Vet photos

These photographs are the winners of the "Vets in Your Daily Life" photo competition launched by the Directorate General for Health and Consumers and the World Organisation for Animal Health (click on the images to enlarge and click here for additional submissions). Entries were judged according to the relevance of the image to the subject/theme, the originality of expression, and aesthetic appeal. Each of the 5 regional winners will win €1000 of photographic equipment, with an overall winner announced later this month to be awarded an additional €2000 of photographic equipment.

AFRICAN REGION
Molly Feltner
The photo shows the gloved hand of Dr. Jan Ramer in that of "Mukunda," a silverback mountain gorilla in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose name translates as "love."

THE AMERICAS
Ariel Alejandro Corvalán Herrera
Here a manatee (Trichecus manatus), believed to have been abandoned at birth, is having his intestines examined as part of a routine check in Puerto Progreso, Yucatán, Mexico.

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC
Somenath Mukhopadhyay
In this image, the village vet finds - to the relief of the family - that a goat suffering from PPR disease was on its way to recovery.

EUROPE
István Konyhás
Here a vet is trying to restore the beak of a stork that was likely the victim of a traffic accident, attempting the replace the injured mandible with an artificial material.

MIDDLE EAST
Genoveva Kriechbaum
This photo taken in the United Arab Emirates best fulfills the criterion that the images "show veterinarians and their work from an unusual perspective"! It looks like the camel is swallowing the veterinarian, but she is actually leaning behind the animal's head during attempts to extract waste plastic from its stomach (not, as the Daily Mail and Metro report, while giving the camel a pedicure).

2011 has been designated World Veterinary Year.