Wildlife Health Talks (WDA Communications Committee)

Our host Cat chats with  Dr Jenny Bloodgood about her work with turtles who grow into seafood-loving couch potatoes in rehab, manatees who are not quite ready for climate change and the devastating 12-year aftermaths of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the gulf of Mexico, the largest and most devastating oil spill in history.

Jenny is a vet and marine mammal health researcher at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. 'Alabama has a coastline?' you might wonder. Yes, it does and even a very pretty one.

By now, Jenny has moved on to her new position as an Assistant Professor of Practice at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and a Wildlife Veterinarian with the New York State Wildlife Health Program in Ithaca, NY.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Sarah loves the underdogs of the animal world. In 2013 she got up close with her study species for the first time. When doing an externship at the Seattle Aquarium, she witnessed a natural tragedy firsthand. Sea stars off the coast of Seattle were dying by the millions. The culprit? A disease called sea star wasting. After that, sea stars never let Sarah go again and she decided to dedicate her PhD to the impact changing ocean conditions caused by climate change have on sea stars.

Sarah is a PhD candidate at the College of Veterinary Medicine and a passionate advocate of animal welfare for invertebrates. Sarah wishes to thank everyone who made her PhD research possible; she is especially grateful to the Wildlife Disease Association Wildlife Veterinary Section and American Association of Zoo Veterinarians Wild Animal Health Fund for grands which funded this research.

Cat recorded the interview with Sarah at the conference of the Australasian section of the WDA (WDAA) in late Nov 2022. Wanna learn more about the WDAA conferences? Click on this link.

Learn nore about Sarah's research and the sea stars here. 

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Cat chats with Dr Peri Wolff who has been the WDA’s executive manager since 2019. Few people know about Peri’s adventurous past. She used to treat film stars and made sure the wolves, monkeys and tigers were up for the job when the stage lights came on. Wild animals are her passion, but pot-bellied pigs are her secret treat. Besides holding the WDA together, Peri looks after the pet pigs of Los Angeles and surroundings. Some of her patients play the piano, have learned how to deal with emergency scenarios and sleep in their owners’ bed. And Peri just can’t get enough of them. She might not want to hear it, but I believe she is a true pig whisperer.

https://www.wildlifedisease.org/PersonifyEbusiness/About-Us/Our-People/Executive-Management

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Why do bats carry so many deadly viruses that don’t affect them and why is it a fungus that brings them to their knees? Our host Cat chats with Dr Elizabeth Falendysz, a vet and wildlife veterinarian at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin. Liz doesn’t like tight spaces but for the bats and her research she squeezes herself through the tightest cave tunnels. Listen in to the fourth episode of the Wildlife Health Talks. 

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Not even 30 bee stings in one hand and a fridge full of exploding penguin eggs could stop PhD candidates Mel Wells to study the pollutant exposure of little penguins in Australia’s south. Based at the University of Tasmania, Mell uses the smallest of all penguin species, the little penguins, as marine ecosystem sentinels for PFAS exposure in the seas surrounding Tasmania.

The ‘forever chemicals’ PFAS are everywhere, in us, in our environment and our wildlife. Long-term exposure can cause a range of health issues including endocrine disruption, decreased fertility and certain types of cancer.

Mel's web page: https://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/biological-sciences/melanie,-wells

Keen to learn more about PFAS and the exposure of wildlife, people, and the environment? Check out https://www.livingpfas.org (a project by podcast host Cat and her colleagues at the University of New South Wales Sydney). 

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Podcast host Cat chats with Dr Scott Carver about the secret lives of wombats. His team built a robot, the Wombot, that allows to explore the burrows of the animals with the square-shaped poo. Scott is fascinated by the different shapes of poo in the animal kingdom and is particularly proud of his most recent paper, where he explores the physics behind the mystery. Scott also investigates sarcoptic mange that is currently giving wombats a hard time. 

Scott is an Associate Professor in wildlife disease ecology at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. 
https://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/biological-sciences/scott-carver 

Check out the video of the Wombot exploring a wombat burrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Ae8XhEMrxDo Check out Scott’s paper on the physics of poo shapes: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/sm/d2sm00359g/unauth

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Our host Cat chats with wildlife health veterinarian and anesthesiologist Dr Friederike (Fidu) Pohlin about her PhD on rhinos in South Africa and her current work on small and large wildlife in the Austrian forests.

