No. 3: Elephant vasectomist

[Dave (imported)]

MSNBC is listing the 10 worst science jobs:

No. 3: Elephant vasectomist

When your patient is Earth's largest land animal, sterilization is a big job.

What's one foot across and sits behind two inches of skin, four inches of fat and 10 inches of muscle? That's right: an elephant's testicle. Which means veterinarian Mark Stetter's newest invention — a four-foot-long fiber-optic laparoscope attached to a video monitor — has to be a heavy-duty piece of equipment to sterilize a randy bull pachyderm.

Stetter, the head doc at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Florida, created the device to help control elephants in African wildlife parks, where the jumbos have been breeding too quickly and eating up more than their share of the surrounding habitat. The snipping began last summer when Stetter and his team field-tested the device on four unsuspecting bulls at the Welgevonden Private Game Reserve in South Africa. After a pachyderm was sedated with a dart from a helicopter, the team used a crane truck to pull the sleeping beast upright. Four-inch incisions were made, and the laparoscope was inserted into the abdomen near the reproductive organs (an elephant's testicles are on the inside, like ovaries). When he located the centimeter-thick vas deferens-the tube that carries semen from the testicles to the penis-Stetter inserted a long pair of scissors through the scope and cut out a two- or three-inch section.

So far, the method seems to be working. The first four test subjects survived the ordeal with no complications (except the possibility of bruised pride). If things go the way Stetter plans, elephants throughout southern Africa will soon be crossing their legs in fear: He has begun training other field vets to perform the procedure, and hopes to have multinational trials up and running soon.

[Riverwind (imported)]

With the Elephant population in decline in Asia and Africa, its a wonder that this should be allowed. If Disney has a problem with some of there Elephants maybe sending them back to Africa would be a better choice.

River

OH but the Vet should get a medal.

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

I like the idea of a job circumcising elephants. The pay is small but the tips are big. --FLO--

[Blaise (imported)]

I like the idea of a job circumcising elephants. The pay is small but the tips are big. --FLO--

Ugh, but funny anyway.

[incuse (imported)]

I like the idea of a job circumcising elephants. The pay is small but the tips are big. --FLO--

I must be humour impaired right now. Can you ruin the joke and explain this? Im itching to know.

[Uncle Flo (imported)]

The reference is to the size of the tip of the elephant's sex organ. --FLO

[Ernie of Maine (imported)]

UncleFlo why would anyone pay to circumcis an elephant anyway?Itisn't inthe bugit.______________Ernie ofMaine___________________