{"id":9170,"date":"2023-10-21T21:23:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-21T15:53:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/tortoise-and-the-carea-medic-saved-the-life-of-a-seychelles-animal-books-entertainment\/"},"modified":"2023-10-21T21:23:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-21T15:53:31","slug":"tortoise-and-the-carea-medic-saved-the-life-of-a-seychelles-animal-books-entertainment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farratanews.online\/tortoise-and-the-carea-medic-saved-the-life-of-a-seychelles-animal-books-entertainment\/","title":{"rendered":"tortoise and the care:a medic saved the life of a seychelles animal | Books | Entertainment"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When medic Jonathan Hollins arrived on a remote South Atlantic island, he discovered to his horror his celebrity patient was dying. Old age, dwindling eyesight and a poor diet had left him weak and near to starving. This was no ordinary VIP though.<\/p>\n

Hollins\u2019 patient was an ancient Seychelles tortoise \u2013 also called Jonathan \u2013 who was just five when Queen Victoria ascended the throne and 120 when the late Elizabeth II became monarch. Now aged 192, he is believed to be the world\u2019s oldest living land animal.<\/p>\n

Yet when 52-year-old Hollins arrived at St Helena in 2009, the slow-moving reptile was apparently on his last legs. His beak was soft and crumbly, he had cataracts and existed on a diet of dirt, dry leaves and grass.<\/p>\n

After observing him for hours in the verdant gardens of Plantation House, a grand 18th-century residence that is home to the island\u2019s governor and his wife, Hollins realised Jonathan was dying of starvation.<\/p>\n

Now 65 and newly-retired, Hollins has written an entertaining memoir about his time as the first permanent vet based on St Helena, 1,200 miles off Africa\u2019s west coast and 5,000 miles from Britain.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s second most remote inhabited island, it\u2019s where Napoleon was exiled after losing the Battle of Waterloo.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s fair to say Jonathan, born just 11 years after Bonaparte\u2019s demise, remains alive today thanks to Hollins\u2019 intervention.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiant tortoises are almost considered quasi-immortal in that they tend not to die through severe metabolic disease or cancers as we do \u2013 they wear out and Jonathan was a classic example,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

The consequences were grave. Jonathan is an island icon, a worldwide symbol of longevity marked by Guinness World Records. When his death does eventually happen, a meticulously planned \u201cOperation Go-Slow\u201d protocol, complete with an obituary and details of how to preserve the 28-stone tortoise\u2019s shell, will be enacted to honour his VIP status.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s not hard to imagine what a blow the death of this important biological specimen, also the island\u2019s most important tourist attraction, would have been. Every Sunday, Hollins visited Plantation House and hand-fed the tortoise carrots, apples, cabbage and cucumber with his friend\u2019s dog, Che, in tow.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis beak regrew and became super sharp again, and he became more active and put on weight,\u201d says Hollins. \u201cWhat he was missing was vitamins, minerals, and trace elements, the vital ingredients for metabolism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan\u2019s miraculous revival is one of several of Hollins\u2019 heroics which he recounts in his new book, Vet At The End Of The Earth, a memoir of his veterinary adventures in British Overseas Territories including the Falklands Islands and Tristan da Cunha.<\/p>\n

Hollins writes with wit about relocating herds of reindeer, attacking a chicken-killing parasite and rescuing a missing dog from a cliff edge.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s equally warm and funny in person when we meet on a sunny autumn afternoon just weeks after his retirement from St Helena. Sporting a bronzed complexion from years spent outdoors, Hollins has an untamed spirit, one unlikely to disappear as he plans on returning to St Helena each year to live as a semi-permanent resident.<\/p>\n

He was born in London at the University College Hospital where his mother worked as a theatre sister \u2013 his father was an engineer \u201cwho worked behind the Iron Curtain a lot in the 1950s and 1960s\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hollins was raised in Surrey with his brother surrounded by chickens, rabbits, geese, dogs and cats and planned to become a vet until his school career advisor talked him out of it. While studying economics at Cambridge University, he was urged by his rowing teammates, some of whom were veterinary science students, to switch courses and follow his passion. Early on in his career, he worked as a vet in South Africa and joined a Zimbabwean archaeological expedition as a medical officer. His experiences abroad shaped him immeasurably.<\/p>\n

\u201cTravel genuinely broadens your mind and makes you less parochial and therefore more tolerant of race, colour, creed, religion and gender,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Despite his wanderlust, he spent two decades working in the south of England, beginning with three years at what was then the only vet practice in Wellingborough, Northants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had an abattoir, which was not my favourite word, but it was very good money,\u201d he says. As Hollins was a generalist, his segue into island veterinary practice was never a daunting feat.<\/p>\n