Rhinos are Fidu’s favorite patients, but they aren’t the easy sort. Especially translocations are challenging. Fidu once even accompanied them on a plane trip to make sure they were most thoroughly cared for.

Fidu works at the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at the Veterinary University of Vienna, Austria.

Listen in to her story!

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Australian sea lions are one of the most endangered mammal species in Australia. And they are not alone. Australia is infamous for one of the highest extinction rates of native animal species worldwide. 

Our host Cat chats with Dr Rachael Gray about her work trying to find out what is ailing the sea lions and how to help them survive. An usual breeding cycle, a high prevalence of hookworms and climate change are only some of the factors giving them a hard time. 

Rachael is an associate professor in veterinary pathology at the University of Sydney. 

Listen to Rachael's story!

Check out Rachael's USyd profile: https://www.sydney.edu.au/science/about/our-people/academic-staff/rachael-gray.html

Image courtesy Dominik Fretz

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However crawly and creepy, Rick loves them all. Dr Rick Gerhold is an Associate Professor of Parasitology at the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Tennessee. Our host Cat chats with Rick about his passion for worms, large and small, and his favorite part about sampling wild moose.

Check out Rick’s uni profile: https://vetmed.tennessee.edu/about/faculty-staff/profiles/?id=138

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Cat’s guest in this episode, Dr Tiggy Grillo wears many hats. She is the Chief Operating Officer of Wildlife Health Australia, works with the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) and is the co-chair of the IUCN SSC Wildlife Health Specialist group. Tiggy is a vet but she also uses her diplomatic skillset to navigate the waters of international wildlife health management and policy. And she is amazing at it. Don’t miss out on Tiggy letting us in to her secrets. 

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Flying foxes are omnipresent on Australia’s east coast. Some people love them, others, especially horse and property owners with lots of yummy fruit trees in their backyards are not so sure. It’s particularly horses that are sensitive to a virus that feels very comfortable in Australia’s fruit bats. It’s Hendra virus. Our guest Dr Alison Peel is fascinated by the variety of viruses that call bats their home, and Hendra is one of her personal favourites. Her team recently published a paper that shows how extreme weather conditions increase the likelihood of spillovers and how these can be mitigated in sustainable and ecologically friendly ways.

Check out the website of Ali's research group: https://batonehealth.org

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Our host Cat interviews Dr Anna Haw, a south African wildlife vet, who seeks to understand the economics behind wildlife conservation. Anna made a very unusual decision for a vet when she moved to California to get her MBA. She wanted to understand the underlying context of why a rhino is dead worth so much more than alive in our current warped value system and how this could be changed. Besides, Anna talks about her incredible time spent in the Kalahari Desert at night, while waiting for an aardvark to pop out of its burrow and being charged by highly aggressive porcupines.

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Why should you hurry to book your tickets to Guatemala this November? What does it mean to become a BioOne Ambassador? And why are more and more Antarctic seals stranding on Brazil’s coastline? 

Dr Aricia Duarte Benvenuto has all the answers. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Sao Paul and investigates the pathogens of the local aquatic mammals. Listen in to her story! 

Check out the website of our Latin American section and their upcoming conference in Guatemala: https://www.wdalatinoamerica.org/ 

Watch Aricia’s winning video for the BioOne Ambassador award: https://bioonepublishing.org/our-work/2022-ambassadors/aricia-duarte-benvenuto/ 

Picture caption: Photo taken during the health assessments of the Araguaia river dolphin (Inia araguaiaensis) in the Araguaia river in september 2022.

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They are wildlife, too, but they are mostly overlooked in wildlife research. They are the rats that roam our cities! Our guest and rat detective, Dr Kaylee Byers, is part of the Vancouver Rat Project, and studies the pathogens urban rats carry. And as importantly, she studies the rats’ ecology that drives infection patterns. Let’s be honest, humans have tried to control rats since the beginning of time, and they have not been very successful. Hence, we need a new approach which the Vancouver Rat Project delivers. 

Listen in to how rats rule Vancouver, how Kaylee’s Canadian home province managed to stay rat-free and what it is that makes Kaylee so passionate about science communication. 

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Let us take you on a trip from the mountains of the Pyrenees, over the lush rainforests of Costa Rica to the remote Pacific paradise of Cocos Island. this episode's guest Dr Gianmarco  Bettoni is still an early wildlife researcher and veterinarian, but he has participated in multiple, amazing projects. What they all have in common is the aim of promoting wildlife conservation and One Health. 

