Welcome to the Zoologist's Campfire, the podcast where animal professionals share their best,
funniest and most epic stories.
And so far, we've had a variety of animal professionals on the podcast, but today we
add a new animal profession to that lineup, an Animal Transport Pro in the person of Raymond
Tilburg. Raymond has a Masters in Animal Science from Wageningen University, also my university,
and after working in the meat industry, among others for the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture,
he started working at the Royal Dutch Airlines in animal cargo. He is now responsible for the
handling of all animals in the KLM network. He is also a board member of the Animal Transport
Association and the International Air Transport Association Board that deals with live animals.
So in these capacities, he's involved in setting standards for animal transport worldwide.
Raymond, welcome. Thank you, Arie. Good to see you.
Yeah, yeah, good to see you too. Hey, live animal air transport manager is,
I think, a pretty rare job description, right? How many jobs like that are in the world? Does
every airport have one? How does that work? I used to be the only one within KLM.
And to be honest, five years ago, I changed position. And I'm no longer responsible for the
handling of all live animals, but for the handling of all freight at Schiphol. But I'm still involved
with the Animal Transportation Association and the IATA Live Animal Parishable Board.
Right. So I'm still, I think, till my neck into the transporting of live animals.
Yeah, I know that. Awesome. And you transported a lot of weird animals. And I don't think people
realize how much transport there is of animals around the world, right?
That's a, I think on every airplane, every wide body airplane, there are animals loaded.
Really? Yes. And not only in the cabin, but mainly in the cargo holds. Right. And let's say when you
travel and you collect your suitcase, it feels a little bit cold. Right. That's because the air,
the most aircraft have four holds under the seats. Two holds are ventilated and temperature
controlled. Right. And two or three holds are not temperature controlled and not ventilated.
The non-ventilated holds are used for your luggage. Yeah. And mail. And the ventilated holds
are used for all products and all kinds of animals. Products that need ventilation and temperature
control. Right. Can be pharmaceuticals, ventilation, temperature control, animals,
and all other kinds of cargo that need some kind of temperature control or ventilation.
So you say pretty much every plane has some animals on it. Is that all cats and dogs or?
No. Well, a lot of people think it's cats and dogs. Most of the time,
what is being transported are, can be live, let's say for example, live lobsters, live food.
Oh, yeah, sure. But a lot of times it's, especially when you fly into Africa and Asia,
it's day old chicks and insects, beneficial insects. Right. So day old chicks. So little
chickens, why don't they have them in Asia and Africa or? They have some in Asia and Africa, but
they're all offspring of animals that are produced in, let's say the modern world, in
Europe or the United States and some in Brazil. Okay. And also nowadays in New Zealand. And what
the airlines mostly transports are the grandparents and parents stock. Okay. Yeah, I'll have to
explain that one. The grandparents of the animals that you eat or the parents of the animals that
you eat. Right. So these are not for consumption. They're actually for consumption.
These are not for consumption. They're actually for breeding.
Most of the breeding, what is being transported into Africa is mainly for production
and into Asia and all the other countries, it's mainly for reproduction.
Okay. Okay. So you always ship two or four lines, male lines and female lines.
And those are shipped separately?
They are shipped separately in cardboard boxes or in plastic containers. We have males and females
separate, but they are on the same pellet or in the same shipment. Sure. Sure. And we always make
sure that it's most times 10% males and 90% females. And by coincidence, the males are a
little bit weaker than females. So the males are always put on top of the females. Right.
We have to have better temperature and better ventilation. Right. And so these cargo holds
are at the same temperature and ventilation as say the cabin that we're used to sitting in when
we're flying. Sometimes a little bit less when we ship they're all chicks. It's most of the time
the inlet temperature is 18 degrees Celsius. Okay. So we know inside the boxes is 27.
Ooh, that's pretty warm. Yeah. Yeah. But that's a good temperature for the old chicks.
No, no, they have to sit under their mom usually, right? So they have to be a little bit warm,
I imagine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And 27 is a good temperature. And a Dale chick is a Dale chick
for three days. So we have, let's say three days to...
