Weekend Rounds - 05.29

Did you miss us last week?

We took a weekend off to recharge our batteries and fight the good fight against the dreaded 'burn out'. We hope you did the same over the Victoria Day🇨🇦/Memorial Day🇺🇸 long weekend.

This week we're catching up on:

💰 The latest from the business side of vet med

🏥 The expansion of free vet care

🤔 One stat to make you laugh... or cry

🐗 Wild animals that are evolving faster than previously thought

🐢 How teamwork makes the dream work for turtles

Let's dive in....

The business of vet med

Covetrus goes private once moreFirst, some brief history on Covetrus. After Henry Schein Animal Health merged with Vets First Choice, the conglomerate (renamed Covetrus) offered a wide range of veterinary services including products and supply chain management services, practice management software and a full service pharmacy. According to them, the new company counted 90% of U.S. veterinary practices as consumers in some capacity. In 2019, Covetrus went public via IPO on the NASDAQ, but after 3 turbulent years as a public company they are going private once more.This takeover made slightly fewer headlines than Elon Musk's attempted takeover of Twitter, but the process was much the same. Private equity companies Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (CD&R) and TPG Capital have offered $21 for each Covetrus share - creating a value of $4 billion for the entire company. Easyvet raises Series A round

Easyvet, a fast growing U.S.-based veterinary clinic franchise that has 31 locations across the country, announced the close of a $5 million Series A-1 funding round. The sole funder in this round was UNAVETS, a european-based chain of franchises that operate 61 locations across Portugal and Spain. While not a huge sum of money, more venture funds in the hands of practice management groups likely means more independent clinics will be purchased.

Two good news stories caught our eye this week featuring the expansion of free veterinary services in both Canada and the US. You just love to see it:🇺🇸 South of the border, ElleVet Project announced they would be expanding services to seven states: California, Washington, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Montana, and Florida. The registered non profit will be loading up a trailer and making the rounds to assist homeless and street pets in America’s most vulnerable communities with increased access to care, food, and supplies. 🇨🇦 North of the border, UPEI's Atlantic Veterinary College is relaunching The Chinook Project - an initiative designed to provide free veterinary care to dogs in Canada’s North. The program is returning after a three-year hiatus due to COVID-19 restrictions with a clinic opening in Port Hope Simpson, located on the southeastern Labrador coast, in June.There are loads of other services offering free or highly discounted veterinary care to homeless animals, or clients who can't afford care. If you volunteer your time, or your clinic operates a similar program, please let us know by replying to this email!

We just came across a poll from 2021 that asked Americans how they think they'd fare against various animals in hand-to-hand combat, and 6% think they can defeat a Grizzly bear. Sure, that's 94% of people with a decent grasp on reality, but that's still a sizeable number of people who believe they can not only survive an attacking 1,500 pound bear but actually defeat it. Yikes.First we chuckled at the absurdity of it, but then came to realize that this hubris is likely representative of a number of the problems we face as a modern society, and it made us sad. What a rollercoaster of emotions.In case you're curious, here are the full results from the poll of 1,224 individuals courtesy of the market research firm YouGov:

New research is suggesting that evolution could be taking place two- to four-times as fast as previously thought. The conventional wisdom put forward by Charles Darwin was that natural selection causes genetic changes in traits that are passed down over thousands of years. But recent examples have shown dramatic evolutionary changes can take place over just a handful of generations. A study published in Science tracked 19 populations of birds and mammals over several decades. To see the speedy adaptation in action, look no further than the peppered moth who has changed color in response to air pollution, elephants who have lost their tusks due to poaching, and fish that have grown resistant to toxic chemicals. It's upsetting to see that all three examples are of animals that have been forced to adapt quickly due to human activity, but they are also fascinating examples of the power of the animal kingdom to find a way to survive.

Check out the compassion shown by these turtles as one of their bale (yes, a group of turtles is called a bale) is stuck on their back. The animal kingdom never ceases to amaze, or bring a smile to our faces. We hope it does the same for you:

Let us know what you'd like to see in future editions of Weekend Rounds by replying to this email.Enjoyed this edition of Weekend Rounds? Let the world know:

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