An Interview With Academy of Sciences Vet Freeland Dunker

Dr. Freeland Dunker, 58, lives in Pacifica with his wife, Jackie, a veterinary technician, and their sons, Nick and Thomas, 19 and 15. They have two cats, a dog, an African spurred tortoise and a pet tarantula. He's also the vet at the Steinhart Aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.

In a San Francisco Chronicle article, Freeland talks about his job at the aquarium, which is a lot more than just treating sick animals. Sometimes he has has to do unusual things like help an alligator who's eaten a shoe.

“With the aquarium's animal health staff, I oversee the health of the entire collection: the fish, the birds, the herps (reptiles and amphibians); their acquisition and the quarantine process that prevents diseases from entering the resident population; the nutritional aspect of what they eat. I give risk assessments to animal husbandry staff when they want to change how the animals are exhibited,” he said in the Chronicle article.

Before working at the zoo, Freeland was the vet at the San Francisco zoo for 20 years, where “I was kicked in the face by a giraffe once. I had a big black eye, but I didn't break any bones. Another time a giraffe fell asleep and rolled over on top of me. I just didn't get out of the way quick enough."

Read the full interview in the San Francisco Chronicle story here.

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