Flexible definition. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
They live on the Yolk for 72 hours. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In good conditions. But the humidity
in the cargo holds is about 12 to 15%. Oh, that's quite dry. Yeah. But it's the same as in
the cabin. If you ever take a newspaper, bring it with you, you start reading it, you put it away
and five hours later you take it again, it's crispy. Right. Everything dries up. That's also
the reason why you have to drink a lot when you're flying. And that doesn't bother these chicks or?
It bothers the chicks a little bit. That's why most of the chicks are also given some kinds of,
we call it solidified water, what they can pick on during flight. Okay. So they have water on their
flight and they have still a belly full of Yolk. So they are in the perfect condition for flying.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Better than us, probably. I think it's through a sparse.
You can pick your neighbor. Awesome. And so, you said it's mostly
Dale chicks that fly across the world all the time? It's a lot of Dale chicks and a lot of
dogs and cats and lots of insects. Yeah. Insects. Yeah. Can you tell me more about that?
What kind of insects are we thinking here? Bumblebees and beneficial insects.
Bumblebees and those beneficial insects are used in greenhouses or in open fields. Right.
Against plagues. Yeah. So sort of biological control and biological pollination.
Biological pollination is done by bumblebees. Yeah.
And there's a big reason why they use bumblebees. Why is that?
Ah, when you use, let's say the bees in a greenhouse and the greenhouse is open
for ventilation, they will all leave. Oh. Look for a better product to
breed. Bumblebees are not straying animals. They just stay in their own small environment.
Right. Okay. So they will not stray. So when you use, let's say,
say 100,000 bumblebees after three weeks, you still have 100,000 or even more reproduce
and bees, you will lose them. Okay. That's why I use bumblebees.
And the people don't use the local bumblebees, but they have to ship them around the world?
It's mostly the European bumblebees, bumblestresses, I think it's called. And
they told me that when they ship bumblebees to the United States, it's one that originated from
the United States. Oh, okay. It was reproduced in Europe.
So in Europe, they're really good at growing bumblebees apparently.
Especially hungry. Oh.
And there's a big company named Coppert. Yeah, I know it.
And I think Coppert and Beopest, they are the world leaders of beneficial insects.
Wow. So Hungary and the Netherlands are leading the world in biological pollination.
And Belgium is number two or three. Okay.
Oh, that's cool. So all the bumblebees fly through your hands pretty much because you're in Amsterdam?
A lot of them do, yes.
Yeah. So if people see a bumblebee somewhere in the greenhouse, they may have gone through your hands
at some point. Might be. Or I've seen them, or at least maybe I've arranged a flight, that's it.
But right. You book their tickets. Yeah.
And what we also transport a lot comes to mind are meal words.
Oh, right. Yeah.
For food? For food, yes.
Yes. Now for food, for animal food. And as bait.
Right. We also transfer a lot of earthworms.
Earthworms? Also for bait.
For bait. Oh, you think people have earthworms everywhere, but apparently...
They breed some good earthworms in Canada. Oh.
And in the Netherlands. And there's huge demand of them.
Yeah. Yeah. Who knew? So if you hook your line in some country...
Alabama? Yeah. You may be hooking a Canadian or a Dutch worm.
Yep. Dutch nightcrawler.
Yeah. That's amazing. To think about how many animals are flying across the world every day.
Yeah. Cool. But...
Now we also use... Yeah. Sorry, go on.
We also ship a lot of horses. Horses? 12,000 a year. We still had the combi aircraft.
Meaning that we had a bowing serum for servants. Half of the bowing was for passengers and the
other half, we had seven parallel positions. So seven positions for a horse stall.
Oh. So we could ship 20 horses on the same flight as 286 people.
Wow. So the horse tickets are a lot more expensive than the human tickets I imagine.
Yes. Yeah. They take a lot more space.
They take a lot more space. Yeah.
So these are very special horses. Race horses or production?
Everything but slaughter horses. Okay. Okay.
