Inventor says robo-vaccination machine could be used to combat bovine TB

"So Tony Cholerton, a zookeeper who had been a motorcycle engineer for many years, invented Robovacc a machine to quickly administer vital jabs without the presence of people. The result, a clever contraption he controlled from an adjacent room with a handset taken from remote-control toy aeroplanes, successfully administered vaccinations to Cinta in a feeding area. The tiger sat up briefly, mid-meal, as the needle penetrated her rear end, then calmly continued eating."

"Cholerton, who worked at London zoo for 30 years before retiring in late 2025, now hopes a fully developed automatic version of his invention could solve seemingly intractable wildlife challenges such as the role of badgers in spreading bovine TB to cattle. Badgers have been controversially culled in England for more than a decade, even while wildlife charities have been vaccinating badgers to show there is an alternative to killing Britain's largest surviving carnivorous wild animal."

"Badger vaccination can help, but it is expensive and time-consuming, and requires catching badgers in traps where they are often held for several hours overnight before they can be injected by a trained vaccinator. In contrast, Cholerton's fully automated Robovacc machine, known as Autovacc, could administer vaccinations to a colony of up to 20 badgers without human intervention, with each badger being detained for no longer than a minute or two."

A shy tiger named Cinta refused to feed when keepers were present, making vaccination difficult. Zookeeper Tony Cholerton, previously a motorcycle engineer, built Robovacc to deliver injections remotely using a handset from remote-control toy aeroplanes. Robovacc successfully vaccinated Cinta during a meal with minimal disturbance. Cholerton envisions a fully automated Autovacc to vaccinate badger colonies, which are otherwise trapped and held for hours for manual injection. Badger vaccination is currently expensive and time-consuming. Autovacc could vaccinate up to 20 badgers with detention under a minute or two each, potentially offering a low-cost, scalable alternative to culling.

Read at www.theguardian.com