Page 45 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

at present continues his studies on anthelmintic resistance at the Faculty.
Boomker commenced working in 1967 as a technician under Anna Verster in the Section of Helminthology at the Institute. He was appointed as a Professional Officer in 1968 and obtained a BSc (Hons) degree in Zoology in 1969. He
enrolled as a veterinary student in 1970
1974. He joined the Section of Pathology
at the Institute in 1975, and in 1977
joined the Department of Parasitology,
Faculty of Veterinary Science, where he
was responsible for the student lectures
in Protozoology. However, like Reinecke
and Horak, he remained housed at the
Institute. In 1980, while Horak and he were
researching the parasites of impalas and
warthogs in the Kruger National Park, he
was at the same time conducting a project
on the parasites of fish in the Sabie and
Crocodile Rivers in the Park. This project
entailed examining five fish of eight diffe-
rent species at monthly intervals in both
rivers, and he and Horak spent many enjoy-
able hours fishing these rivers. When Horak
left for Rhodes University, Boomker took
over the lectures in Veterinary Entomology.
He left for the Medical University of
Southern Africa in 1984, where he lectured
Helminthology to the veterinary students,
the Onderstepoort Faculty in 1999, where with Krecek he continued to lecture Helminthology.
ONDERSTEPOORT 100
Boomker is probably the finest taxonomist on the nema- todes infecting domestic and wild animals in southern Africa, and has possibly described as many new species as have his illustrious predecessors at Onderstepoort. He is also in charge of the National Helminth Collection which is housed at the Institute. He and Horak formed a formidable partnership in the study of parasites of wildlife. He examined
and qualified in
“Boomker is probably the finest taxonomist on the nematodes infecting domestic and wild animals in southern Africa, and has possibly described as many new species as have his illustrious predecessors at Onderstepoort. He is also in charge of the National Helminth Collection which is housed at the Institute.”
but returned to
the internal parasites and Horak the ex- ternal parasites of whatever wildlife species they were working on at the time. To date 39 publications have emanated from this partnership. Boomker has also been the Editor of the Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Research since 2001. Over the years he has cultivated a wide spectrum of extra-curricular interests. These include the cultivation of indigenous aloe species, breeding fish, butterflies, dogs and birds, each of which he attends to meticulously.
I.H. (Ian or Bluey) Carmichael, an Aus- tralian veterinary graduate, worked in Botswana before joining the staff of the Section of Helminthology at the Institute in 1974. Here he worked on the influence of age, sex and breed of cattle on naturally acquired infections of P. bovicola, and on the economic implications to the red meat industry of infection of cattle with this
nematode. He obtained a doctoral degree for this research. Krecek obtained a masters degree in Zoology in the USA. She joined the staff of the Department of Parasitology of
135
Parasitology
1908-2008
Years