It can be race horses, it can be horses for trade. A lot of horses go... In spring they go to the
United States to be sold. If they're not sold, they come back in autumn.
To be sold here? Or to be trained. Or to be sold here.
Yeah. Yeah. Huh. That's interesting.
So they also move seasonally across the world. Yeah. And what we...
Yeah. There's a lot around the world, the other
racing horses. Mm-hmm. From the UK and from Europe into Hong Kong.
Just to do two or three rounds and then they fly back.
Really? Yeah.
Huh. Very expensive hobby, I guess. I hope it's your hobby because at the end
you will lose money, I guess. Wow. So they're flown to each race and
then they have to run a circle and then they're flown back.
Yeah. And when you fly them in and you get them back within 12 days, they told me they don't have
any jet lag. Oh. Okay.
Because jet lag for horse kicks in later. Right.
Well, you have to show in time bracket that they don't have a jet lag and they just can
perform whatever they do and then you fly them back.
Oh, that's ideal. You don't want a jet lagged horse at the start of a race.
That's why you have to be there two weeks in advance or just in a time frame.
Right. So that's all planned very carefully. Yeah.
And then they come to you. When I think about animal transport,
you think mostly dogs and cats, of course. That's also pretty much on every flight,
I imagine, right? And shipping dogs and cats is not
difficult. You have to handle the people behind the dogs and cats, the owners.
They are more difficult. Dogs are easy travelers.
Okay. When a dog is used to its kennel,
it just lays down and just let it happen. Right.
Cats are crazy. We all know that.
Yes. All the handling stations that handle cats and dogs, when they have a biting incident,
it's always a cat and never a dog. Okay.
Because cats don't like to travel. And then it happens that a handler
accidentally puts their finger inside the cage and gets bitten.
Yes. That can be. Or what we always did in the animal hotel and lots of other animal
tales worldwide from other airlines, other origin destination, when at transit time,
it's more than six hours, they take the cats and the dogs out of the crate.
Oh, good. The cats get their own litter box.
Dogs are walked outside or inside. At least they get some exercise.
Right. And then two hours before departure,
they are back in their own crate and for the next stretch. And at that time,
it happens that a cat doesn't want to leave its kennel or whatever.
And dogs, they just follow you. Yeah.
They are fine with it. But then you always have the owner who thinks that a dog needs this,
a dog needs that. No. What a dog needs is just a proper place to lay down, some food and some water.
And when it's in transit, some attention from the keepers and that's it.
Right. Right. Right. And you give them that. Yeah.
Yeah. And lots of owners think that they need some kind of sedation for a bed of plights.
Never sedate your animals. Okay.
Your dogs and cats, never sedate them.
Because otherwise you can't walk them, I imagine.
Yeah. That's one. But the other one is the second reason not to sedate your dog or cat
is that there's less oxygen at 30,000 feet. And all the medication gives them some kinds of
depression. They start breathing less. Ah, right. Yeah.
So there also is less oxygen in their system. And that can also cause a lot of trouble in flight.
Right. And especially recusophallic dogs and cats,
you have the problem that they might suffocate and die.
Really? And that's the reason why lots of airlines
have an embargo on shipping those kinds of dogs and cats.
Really? Just because they have a short face? Yeah.
So when you're in, let's say the United States and you have a French bully,
and you have to fly to, let's say South Korea, it's almost impossible to get there.
Because all the airlines that fly between the US and South Korea via Europe or whatever,
have an embargo on recusophallic dogs and cats. Really? And that's the reason why,
because they cannot get air when they're high in the sky.
Yeah. And it's always bad publicity when a dog or cat dies.
Obviously. And airlines, they are allergic to bad publicity.
And for them, it's just a dog. And also, not just a dog, the money they make with a dog
compared to the bad publicity they get when a dog dies.
And it's easier for them to say, we stop. Nevermind. Yeah. No more dogs.
Yeah. No more dogs. No more recusophallic dogs.
And did you do a lot of that, like walking dogs or taking cats out of there?
