15 September 2010
Photo (c) BBC
Capita Symonds’ Dr Rhys Jones is hosting his own television
series – ‘Rhys to the Rescue’ – which starts on BBC1 Wales (Sky
Channel 972) at 7.30pm on Wednesday September 22nd
2010.
The four week series sees Rhys – a consultant ecologist and
reptile specialist in Capita Symonds’ Cwmbran office – travelling
the globe to tackle all manner of animal predicaments including
tarantulas brought home by a schoolboy, a boa constrictor that’s
escaped from a bedroom, and a tiny bat housed in a cardboard
box.
The series also sees Rhys tracking down a colony of adders who
need to be removed before a new building development can go ahead.
Rhys helps Wales’s leading reptile vet - Mark Evans - to microchip
them, providing a unique experiment which analyses what happens to
the snakes when they are relocated.
As well as being a Doctor and a Distinguished Visiting Fellow to
Cardiff University, Rhys is a geneticist, parasitologist,
phylogeographist, BLAVA (Home Office) qualified venomous snake
handling expert, ecologist, conservation biologist and studier of
animal behaviour. In the first programme of the new series Welsh
troops about to undertake a tour of duty learn from Rhys how to
tackle the snake and scorpion bites suffered by around 600 military
personnel in Afghanistan and Iraq every year. They may be
battle-hardened veterans, but these soldiers are less keen on
facing Rhys’s snakes than their usual enemy!
In the third episode he visits Kenya with his students from
Cardiff University’s Tropical Ecology Field course. While there, he
is called out to investigate the death of a dog from a venomous
snake bite at a remote 1000 acre farm. His job is to track down the
snake and move it away from the farm, protecting not only the
family that live there, but also the snake itself, which would have
been shot if sighted.
Other highlights from the series include Rhys:
- Supporting police during operations to combat alien species at
large in Wales;
- Being called to rescue some sea turtles and immediately
‘Running Lines’ in order to clear an impaction caused by ingested
plastics (this involves inserting small lengths of plastic tube
into the turtle’s stomach to introduce a mix of cod liver oil, wind
ease and laxative to encourage peristaltic movement of
the alimentary canal);
- Becoming responsible for parasitology for the last four
northern white rhinos in Africa. During stool collection he
illustrates his knowledge of rhino behaviour by walking up to a
black rhino and making it roll over on its back so his stomach can
be tickled;
- Lasooing lizards;
- Helping a local man get over his fear of crocodiles by
‘clapping out’ (a method of attracting crocodiles by imitating the
sound they make when feeding) six Nile crocodiles, hand feeding
them, and gently pushing them back into the river.