Listen to Gianmarco’s stories on elusive tiger cats, majestic Galapagos sharks and the master of all mountain climbers, the chamois. 

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Our guest Dr Fransiska Sulistyo never planned to work with these amazing creatures. It happened just by chance and now, Siska can’t imagine her life without the gentle orangutans. She spent five years in the jungle of Borneo as animal welfare coordinator of BOSF (Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation). She got to know the hairy primates inside and out and in passing she also learned a lot about human psychology. After all we are not that different from our hairy cousins. 

Currently, Siska works with OVAG, the Orangutan Veterinary Advisory Group, as an independent consultant for several orangutan rescue & rehabilitation centers in Indonesia. 

Learn more about OVAG: https://www.ovag.org

Learn more about BOSF, an Indonesian NGO that runs one of the biggest great apes rescue, rehabilitation, and reintroduction programs in the world: www.orangutan.or.id

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In this episode, our host Cat Vendl chats with PhD student Joy Flowers. Joy is the co-founding mother and current president of the very first North America-wide WDA student chapter, called CANUSA. Joy is in the first year of her PhD at Pennsylvania State University, US. In her PhD, she studies the impact of deforestation on Ebola virus spillover. 

Get ready for our chat on WDA student activities and Ebola spillovers.

Do you want to get involved with CANUSA? Email Joy: jgf5234@psu.edu

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Tapirs are Costa Rica’s megafauna. They are special in more than just one way. Visually, they are highly elusive, but they have a rich vocal life. Due to their immense appetite for fresh greens, they regularly get into conflict with the local farmers. That’s where the work of our guest, Dr Jorge Rojas Jimenez starts. Jorge is a PhD student at the University of Georgia in the US and the Conservation Program Manager of the Tapir Interdisciplinary Program Nai Conservation in Costa Rica. Jorge and his colleagues track the movements of tapirs, study their health, and run extensive outreach programs to restore the peace between tapir and people. 

Learn more about Costa Rica Wildlife and Jorge’s work here: https://costaricawildlife.org/

For internship opportunities with tapirs email Jorge directly (jorge.rojas@uga.edu).

This is the Integrative Conservation (ICON) PhD Program that Jorge is part of: https://cicr.uga.edu/

Follow Jorge and Costa Rica Wildlife on social Media: @crwildlife @naiconservation @ugacicr @tapirvalleycr @tapirvet

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Mac loves pathology and marine mammals. So he turned it into his career. On this week’s episode, our host Cat Vendl chats with Weerapong Laovechprasit, called Mac, about his journey from clinical work with stranded marine mammals in Thailand to his PhD in sea turtle health at the University of Georgia, US. 

Learn more about dugongs and why they make difficult patients, dive into the diversity of sea turtle viruses and find out why pathology is at the base of it all.

Check out Mac’s profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weerapong-laovechprasit-656a63120

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Chicago is a great city with lots of opportunities for people and wildlife species alike. Our guest, Henry Adams, loves this city and its wildlife. They work as Wildlife Management Coordinator at Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago and study the feathered, furry and scaly inhabitants and investigate how they deal with busy city life. Henry is also a self-taught illustrator and passionate science educator and they just started a WDA initiative for queer and ally members. 

Get ready for a jam-packed episode full of passion for science, art and kindness with Henry and Cat. 

Henry’s profile on the Lincoln Park Zoo website: https://www.lpzoo.org/experts/henry-adams-m-s/ 

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Did we just find Galapagos 2.0?  We are pretty sure we did. Guafo island is a pristine island in the south of Chila and just like the Galapagos Islands it is teaming of marine life, being a safe haven for South American fur seals, humpback whales, sea otters, and orcas. This is where marine biologist Dr Diego Perez-Venegas truly feels at home. He is part of the research group Guafo Island Science and studies the effects of macro and microplastic pollution on marine mammals and other marine vertebrates. 

Dive in to an untouched world of marine wonders and meet one of the scientists who can’t wait to share his passion about this magical place in the Pacific. 

Links

Check out the website of Guafo Island Science: http://www.guafoislandscience.com/

Interested in volunteering or doing a research project with them? Don’t hesitate to reach out to Diego (diegojoaquin.pv@gmail.com).