Yeah. All the cats were taken out of the kennel. All the dogs were walked outside.
It was a product. It's still a product. Okay.
So we still take care of all the dogs and cats in transit.
Oh. And do people put weird things in with their dog sometimes in the kennel?
No. It's good to put something from yourself in the kennel. What you have to do,
you have to wear a shirt, t-shirt for let's say two days,
and put that in the kennel with your dog or cat.
Right. So it smells of you.
It smells of you. Yeah. And those are the good things.
Yeah. We also had people trying to transport cocaine in the kennel.
Oh, really? But they always get caught.
Yeah. You inspect the kennels or they are scanned?
When you take your dog out, when you take your dog out for a walk and you pick up the kennel
and the kennel is heavier than it should be, then there's something wrong.
Wow. And that happens.
Cocaine dog. But all the same happened with
ornamental fish. That's also not being shipped worldwide.
And you just said that dogs are easy travelers. In the animal world are difficult travelers.
What are the hardest things to get in the air? I think ornamental fish is hard to transport.
Really? Okay. Ornamental fish is packed in plastic containers or plastic bags.
And ample supply of oxygen for 48 hours after acceptance. So let's say you have a shipment
from Sri Lanka via Frankfurt into Dallas, for example, and it misses the connection in Frankfurt.
Uh-oh. Yeah. You're stuck with the shipment of ornamental fish.
Yeah. You can't just walk those. I mean, they have to go.
You can't walk those. And they have the supply of oxygen they have. The moment you open the bags,
the oxygen disappears. When you put new oxygen inside the plastic bags, then also the bacteria
that like oxygen start growing again. Right. Okay. Yeah.
So the acidity of the water goes up. And your fish might die.
And also the fish are, you know, there's probably a lot of fish per liter of water, right? I mean,
Indeed. Yeah.
Quite crowded. Especially when you have goldfish.
It's like a goldfish soup because they're also a little bit sedated.
Okay. So what most of the, let's say the big stations have like Frankfurt in Europe,
Frankfurt, Charles de Gaulle, Schiphol, we have certain importers that take over the fish.
Right. They collect the fish,
put in their own tanks for four to six days, reprepare them, and then they are sent to a
final destination. Wow. Just for missing one connection.
Yeah. Yeah. And that's also the reason why we say that all the animals arriving at Schiphol
must meet the EU entry conditions. They must also be allowed into the European Union so they can
be taken care of in case of any problems. Right. Of course. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's why.
Yeah. That's probably a good idea. Now, if I think about animal transport,
I mean, you talked about the day old chicks, which apparently is most of the animals flying
and the beneficial insects, but I imagine zoo transports, right? Weird things on a plane.
What's some of the weirder things you've seen crossing your desk?
Weird or nice? Weird, nice. What made an impression on you?
A lot. Especially the first shipments always make an impression on you.
The first shipment of giraffes from South Africa. But giraffes are, you know, five,
six meters tall. How do you put them in a plane? And that's the reason why I went to South Africa
for the first shipment. We had a dealer over there who wanted to use KLM for his shipments into Asia.
I said, OK, we can do it. We first want to see your facility and prepare the animals. And
what you already did there, they make enclosures that can hold three giraffes, three young giraffes,
so they get used to each other. OK. The graded traveling is also fit for three giraffes,
so they travel as a group, used to each other. That's a pretty good idea.
Yes. And he also collected the same heights. And that's the other point. The door of the 747
is three meters and eight centimeters high. OK. We always told them the crate can have a maximum
height of three meters, including pallet base. Yeah. Means that inside measurements are about
two meters 95, 96. Right. Half a giraffe, pretty much. Yeah, half a full-grown giraffe. And that's
the reason why we only accept young giraffes until three meters 20. That's the trick. Yeah.
Yeah. And of course, the natural position of a giraffe is not with the neck up,
but always a little bit banded. Yeah. Of course. So when it's three 20, it fits in a 295 crate
with the three of them. Oh, OK. And they support each other.
