In 2022, Musgrave traveled to Madagascar with the Saint Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine and the Turtle Survival Alliance to assist with pre-release health evaluations for nearly 2,000 radiated tortoises rescued from smugglers. Photo courtesy of Saint Louis Zoo.
by Maggie Baum
“I may be biased but, having worked with students from nearly every veterinary medical school, I continue to see the exceptional education that the UW School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) provides,” says Kari Musgrave (DVM’15), an alumna who currently serves as director of animal health at the Saint Louis Zoo.
A native of Bloomington, Indiana, her grandparents owned and operated a large apple orchard and farm. Musgrave also was an avid Animal Planet viewer, which fostered her early fascination with wildlife, particularly reptiles. She participated in 4-H for more than 10 years, raising rabbits to show at the county fair and across the Midwest. A 4-H volunteer project in high school led her to a local low-cost spay/neuter clinic, where she cleaned kennels and surgical instruments and had the opportunity to observe a few of the procedures.
And so, her lifelong interest developed into a career path in veterinary medicine. Musgrave did multiple zookeeper internships while pursuing her undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry at Franklin College in Indiana and recalls an opportunity at the Indianapolis Zoo as especially impactful.
“I saw the interaction between the veterinarians and their clients — the keepers — and how different this was from a typical small animal veterinarian,” she says. “The keepers are the experts in the natural history of that species that we rely on, and we all have the wellbeing of the animal in mind, working together to figure out the best path forward.”
The well-rounded education she received at the SVM — she was exposed to large, small, and exotic animals during her time at UW-Madison — was a crucial foundation for her current day-to-day work, Musgrave says. Choosing the “other” track during the fourth year of the DVM program allowed her to build a solid foundation in a variety of hospital rotations and gave her the opportunity to rotate at four different facilities that had post-graduate training programs: Omaha’s Henry Doorly Zoo, the Oklahoma City Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and the Indianapolis Zoo.
“These experiences set the stage early on for me pursuing a zoo internship and residency by getting exposure to and letters of recommendation from diplomates in the American College of Zoological Medicine,” she says.
All of these experiences ensure she can tackle the immense variety of tasks each day brings in her current role (see “typical” day below). While she never knows exactly what a new day might bring, she’s ready for any challenge and has had her share of highlights. A few that stand out, she says, include discovering the beneficial impact of adding artificial UV lights on the health and welfare of Speke’s gazelles, and the first artificial insemination and subsequent birth of the Saint Louis Zoo’s Asian elephant calf, Jet, who turns one in November.
Musgrave cites Jan Ramer (DVM’95) and Michelle Bowman, who were mentors during her undergrad experience at the Indianapolis Zoo, as the reason she applied to the SVM as an out-of-state student. Knowing how important their guidance, as well as exposure to a wide variety of experts and organizations, was for her career trajectory, she has two pieces of advice for current veterinary students.
“First, the beauty of veterinary medicine is that there isn’t one way to do anything, whether that is a specific medical procedure or your career pathway, they are all unique, she says. Also, never be afraid to ask questions. I ask for help from people in other areas of veterinary medicine and even other industries all the time and I always learn something new and helpful. While her days are dominated by zoo animals and leading her team, Musgrave treasures family time with her husband, Tyler Majerus (DVM’15), and their two young sons, Vernon and Clive. Her boys, of course, are big fans of the Saint Louis Zoo and especially love its “waddle waddles” (her two-year-old’s name for penguins).
A “typical” day at the Saint Louis Zoo
“I oversee a department of 15 animal health professionals: four staff veterinarians, a zoological medicine veterinary resident, a staff pathologist, a zoological manager of animal health, six veterinary technicians, an animal health keeper, and an administrative assistant. In short, I’m responsible for providing the overall vision of how to ensure the Saint Louis Zoo’s Animal Health Department is innovative and providing the best care to our animals.
My day-to-day varies tremendously. There are many days where I’m in meetings helping plan for our new Saint Louis Zoo WildCare Park and walking through the new hospital under construction, plus figuring out preventative health and vaccine protocols for a new species that is arriving.
On any given day, I might be doing a neonate exam on a Speke’s gazelle, looking at a cataract in a penguin, or examining a wound on a hellbender that could later be released back into the wild.I get to make an impact on both the individual animal, and — in some cases — an entire species. The combination of population health and individual medicine, which is so unique to zoo medicine, is what excites me most, and that every day is different.” – Kari Musgrave (DVM’15)