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‘Pathologists know everything, they just know it too late’

For our guest Dr Heather Fenton, wildlife pathology is like being a detective solving a murder mystery case. Only that her victims are not human, but dolphins, penguins, sea snakes or turtles. For her that makes it even more exciting. Heather works for the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health and is based at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. The location of the zoo, overlooking beautiful Sydney Harbour is as amazing as what’s going on behind the scenes, lots of wildlife conservation, reconciliation work with indigenous groups and plenty of education for kids and adults alike.

Join us for some of Heather’s story based at the heart of Sydney.

Check out Heather’s profile and the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health: https://arwh.org/

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Join us on a trip to the Mongolian steppe!

You don’t need to be a mammal lover to find these creatures fascinating. Saiga antelopes have been around and unchanged since the last ice age when they roamed the Mongolian plains with woolly mammoths. But the saigas haven’t had an easy run for the past years. In 2016/2017 a massive disease outbreak that had spilled over from domestic livestock caused them to die by the tens of thousands.

This episode’s guest, Dr. Enkhtuvshin Shiilegdamba, called Enkee, led the investigations and shares her experience. Enkee has had an impressive career in epidemiology and One Health that brought her to the US to study and research at UC Davis and back to her home country, Mongolia. After many years with the Wildlife Conservation Society, Enkee currently works as a transboundary animal disease specialist consultant for the Worldbank and the FAO.

We are taking a speed tour through her career journey and wonderful and challenging experiences she had on the way.

Links 

Enkee’s profile on LinkedIn: https://mn.linkedin.com/in/enkee-enkhtuvshin-shiilegdamba-50128413 

An article from 2019 on Saiga conservation in Mongolia from Enkee: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/08/with-new-protections-saiga-antelope-may-continue-to-be-a-symbol-of-central-asia-commentary/

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Dr Sarange Angwenyi knew that she wanted to become a wildlife vet at an early age. Experiences like acting as bait for an aggressive leopard to dart and relocate the animal, certainly wasn’t part of her initial plan. And yet, Sarange loves every minute of her journey that started with her 10 year-old self, shadowing her local vet. Today, Sarange serves as the Wildlife Health and Disease Surveillance Manager on the Smithsonian's Global Health Program. Earlier this year, she has been awarded the National Geographic Explorer. She is currently involved in projects reintroducing mountain bongos and introducing an app to wildlife rangers that aims to prevent disease outbreaks among wildlife in Kenyan National Parks.

Our host, Dr Cat Vendl, chats with Sarange about her fascinating journey and also discusses the challenges that Sarange has faced like discrimination as a female wildlife vet and neocolonialism in Kenya.

https://explorer-directory.nationalgeographic.org/shaleen-angwenyi

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Koalas face a multitude of threats in their natural habitat on the east coast of Australia. These include habitat loss, infection with Chlamydia, dog attacks and car accidents. Our guest, Dr Julien Grosmaire, works as an environmental consultant and oversees the assessment of those threats. And as a side effect, he gets to hang out with incredibly cute koala joeys. 

In addition, Julien is the current student & mentoring lead for The Veterinary Kaleidoscope, a veterinary diversity and inclusion organisation in Australia, supporting the rights of LGBTQIA+ people in Australia’s veterinary field. 

In this episode, we are getting a little political. Indigenous rights are closely interconnected with One Health. Australia just had a referendum on the Voice to Parliament that could have meant a major boost of indigenous rights. But the referendum failed. Our host Cat chats with Julien about the consequences of the referendum outcome and Julien’s outlook for the future. 

Related links to check out:

-        Julien’s LinkedIn profile

-        The website of Veterinary Kaleidoscope

-        Uluru Statement from the Heart

-        Learn more about the Voice referendum in Australia that took please in Oct 2023

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Our guest, Dr Hezy Anholt, is a true world citizen. She has lived and worked in about 10 different countries. Originally from Canada, Hezy has found a second home in Malawi where she initially worked as a research veterinarian for the Lilongwe Wildlife Trust for two years. In addition to running her own wildlife vet business, she has been a PhD candidate since 2021. Through the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada, she studies trypanosomiasis, or ‘sleeping sickness’, with a One Health approach. Malawi has the highest prevalence of this almost always fatal disease.

Join our host Dr Cat Vendl on a trip into the heart of wildlife research in Malawi with Hezy.