Yeah, that makes complete sense now, I understand. Because I always wonder,
I mean, a giraffe, how ever are you going to get them on a plane? Lie them horizontally or?
No, no, no. Only the younger ones. Yeah. So that's the bad part. When they, let's say,
they miss, they are posted for one kind of disease in quarantine, they might have to wait for another
eight weeks and then they become too big to travel by air. Ah, right. Yeah. And then they have to
everything again with a new flock. Oh, yeah. Because they have to get used to each other again
and get used to the enclosure. Yeah. Lie them at auctions, et cetera, et cetera. Oh, oh God.
Yeah. Does that happen? Yes. Oh. In South Africa, most of the wildlife that's being
exported is coming from auctions. OK. And they go to big transporters with their own quarantine
facilities that is approved by, let's say, the Chinese government or somebody or even in the
European Union. And then they can travel. Right. OK. Yeah. And so most of the zoo animals, they
come from, let's say, confined area, go to other confined area. Yeah. And that makes it easier for
zoo animals to travel. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty much a quarantine area, a zoo, right?
Yeah. I mean, there's no other animals of that species in a very large radius. So. Indeed. Yeah.
Should be. Yeah. Should be OK. Unless it's some disease that can jump to other species, of course.
Yeah. That's always a big risk. A couple of years ago, we had some tapirs from Brazil.
Hmm. Cool. Arrived in South Africa and one of them died. Oh, dear. They did testing. It was
tuberculosis. Oh, whoops. How did that get past the test? They were not tested for tuberculosis
because it was not in the health certificate. Oh, oh, yeah. So we had to test our staff.
You don't want that. No. Yeah. But that's the risk of the job, I guess. Indeed. Yeah. And that's why
you always must be careful with transporting all kinds of animals. Uh huh. And that's also the
reason why, um, IATA, you have the IATA, life animal regulations. One of the most important thing
is that all the containers are nose and paw proof. Right. That also means lots of times that you
cannot get your fingers inside. That's also good. Yeah. Most of the time. And still, I almost lost
my eye. Oh. Because there was a crane bird and I was looking through a hole and the hole was not
covered inside with a fire and wire mesh. As it should be. Yes. But it saw my eyes glistening
and all my glasses luckily. Oh. Otherwise I was now one-eyed when I bend it. Would have been a
cool look for you, I'm sure. Yeah. A crane taking your eye out. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And they say that animals have stress during transport, but. Yeah.
I don't see it happen that much. And stress is not that big of a problem. Chronic stress
is something else. A little bit stress. Everybody has stress. Sure. I'm also a little bit stressed
now because I have to tell my story. But I had one large turtle from the Seychelles. Big one.
Oh yeah. Those are the giant Seychelles, giant tortoises or? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those are
the biggest ones in the world pretty much. It was a big crate. One meter by one meter by 140.
And I opened the crate and I had half an apple and I showed the apple and it started eating an apple.
Oh. Nice. He was pretty relaxed. Yeah. And I had the same, I had to fly a giant panda.
That's very cool. It's really cool. Yeah. First time so close to a giant panda.
Yeah. But the only thing it did on a nine hour flight was laying on his back and eating carrots.
And that's it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And for sure I know the zookeeper was more stressed than the
animal ever was. So the zookeeper flew with the panda as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were with three
of us, two zookeepers and myself. And is that to have the animals have a familiar face or in case
of emergency, why are they? In case of emergency. But laying on your back. Eating carrots. Eating
carrots. Yeah. What's the emergency? It's more important that you are there when you have,
when you're transporting horses or even rhinos. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah. Rhinos, they sometimes just
lay down and it looks like they give up. Okay. And that's when you have to be there and just
make sure that they start moving a little bit up and down, back and forth. Just to stay a little
bit in condition. So what happens? They just give up and they lie down and that's obviously-
Same with the horse. When the horse are really stressed, you see the gum on the teeth gets black
and then yeah, then you lose them. Really? Wow. That's severe stress. Yeah. But it happens once
every 10,000 horses. You have a horse that just gives up, loses. That is a hardly significant
number. Yeah. And so is there always somebody with the horse when they're flying horses as well?
