‘All lives are worth saving” is the message clearly written on the online profile of Asst Prof Nantarika Chansue, Southeast Asia’s leading aquatic veterinarian.
Dr Nantarika Chansue.
The vet has travelled in and out of the Kingdom to cure and save marine life — from stingrays to goldfish and turtles — for more than 25 years. “To some, the life of marine animals might not mean anything. But my duty is to save lives no matter what they are,” she said.
Dr Nantarika is currently the director of the Veterinary Medical Aquatic Animal Research Center (VMAARC) at Chulalongkorn University. She is also a founder of the first fish hospital in Thailand, established at the university in 1990 and leads a team of volunteers to rescue stranded dolphins, injured whales, sick turtles or smuggled tortoises whenever there is a call.
Her inspiration clearly came from her father, Prof Prasit Bodhipaksha, who is a retired veterinarian and former dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Science at Chulalongkorn University. The father and daughter duo co-authored an English-to-Thai language dictionary for veterinarians. Bit by bit she absorbed his teaching as her guideline to save as many animal lives as possible.
Man-made fibreglass is fitted onto a turtle’s broken shell to protect it and speed up healing.
“It is a common protocol to put an animal to sleep when it is beyond cure. However, my father told me that if we do that, it is like we ‘play God’. With that in mind, I always put my utmost efforts into helping injured creatures, even if they are in critical condition,” she said.
So far, up to 50% of the dying animals in her care, especially turtles, have regained their strength to live. For example, she operated on a goldfish to remove a piece of broken glass from its stomach, cured a badly wounded toad, fixed a seriously injured turtle that had fallen from a 17th-floor condominium room, and healed an almost burned-to-death turtle.
She has also come up with innovation to help sick creatures. In 2001, for example, she attached a man-made fibreglass shell onto a turtle that had lost half of his after a truck ran him over. She was able to cure another male turtle, whose sex organ could not retract, by using a chopstick and a few stitches. Along with other experts, she also attached an artificial flipper to a crippled loggerhead turtle in 2003. She was also the first Thai doctor to successfully separate two-month-old Siamese twin arowanas in 2010.
Dr Nantarika became interested in aquatic medicine after becoming a master diver while studying veterinary medicine. When she became a lecturer in 1989, her mentor Prof Jirasak Tangtrongpiros, whom she regards as Thailand’s father of aquatic animal veterinary medicine, proved to be a major influence in her career. Dr Jirasak founded VMAARC in 1989. Since then, the research centre has worked across the country to help marine animals in distress.
As the current leader of VMAARC, Dr Nantarika is widely known for her campaign for better treatment of turtles released in temples through merit-making activities.
In 2003, the abbot of Wat Bowon Niwet in Bangkok called the centre to ask for help after some reptiles were found dead. The veterinarian and her team determined that the cause was from blood infections as hundreds of them had been living in a polluted water pond. After that, she co-founded the Love Turtles Club with her friend Kachorn Chiaravanont to perform health checks, and clean and treat turtles at temples in Bangkok and nearby provinces. Over the past decade, more than 30,000 sick turtles have been cured and released into the wild. Her recent project is to lead a team of young veterinarians and vet students to help quarantine and cure smuggled turtles and tortoises.
The smuggled Indian star tortoises must be kept at Bang Phra Water Bird Breeding Station in Chon Buri until the case is closed, which may take up to five years.
At the end of April, she was asked by the head of Bang Phra Water Bird Breeding Station of the Forest Department in Chon Buri to perform health checks on 500 smuggled Indian star tortoises. About 16 volunteers immediately responded to the call, and they proceeded to take out parasites as well as give the reptiles antibiotics and vitamins.
And when officials from Suvarnabhumi Airport customs bureau found 225 live spotted pond turtles inside four unclaimed bags at Suvarnabhumi Airport on May 5, Dr Nantarika was asked to help look after them, too.
The government, however, does not provide financial aid for these rescue activities, thereby putting pressure on her team. “I have spent my own budget on fieldwork, sometimes even on the provision of medical supplies and logistics to get the job done,” she said.
Although there is the budget of VMAARC and donations to support the vet’s rescue work, the amount has never been enough to cure a vast number of injured or sick marine animals every year.
She further added that, annually, hundreds of dolphins beach on the Kingdom’s coastline. Unfortunately, proper rescue tools are not yet available in the country.
Dr Nantarika said that for marine animal rescue, a key facility is a mobile unit — a vehicle equipped with digital radiography, an ultrasound machine, oxygen, blood testing and laboratory equipment, and a rescue pool big enough for dolphins to move around in. She explained that for years sick dolphins have been placed in shrimp farms for rehabilitation, with one stressed dolphin dying in an attempt to escape, she recalled.
“A mobile unit would help reduce stress in sick animals. When marine animals are out of the water, they feel stressed, so we need to do rescue procedures as quickly as possible,” she said.
The best way to deal with a stranded dolphin, she recommends, is to not try to move it but contact experts immediately. Without proper knowledge, transporting the animal might injure it further.
“When stranded, the chances of sick dolphins or whales surviving is only 1%. They are stranded because they are already in critical condition,” she said. “In my life, I’ve had the chance to release three stranded dolphins safely. That made me very happy.”
Dr Nantarika already has 10 academic degrees consisting of two doctorates, five masters, three bachelors and various certifications, but there is one creature that still mystifies her.
It is the giant freshwater stingray (Himantura chaophraya). It lives in rivers in the Kingdom and neighbouring countries, but little information has been recorded about it. The fish, listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as a vulnerable species, is brown to grey in colour and is a wide flat shape with a whip-like tail. It can grow upwards of 3m-wide and 5m long (the size of a bus) and can weigh about 600kg.
“This is the largest freshwater animal. It is a biomarker of healthy rivers because the species always bury themselves in silted river bottoms. If water is polluted, the fish will be the first to die,” she said.
Unfortunately no one knows exactly how many giant stingrays are left, which habitats they prefer or how far can they venture.
“What I have recorded so far when a giant stingray has been found is its blood type, size, and genetic identification, but I need more in-depth research about the creatures. No one will know this fish better than us because it resides in our country,” she said.
Unfortunately, she hasn’t been able to get funding to support the research, which would also need a pricey tracking technology. “It is an amazing creature because the giant stingray can live both in fresh water and seawater. What I like to do is to help them breed in order to reduce a chance of its extinction,” she said.
In addition to the role of treating aquatic animals, Dr Nantarika is also an animal forensic specialist and a visiting professor of University of Salzburg in Austria. She is also the president of the Zoo and Wildlife Veterinary Society of Thailand. She has founded several charity projects related to animals and children. She created a project, for example, to let kids from youth detention centres touch and play with animals such as rabbits and turtles, with educational games and zoo visits.
Dr Nantarika never seems to lose her energy and she always keeps a smile on her kind face.
“It feels rewarding to be able to help save lives. It is a blessing that I can do what I have done,” she said.
Each rescued tortoise must go through a process of parasite removal and the administration of antibiotics and vitamins.
Dr Nantarika leads a team of volunteers in tortoise quarantine without a financial support from the government.