Links
Hezy’s PhD work with UBC: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/campus-community/meet-our-students/anholt-heather-hezy

Hezy’s blog post in the Lonely Conservationists on neo-colonialism: https://lonelyconservationists.com/2023/06/27/hezy-exploited-in-the-haze-of-a-dazzling-opportunity/

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In this first Wildlife Health Talks episode of 2024, we are taking you back to the very beginning, back to the year of 1951, when 28 US and Canadian wildlife biologists at the 16th North American Wildlife Conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, founded the Wildlife Disease Committee.

Only one year later, in 1952 the Committee was renamed to, you might have guessed it, the Wildlife Disease Association. The WDA was born. 

And one of the WDA’s founding fathers and first elected president was the wildlife biologist, Dr Carlton Herman. 

For the first time on this podcast, our host Dr Cat Vendl has a whole bunch of guests to chat with about Carlton Herman and what drove him back in the days to found the WDA, a pretty visionary organization back then. After all, in the 1950s One Health was less than in its infancy. 

Cat chats with three of Carlton’s sons, two of his colleagues, Ed Addison and Tom Yuill, and the WDA’s very own Executive Manager, Peri Wolff.

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Ticks have a microbiome, too. They carry essential symbionts and sometimes less essential members like Borrelia. Our host Dr Cat Vendl and her guest Dr Alice Lau explore the secrets of tick microbiome, but also chat about what it’s like to move to different countries to follow one’s academic career. Alice is an expert in this. She speaks at least four languages fluently and loves to get to know new cultures. Alice is currently based in Tokyo.

Dive into the world of tick bacteria and being sometimes lost in translation with the Wildlife Health Talks. 

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Deaf dolphins, hooked turtles and manatees hit by boats, Dr Debra Moore has seen it all in her career as aquatic mammal vet. She is the former head vet of the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies, IMMS, in Southern Mississippi, US. In addition to her clinical work, she is an assistant clinical professor at Mississippi State University and gives vet students the opportunity to get hands-on training on sea lions, sea turtles and dolphins. She is passionate about teaching and believes that it is essential that students become aware of the critical role of ocean health for the planet’s and therefore our own well-being. 

And on a side note, Debra is one of our newest WDA members. She joined on the day of the podcast interview. Who thought podcasting can’t make a difference!

Learn more about the Institute of Marine Mammal Studies: https://imms.org/

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Deep in the rainforest between Peru, Colombia and Brazil there is a lot going on. Wildlife trafficking is likely to blame for the occurrence of reverse zoonoses transmitted from humans to owl monkeys caught for biomedical research.
In addition to  studying the occurrence of reverse zoonoses, our guest, Dr Fernando Vilchez Delgado, investigates the potential evolution of Flaviruses  in the making in the local primate population.

Join our host Dr Cat Vendl and Fernando on a trip of adventure, science and true crime to one of the most remote places on earth.

Links

• Link to the website of the NGO Entropika, Fernando's collaborator, fighting wildlife trafficking in Peru.
• Article about Entropika's founder Primatologist Ángela Maldonado

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Our guest this week is Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) first female vet. Dr Tania Areori is one of only three vets at the National Agriculture and Quarantine Inspection Authority (NAQIA) in PNG. One of the first challenges in her new position was managing the African swine fever outbreak.

Tania had to work hard to get where she is now. Since she was kid, she wanted to become a vet. Not an easy task considering PNG doesn’t have a vet school. Tania had to win a prestigious scholarship to go to vet school in Australia, having to leave behind her young family. 

Join our host Dr Cat Vendl on Tania’s remarkable journey to become PNG’s first female vet.

Links:
Want to learn more about Tania’s journey and work? Check out this article in the WDA’s Quarterly. 

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They are small, agile, and incredibly cute and their numbers are steadily increasing in Germany. However, the Eurasian otter still faces many challenges in German waterways. Our guest, Dr Simon Rohner, studied their causes of death, their pollutant burdens, and the human-otter-conflict. Him and his colleagues have been working on solutions of how to make Germany a safer otter habitat. After his PhD at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Simon has recently started his new position as assistant curator at Frankfurt Zoo, Germany. And luckily, they have otters there, too. 

Join us on this otterly amazing journey into the German rivers and streams.

Links

https://www.otterspecialistgroup.org/osg-newsite/

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We all love to see a conservation project on a previously endangered wildlife species succeed. But what happens if a formerly small population grows to a point where its size becomes unsustainable? Performing a cull? Definitely not the most pleasant option. Our guest, Dr Ai-Mei Chang, works on a way more ethical solution: She develops and tests immuno-castration vaccines for the population control of wildlife species. In addition, she has worked on a range of infectious diseases in small wild carnivores. 

