Documentary: Gorilla Doctors- Mike Cranfield veterinarian

For the past few decades,  a small group of veterinarians have dedicated themselves to preserving the small groups of mountain gorillas in Africa.

Canadian Mike Cranfield is the director of the group which is featured in a new documentary on their work, entitled “Gorilla Doctors” from the Toronto, Ontario based 52 Media Inc.

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Cranfield originally trained as a large animal veterinarian to treat farm animals like cows and horses.

Later he became a veterinarian for a small zoo in Peterborough Ontario, before heading to a larger wild animal zoo in Japan, and then to a zoo and research operation in Baltimore, USA, where he still has connections.

However, while at the Baltimore operation, he became increasingly concerned that the Earth was losing it’s wildlife species at a fast rate, when a chance came up to work with the threatened population of mountain gorillas and get involved pro-actively with saving them, he boarded a plane to Africa.

Here he leads an operation which has been called “extreme conservation” because the group provides preventative and emergency medicine along with medical intervention on the gorillas to bring them back from the brink of extinction.

Their efforts, in the face of poachers, criminals, and rebel groups, has nonetheless helped the species grow from as little as 300 a few decades ago, to just under 900 now.

In an interesting paradox, the ‘eco-tourism” which provides sorely needed funds to the country and to help the gorillas also poses serious danger to the animals which are easily susceptible to human disease.

The documentary “Gorilla Doctors” will be shown on the Canadian science and environmental show “The Nature of Things” on October 16 on the Canadian public broadcaster CBC. It will be available onlne at a later date on the Nature of Things website.

Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project

CBC- the Nature of Things- Gorilla Doctors

52 Media Inc

YOUTUBE- Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project- promo