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May/June 2005 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Feature: Bioprospecting In-depth: Bioprospecting The Inside Story Editor’s Notebook Reverberations Explorer À la carte Mosaic

Photography by Wayne Barrett and Anne Mackay

Learning how to handle an albino gopher snake and check the health of its skin and breathing is all in a day’s discovery for a group of girls attending the Atlantic Veterinary College’s Vet Camp. Held at the college at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown, the camp is one of a kind in Canada and one of only three in North America.

Students entering grades seven, eight or nine come from as far away as Australia to participate in one of three week-long camps in July. Each aims to give them a taste of the veterinary profession in all its diversity, says Tim Ogilvie, the college’s dean, who launched the camp in 1999.

Indeed, it’s not all about cats and dogs and barnyard critters. Campers are introduced to wildlife and exotic-animal medicine as well as aquaculture and raptor rehabilitation. "If you go into a veterinary practice pretty near anywhere, you’re going to have children bring you birds that were found or something that was hit along the side of the road," says Ogilvie. "So there’s a role for us in wildlife medicine."

In the lab, 14-year-old Rachel Graham receives some microscopic pointers from vet Amreek Singh. Graham says she was surprised at the variety of opportunities in the field of veterinary medicine. "You can even be a dentist for pets," she says.

Monique Roy-Sole

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