Ai-Mei completed her degree in veterinary medicine and her PhD at the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan. Since Feb this year, she has been working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tasmania in Australia.

Check out Ai-Mei's website here. 

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Seals have lice. This might not sound like a revolutionary fact. Many mammal species carry lice. However, as it happens, seal lice are the only marine insects that exist on this planet. In this episode, our host, Cat Vendl interviews Dr Florencia Soto about her work on the host-parasite-relationship between seals and lice and her recent trip to Antarctica. On this expedition, an international team of researchers investigated the presence and impact of High Pathogenicity Avian Influenza subtype H5 on Antarctic wildlife. And what they found was more pretty concerning. 

Listen in to Flo’s story about the new thread to the Southern continent, the miraculous marine adaptations of seal lice and why Flo can’t get enough of the eternal ice in the far South. 

Flo is a postdoctoral researcher at the Biology of Marine Organisms (Instituto de Biología de Organismos Marinos) in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.

Links
Article on HPAI Australis Expedition
Video on Flo’s and her colleague’s work with Antarctic seal 

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In the aftermath of the Covid19 pandemic, the Convention on Migratory Species of the United Nations renewed their focus on One Health and migratory species. In the wake of this renewal, researchers from the University of Edinburgh in the UK wrote a review titled "Migratory Species and Health: A Review of Migration and Wildlife Disease Dynamics, and the Health of Migratory Species, Our host Cat Vendl is joined by two of the authors, Dr Marja Kipperman and Dr Ruth Cromie. Ruth and her colleague, Katie Beckmann, presented the review at the 14th Conference of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in February this year.

Links:

Resolution 12.6(Rev.COP14) on Wildlife Health and Migratory Species

Migratory Species and Health Review 

Avian Influenza (Resolution 14.18)

Migratory Species and Health Review

Preventing Poisoning of Migratory Birds (Resolution 11.15(Rev.COP14))

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In this episode, we are diving into the fascinating world of the Egyptian rousette bat and its rich variety of pathogens. Our host Dr Cat Vendl chats with Dr. Jessica Elbert, a board-certified pathologist and PhD candidate at the University of Georgia. Marburg virus is just one of many viruses that the Egyptian rousette bat carries. Jessica has been intrigued by the bats’ immune system and their special way of dealing with infectious pathogens. We also delve into Jessica’s amazing transition from living a life as a jazz vocalist in NYC to becoming a vet, pathologist, and lover of bat viruses. Not many people can say that!

Listen in to Jessica’s story on bats, Marburg virus and jazz. 

Links

Wanna help Jessica to achieve her goal and use ViroCap for her PhD research? Check out her fundraiser here. 

Wanna take a glimpse into Jessica’s previous life of jazz? Check out her playlist on Spotify here.


Wanna be a guest on the show?
Feel free to email communications(at)wildlifedisease.org or catharinavendl(at)gmail.com with a short summary of your research story. 

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This year’s international WDA conference in Canberra, Australia, is preceded by a series of webinars to familiarize the WDA community with the concept behind the conference. This conference will differ quite a bit from the conventional.  One of the new concepts introduced will be the special presentation style applied through-out the conference. There will be no complicated figures, equations, or data tables. Presenters will showcase their work via story telling or through the arts. Sounds easier said than done. This episode’s guest is here to help.

Nigel Sutton is the Director of Creative Learning and Audience Engagement of NDS Productions and the presenter of the pre-conference workshop on knowledge and storytelling, coming up on June 3.

Links
Pre-conference webinar series: https://wda2024.com.au/pre-event-webinar-series/

Sign up for Nigel's workshop: 

• https://events.humanitix.com/workshop-sharing-knowledge-through-storytelling
• https://events.humanitix.com/workshop-sharing-knowledge-through-storytelling-kexvpdhe

Nigel's online profile: https://ndsproductions.com/nigelsutton/

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Our host Dr Cat Vendl chats with Dr Andrew Peters, past WDA president and Associate Professor in Wildlife Health and Pathology at Charles Sturt University in Australia.

A small revolution is about to take place within the WDA and hopefully the world of conference-ing as we know it. Andrew is the main organizer and creative head of the upcoming international WDA conference taking place in Canberra in early December this year. What is it that will make this conference so special, you might wonder. Well, sit back, relax and listen for yourself.

