Into the Wild: A Legacy of Learning

Beatrice DeMarco, a fourth-year VMD-MPH student, has worked in zoos since seventh grade. “I love zoos! I’ve never been happier than when I’m at a zoo,” she explained. It wasn’t surprising then that DeMarco was accepted to a competitive four-week externship at Zoo Miami during her clinical year of veterinary school.

Diving headfirst into the fast-paced environment, DeMarco worked alongside the zoo’s head veterinarian, assisting in a black- and-white ruffed lemur’s yearly checkup, vaccinating stingrays, and giving African wild dogs dental cleanings. Between routine visits and health emergencies, each day was its own adventure, “I could be with elephants in the morning and visit cranes in the evening; it was always changing,” she said.

Assisting on the front lines of a fight against invasive snake species in Florida’s rich Everglades, DeMarco also dipped a toe into the world of conservation fieldwork. At the zoo’s wildlife hospital, she helped safely place tracking implants in invasive pythons. State and federal wildlife agencies will use the tracker data to develop better python detection and removal strategies. DeMarco said, “The experience showed me what it means to be a zoo veterinarian—it’s not just promoting species survival for one zoo; rather, you can be involved in species conservation work important to environmental health everywhere.”

This One Health approach to species preservation isn’t far from the mission of her former mentor, Marc Valitutto, V’06, senior field veterinarian for EcoHealth Alliance, a global environmental health nonprofit organization. During high school, DeMarco shadowed Valitutto, who was then a veterinarian at the Staten Island Zoo. Valitutto helped her lay a path for her future, introducing her to concepts like One Health and underscoring the importance of public health knowledge. “He helped me figure out where I wanted to go and gave me career aspirations,” DeMarco recalled.

Now, with graduation on the horizon, things have come full circle. Being back at a zoo, this time with a few years of veterinary training, DeMarco’s pivotal experience at Zoo Miami solidified her high school self’s aspirations. “It was a defining moment,” she beamed, “I said to myself, ‘You will be a zoo vet.’”