David Conrad Taylor, BVMS, FRCVS, FZS, was a British veterinary surgeon. He was the first veterinary surgeon to specialise in zoo and wildlife medicine. Taylor worked with zoo and wild animals from 1957, acting as a consultant on the treatment of some of the rarest species on Earth. He was world-renowned as an expert in marine mammal medicine.
In the mid-1970s and early 1980s, Taylor wrote a popular series of autobiographical books that charted his life and experiences as a "Zoo Vet". These books were adapted for Television in a drama series, One by One. He continued to be a prolific writer until his death. [wikipedia]
I selected this book because I wanted to learn more about someone who went through the path of becoming a Zoo Vet since that's what I want to become. I was hoping that I would learn new things about being a Zoo Vet that would help me decide if this is truly what I wanted to be.
This text gave a great explanation of what it would be like as a zoo vet through the life of David Taylor. He talks about the different wild animals that he treats and tells us the story of what happened for each, and how he went through all of his struggles and worries that he had on this mission to save the animals. But even though he has went through so much and had to fly to different countries on a daily basis, he still doesn't regret his choice of becoming a Zoo vet. I found this book very encouraging and inspiring.
People who love animals should read this book but even the people who don’t care much about animals could find themselves enjoying this book and realizing that being a vet for wild animals is a pretty interesting job.
Before I picked up this book to read I wasn't familiar with David Taylor but I soon learned that he is dedicated to do his job and that he is resilient, jumping back from failure leading to a stronger success. Do to this and his great writing techniques David Taylor was able to write many other books that are about his experiences as a vet.
The message of this book is that in order to be the most successful in what you are doing you have to love what you are doing. For example in the text David Taylor said “I am sure that the people from the big companies…would have said that they liked animals, but liking isn't enough… A feeling for, an excitement with, an empathy towards living creatures...is what you need...The organization men of the big business concerns did not. It was the central reason for their failure.” (chapter 9, pages 176-177).
If I could I would ask David Taylor if he got any time away from work to be with his family and friends and to finally relax or if he was always working in stressful situations his whole life, also I would ask if it was his dream to be a vet from his childhood. Do to the fact that throughout the whole book David Taylor talked about his stressful encounters with wild animals and didn’t really mention his life away from being a vet or his childhood.