When the horses fly, there's always at least one attendant with them on every airline.
That's also written in the IATLR and that's the law in most of the countries. So you have to stick
to it. So if you fly several horses, there's one attendant in the middle that they scare of all those
horses. At least one. All right. Making sure they drink at a certain time, make sure they eat,
they don't have colic, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And things like, I mean, I remember when
the Dolphinarium in the Netherlands was shipping a killer whale to the US. Things like that must
be very difficult, right? I mean, yes, they are so difficult that KLM says we don't transport them.
Oh, okay. That had to do with the publicity around it. But I know the airline that transported
it, one to the Canary Islands. And that went really well. But nobody knew where it flew.
No, okay. So they keep that a secret. Yeah. Yeah. They just give you some airframe,
they say it will fly on let's say March 15th and then it flies on February 2nd.
Okay. So nobody's aware of it because of all the bad publicity.
So people are protesting this kind of transport? Oh, yes. Oh.
That's also the reason why lots of airlines stopped with transporting laboratory animals.
Oh yeah. Yeah. We already stopped in 1996, I guess. And I think Air France recently stopped
with monkeys. Monkeys. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And there are still a lot of airlines that say they
don't transport them, but they transport them. Oh. There's no issue. Let's not name any names here.
No, no. I don't know. But they say we stopped with laboratory animals, but they still ship lab rats
and lab mice. Okay. Those should be okay to fly, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine the monkeys,
but... The monkeys, it's a little bit emotional, but they're still,
I think they are still needed for some kind of research. Sure. And not for your makeup.
No. Let's say for life saving research, they have some value. Yeah. Yeah. Same with beagles.
They also have some value. Yeah. Yeah. Well, beagles are used because they are genetically
equivalent to like two and a half dogs, I think the whole race. Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. They're
genetically so similar. Yeah. It's remarkable. That's why they always pick beagles. Yeah.
The bad thing with laboratory animals is that there's so much bad publicity around it that
everybody believes it. I also speak with people within the industry and they say all the monkeys
that we have are kept in family groups. Yeah. They have televisions. Their favorite programs
are on the scurvy channel. And the moment there is a snake visible, which spits them off because
you know the whole colony will go berserk. The beagles have playtime. So it's not all that bad.
And maybe you might want to look for somebody who can talk to you about this in your podcast.
That would be nice if we're looking for any animal professionals. So yeah.
Just the way they treat laboratory animals. Yeah. That's a very good suggestion. Thanks. Yeah.
I will try to find somebody. Yeah. I mean, I know. I mean, I've done a little bit of work in
laboratories myself, of course. Yeah. You know, the people who take care of them get quite attached
and try to do their best to make their life as good as they can. It's a live animal and
then you need to respect live animals. And that's also the reason why I think it's important that
you, when you ship animals, that you always have to look at the ayatollah on how to ship them.
Because we have a lot of professionals in the LAPB and surrounding the LAPB
that really know a lot about animal welfare and how to ship animals.
Like, yeah. And if you cannot ship them, don't do it.
What is an animal you cannot ship? Bats.
Bats. Really? Okay. Because of disease risk or?
No. How do you feed them? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, insectivorous.
Yeah. They need to fly to get something. So how do you...
Yeah. So insectivorous bats, at least, right? I mean, the fruitiferous ones.
Fruit bats are easy. Okay. Okay. And what also are difficult to transport,
to my opinion, are hummingbirds. Hummingbirds?
Yeah. Why is that? Why are they difficult? They have a higher metabolism. They have to
keep on eating and drinking the whole journey. Yeah.
So you have to make enclosures with lighting. Temperature needs to be okay. And you need a lot
of food during the flight. And we have a 12-hour flight, cutoff time, and except for the six hour
before flight. So you need at least 20 hours of food with them. And you have to make sure...
That's a lot of money. Yeah.