Check out the conference website to learn more here! Abstract submission closes on June 21!

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Our host Dr Cat Vendl and her guest Dr Elis Fisk dive into the mystery of the bighorn sheep. Elis is a PhD candidate and anatomical pathology resident at Washington State University in the US and one of the winners of the 2024 BioOne Ambassador Award. In his video for the award, he showcases his impressive drawing skills and explains how he and his colleagues solved the mystery around the dying bighorn lambs.

Links: 

"Draw and Learn: A Bighorn Sheep Mystery" – 2024 BioOne Ambassador Dr. Elis Fisk video: https://bioonepublishing.org/our-work/2024-ambassadors/dr-elis-fisk/

Elis' paper on the bighorn sheep mystery: https://meridian.allenpress.com/jwd/article-abstract/59/1/37/490259/ABORTION-AND-NEONATAL-MORTALITY-DUE-TO-TOXOPLASMA?redirectedFrom=fulltext

More about Elis' research: https://vetmed.wsu.edu/infectious-disease-and-immunology-fellow-to-continue-research-into-tick-disease/

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Our host, Dr Cat Vendl chats with yet another winner of the 2024 BioOne Ambassador awards, Dr Sarah Wright. Sarah studied an aspect of the immune system of South American sea lions. She is based in Illinois in the US and is the Associate Editor for two veterinary journals and the co-host of the podcast Veterinary Vertex.

Listen in to Sarah’s story!

Links
Watch Sarah’s BioOne Ambassador award video

Sarah’s paper the video is based on

Sarah’s podcast veterinary vortex

Sarah’s LinkedIn profile

Learn more about the Punta San Juan Program

Check out the website of the AVMA Journals Sarah is works for website

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Tigers, leopards and now one-horned rhinos. Dr Martin Gilbert studies them all. He is a wildlife veterinarian, epidemiologist and Associate Professor of Practice at Cornell University, US. Originally from Scotland, he has investigated infectious diseases and mysterious mass die-offs all over Asia. It was him and his colleagues who discovered that it was the administration of Diclofenac to livestock that killed millions of vultures in India in the early 2000s.

Listen in to Martin’s story!

Links: 

• Martin's Academic profile
• Programmatic website

Wanna be a guest on the show?
Feel free to email communications(at)wildlifedisease.org or catharinavendl(at)gmail.com with a short summary of your research story.  

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Our host Cat Vendl chats with WDA's own vice president Richard Kock. Richard has lived almost a life time of promoting wildlife health in Africa, Central Asia and the UK. Born in Rhodesia (today's Zimbabwe), Richard worked in Kenya for many years. He has seen the devastating consequences of colonialism to wildlife conservation first hand and has worked hard to counteract them.

Listen in to Richard's story! 

Wanna be a guest on the show?
Feel free to email communications(at)wildlifedisease.org or catharinavendl(at)gmail.com with a short summary of your research story.  

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

This week on WDA's Wildlife Health Talks podcast, host Dr Cat Vendl immerses herself and our listeners in an interview with Dr Helena Costa on her project 'Whale Exhale'. Helena studies the viruses in the blow of humpback whales that visit the coastline of Norway for the annual herring run.

A PhD student at Nord University in Bodø, Norway, it's a far cry from Helena's homeland of Portugal.

Links: 

Helena's research gate profile

Helena's parapoxvirus paper

WhaleExhale's X account

Article written about project Whale Exhale

Wanna be a guest on the show?
Feel free to email communications(at)wildlifedisease.org or catharinavendl(at)gmail.com with a short summary of your research story.  

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Our host Cat Vendl is talking all things Australian wildlife health with wildlife biologist Jane Hall. Jane is the project officer at the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health at Taronga Zoo and a PhD candidate at Griffith University. 
 
 In her many years with the Registry, she has worked with all creatures big and small, from the tiniest marsupials to the giants of the sea, the humpback whales. Her work took her on many trips to one of her favorite places on Earth, Christmas Island, where she has studied the health of the Christmas Island flying foxes. 
 
 On the side, Jane investigates the impact of disease and pollution on New Zealand fur seals for her PhD. 

Links

Jane's research profile at Griffith University

Jane's profile with the Australian registry of Wildlife Health

Wanna be a guest on the show?
Feel free to email communications(at)wildlifedisease.org or catharinavendl(at)gmail.com with a short summary of your research story.   