It was a one-month locum post covering for a friend in the Falklands that eventually led him to St Helena, a \u201cmini Galapagos\u201d with 250 unique species, equivalent to one-sixth of the UK\u2019s total endemic biodiversity.<\/p>\n

He became the island\u2019s first permanent vet after sending his CV to St Helena\u2019s governor. Top of his priorities, aside from saving Jonathan\u2019s life, was rescuing the St Helena plover bird, its national pride. Roaming feral cats had hunted the endemic species to near extinction and it was Hollins\u2019 job, with the help of para-vets he trained \u2013 the animal equivalent of paramedics \u2013 to euthanise the pitiful moggies humanely.<\/p>\n

Aside from routine neuterings and surgeries, Hollins conducted autopsies regularly for scientific research. And then there were the downright bizarre jobs. Once a year, he joined St Tristan\u2019s natives for \u201cratting day\u201d. The annual competition was borne from islanders\u2019 attempts to reduce the rat population but today involves docking as many rat tails as possible \u2013 without killing them \u2013 in a bonding exercise for the community. Hollins judges the prize for the longest tail.<\/p>\n

But Jonathan was always his star patient.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really bonded with him,\u201d he says. \u201cHe recognises my voice. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s love, it\u2019s food \u2013 it\u2019s a Pavlovian response \u2013 but I love that. I\u2019ll stroke him and warm his neck and he loves it. \u201cHe\u2019s very gentle unlike his male counterpart, David, who is really aggressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are four tortoises on the island: Jonathan and relative youngsters David, 54, Fred, 51, and Emma, 54. Last year David upturned Fred, who has mobility issues, after he emerged from a mud pool.<\/p>\n

Hollins arrived to find him helpless on his back, legs sprawled in the air.<\/p>\n

\u201cDavid was just there, gloating, the potential murderer!\u201d Hollins cries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Thankfully, he managed to rock Fred a few times before flipping him over, thus saving his life. But this was not David\u2019s first attack.<\/p>\n

Several years earlier, he targeted Jonathan as the elder tortoise munched on his food unaware of the \u201c200-kilo battering ram\u201d headed towards him. \u201cHe rammed Jonathan almost head-on and flipped his neck up in the air,\u201d recalls Hollins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was slightly oblique otherwise David would have severed Jonathan\u2019s neck and killed him. It absolutely terrified me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poor Hollins suffered so many near-death scares with Jonathan, it\u2019s a wonder his nerves aren\u2019t shredded. On another occasion, a jogger telephoned him to say Jonathan was lying dead, spreadeagled on Plantation House\u2019s paddock. Fearing the worst, Hollins raced there to find his leathery friend doing a \u201cgood imitation\u201d of death.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was flopped out completely,\u201d says Hollins. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how tortoises draw their legs inside their shell.\u201d Before mentally putting Operation Go-Slow into action, he realised the tortoise\u2019s eyes were shut, in fact, signalling he was alive. He gently prodded Jonathan\u2019s sinewy neck and to his delight, the tortoise\u2019s eyes flicked open.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was so happy I almost cried with relief,\u201d Hollins recalls. \u201cI gave him a big hug. It was like disturbing a grumpy old great-grandfather having a snooze in the afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

t transpires Jonathan had been sunbathing, a behaviour common among cold-blooded reptiles but one not often observed among tortoises in warmer climates. However, St Helena, where Jonathan first arrived in 1882 as a gift for the governor, has cold and damp wintery days and this was his way of remedying that.<\/p>\n

Today, Hollins\u2019 ex-girlfriend, who goes by the name Teeny Lucy for her petite frame, cares for the four tortoises. St Helena has yet to find a suitable replacement for him. It\u2019s home to just 4,300 people but island life is not for everyone. \u201cThere are some people that didn\u2019t last six months,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t realise what living on an island is like. You don\u2019t have coffee shops and restaurants and the shops run out of things. Then there\u2019s the tyranny of isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over the past year, cargo deliveries have been late several times.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ran out of milk, toothpaste and chocolate\u2026 and that was serious \u2013 the island was in desperation,\u201d he laughs. The shortfall got so bad Hollins was forced to eat hated toffees and nougat he had left to linger at the bottom of assortment boxes. Yet he never lost his love of living among the elements.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love islands because they\u2019re a microcosm of humanity,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a crucible of what we are with all the challenges that go with it. And ironically, you\u2019re walled in \u2013 not by walls but by the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had he stayed in the UK, Hollins would undoubtedly have led a more comfortable life but he has no regrets. \u201cI like investigations, I love the detective work, I don\u2019t like managing a business, that\u2019s not me,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so to tie myself down in that way is difficult. I\u2019ve lost out on other things like having children and so on\u2026 but I\u2019ve enjoyed my life. And it\u2019s been interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n