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Zoe Luxton Veterinary Officer
I started working at the Agriculture Department full time in June 2007 - having worked here part time and on and off since about 1990 – seeing practice and locumming. I always wanted to be a vet so after some hard, but good fun, years at Peter Symonds college and then the Royal Veterinary College in London, I emerged triumphant if not a little worse for the wear. I always wanted to come home to the Falklands to work eventually but spent about 5 years living in England and some months in Australia before heading back. First to work as the vet in the abattoir and then finally onto the DoA. The role of the Veterinary Officer here is pretty varied. Generally you could split it 50:50 clinical work and paper projects. The clinical work is very varied - we deal with anything from budgies to bulls, with the odd penguin or seal thrown in the middle. Being in such an isolated practice can make some things a definite challenge. We liaise a lot with farmers regarding disease surveillance and control and encourage them to be vigilant and report anything out of the ordinary. We deal a lot with animal imports and exports and the importation of semen, embryos and eggs for commercial use as well as being involved in general biosecurity regarding the import of meat and meat products. Having a fish and meat market that sells product to the EU keeps us very busy, making sure the industries meet the legislative requirements of the EU and constantly auditing the vessels and slaughter house to make sure health and hygiene standards are being met. I really enjoy having a job that can be so different from one day to the next and it is exciting to be part of a department that can have so much input into the (hopefully prosperous) future of the Falkland Islands. When I am not vetting I like to indulge in my favoured past-times of eating out and drinking wine with friends, playing netball, going out walking and admiring my beautiful ginger cats and also my shoe collection! |
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Department of Agriculture 2011
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