enjoying being pet (which we did frequently because we were total suckers for that sound).  I don't know how they take to strangers day after day interacting though, so I don't know if they allow that sort of interaction. Raccoons and coatamundi .. if anything is vaccinated it's going to be these (rabies and distemper, although there's no real research as to it's effectiveness of the vaccines).  I'd probably forego direct contact with these two species (well, I wouldn't personally because I'm immunized against rabies, but the general population isn't).  But all of the birds, rabbits, deer, sloths - yeah, I'd have no hesitation (again, with very good hygiene).

I hope that helps a little bit!

[WAAAYTOOO]

What a wonderful career field.  I'll bet you have some stories.....

[SpeedNoodles]

6 hours ago, WAAAYTOOO said:

What a wonderful career field.  I'll bet you have some stories.....

Ha, yeah, I did love being a zookeeper - everyone thought I was pretty cool back then.  The stories and the scars. Now I work 911-police/fire/emt dispatch and I still have some pretty good stories - in many ways the jobs aren't that different, LOL.