...you have to make sure the food does not go bad in the meantime. And they keep on flying,
et cetera, et cetera. So for me, it's difficult and I'm not a fly.
Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've done it in the past.
And I was always happy that they all survived. Yeah. No, I can imagine. That's a very difficult
one. There's this group in California that does studies on hummingbirds at low pressure,
at low air pressures. But then they make them fly at low air pressure. And then at a certain air
pressure, you just see them fall out of the sky because they cannot maintain the metabolism.
And it might also happen in flight. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Stressing them out quite a bit. That might be a reason why they
have a low survival rate when you don't pay attention to all the things needed for transport.
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Animal transport is a very specialized business because you need to know
about so many different animals needs. And I know you love animals because you can hear the parrot
in the back sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. Parrots, my turtles, my dogs.
You live animals pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. You had one more. You mentioned to me koalas and lions.
Yeah. What happened there? Lions are always nice.
Lions are also easy travelers. Lots of mistakes you make is that the crate is too big so they
can turn around. Best for a lion and for all big felines is they just can lay down and stand up
and not turn around. So you always know where the head is. Okay. That's what-
My nicest shipment of lions were white lion cubs.
Arriving from Johannesburg on the freighter of Martinair. And I already saw pictures of them
out of the crate in the cockpit. Oh.
And then I had to bring it to Tokyo. And the nice part was that indeed they were still depending
on milk. So at 30,000 feet I had to give them milk and cuddles. And not only me but the whole
flight crew was involved in feeding those animals. I can imagine. Yeah.
I could just lay back and just sit there and watch them feeding the animals.
That must be fantastic. I mean- Yeah. Those were really nice to do. Yeah.
Those are the perks of the job. Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah. It was also nice to do with the spray toads.
Spray toads? Yeah. I forgot the name. It was Kenasha spray toads. And they had to go to Tanzania.
They were bred in New York at the Bronx Zoo. Right. And they breed 500 every six months.
Okay. And they bring the whole population back to the waterfall they originated from.
Oh right. Those spray toads. Yeah. They sit under the waterfall and they communicate by movement.
Right. Yeah. And the waterfall was completely dried up. But there was still some, they had some
animals left in the Bronx Zoo and another zoo in the United States. I started breeding them,
installed big pumps on the feet of the original waterfall. Yeah. Remade the waterfall. Wow. And
then the environment was good enough to reintroduce them. That is- I know the first ones,
we only have a transit time of one hour at Schiphol. So I arranged them just not as cargo,
but as extra luggage. Oh. And even Dutch customs agreed to do it like that. So I think it could
get them on board faster, right? That way. Yeah. They sent people to the aircraft, checked them,
and then it went on. Yeah. Those are amazing little toads. Yeah. Yeah. Kenasha spray toads.
That's the ones. Yeah. Yeah. Their environment is so loud that they wave at each other, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Oh, that's nice. So we saved the species. Yeah. Well,
animal transport is important. I mean- Oh yeah. Yeah. Not only for your food production,
but also for your biodiversity and education. Yeah. Fantastic. I mean, I know you have so many
more adventures with the animals, but this was already fantastic. And thanks for giving us a
little bit of a view behind the scenes because we only know about dogs and cats as normal mortals,
but yeah, to know that there's so much flying through the air at any one time.
Thanks for inviting me. Yeah. And if people want to know more about you and what you do,
where do they go? The best thing they can do is go to the website of the ATA,
Animal Transportation Association. Lots of people I used to work with are a member of the ATA.
And if you have questions about shipping animals or any questions, go to the website and there's a
special form you can fill in for your questions. Oh, perfect. Perfect. Or find me at LinkedIn
and maybe I can answer your question. Awesome. And AYATA as well, right? Yeah. Yeah. And there's
another one where you want to ship your dog or cats, go to the website from IPATA, IPATA.org.
Pet Association Transportation Association. Okay. And they can give you advice on how to
transport your dog. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Raymond, thank you very much.
You're welcome. Thanks for all the stories and I'll see you soon.
I hope so. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.