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Have you heard of the upcoming WDA2024 off-country conference from Dec 1-6?

In less than 2 months the annual international WDA conference is coming up. It will take place in Australia’s capital, Canberra, from Dec 1-6.

Australia! Sounds great, you might think. But that may not be in the budget right now. Fear not! We have you covered. This year’s conference will come in two ways: an on-country version, which will be in person on Australian soil, and an off-country part which will be held online. Both conferences will be interwoven, yet separate events. 

Tired of online conferences? Longing for personal connection? Well, we got you covered there as well. The off-country country conference will be very different to everything you have experienced before. Think, coverage of the Olympics, replacing sports with science and personal stories in wildlife health. The participants won’t just share their research, they will also share their personal experiences along their career path. And you can be a part of it! 

Our host Cat Vendl chats with the organizing committee of off-country WDA2024, a group of 7 early to mid-career wildlife health academics (including our host Cat) from 5 continents. Meet Sangjin, Fernando, Lucas, Marianthi, Berta, and Sarange and listen to their vision for WDA2024!

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Our host Cat Vendl chats with Anastasiia Kovba about all things viral diseases of wildlife in Japan, to be more precise on the island of Hokkaido. Anastasiia is a PhD student, based at the University of Hokkaido in Sapporo.

 Anastasiia grew up in the Ukraine and did her vet degree there. For her Master’s, she moved to Japan to study HIV. But since her passion has always been wildlife, she is now investigating viral diseases in wildlife.


Links
The link to Anastasiia’s most recent paper

Anastasiia’s LinkedIn profile

Anastasiia’s Research Gate profile

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

In this episode, you will meet Dr. Rita Santos, a veterinarian whose passion for wildlife has taken her across continents. From rehabilitating cottontail rabbits and hummingbirds in Minnesota to treating wildlife in the UK, Rita shares insights from her diverse experience in wildlife medicine. We discuss the fascinating differences between European and American rabbits, explore the challenges of wildlife rehabilitation across different countries, and learn about her research on blood parasites in Portuguese owls. The conversation culminates with Rita's current ambitious PhD project - studying the health of gorilla and chimpanzee populations in Angola's Mayombe forest, where she aims to bridge the gap between wildlife conservation and human health in one of Africa's most understudied regions. This episode offers a unique glimpse into the varied world of wildlife health and the exciting challenges that lie ahead in great ape conservation.

Links

 Rita's LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/ritabarriosantos

 Rita's Researchgate profile: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rita-Santos-38   

Rita's academic profile: https://www.cibio.up.pt/en/people/details/rita-santos/

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

In the 1960s, the Canadian government decided to relocate 14 muskoxen to the Eastern Arctic, a region where these large bovines had never been native. The intention was to support the local Inuit community by providing a new source of food and other resources. However, it appears the government did not consult the community about its needs or preferences. Farming the muskoxen was suggested, but the practice wasn’t culturally relevant. With little interest shown, the government released the muskoxen into the wild—again, without consulting the community. Since then, the muskoxen have thrived, with their population growing substantially. But Inuit people and researchers suspect they may be competing with native caribou, a species central to the Indigenous diet and culture for thousands of years and whose numbers have been declining.

In this episode, host Cat Vendl speaks with Dr. Laura van Driessche, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Montreal, who studies the health of both muskoxen and caribou. With a background in domestic bovine health, Laura brings her passion for wildlife into her research as she and her colleagues investigate the causes behind the caribou population decline.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

In this episode, we are taking you on a dive into the world of wildlife tuberculosis with Professor Michele Miller. Michele is the NRF South African Research Chair in Animal TB at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Her career has spanned from clinical work in major U.S. zoos to groundbreaking research in South Africa's Kruger National Park. Her multidisciplinary approach has combined veterinary medicine, immunology, and public health. We'll be discussing Michele's current research, including her work on TB diagnostics and management in various wildlife species. Michele will share her perspectives on the One Health intersections between wildlife, domestic animal, and human health. And Michele has just been elected as one of the new members at large on the WDA Council!

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Join us for an extraordinary conversation with Dianna Bisset, an Australian wildlife carer whose journey spans from creating equipment for James Cameron's deep-sea expeditions to rehabilitating wombats and kangaroos at Rocklily wildlife refuge. Diana shares her firsthand experience of the devastating 2019-2020 Black Summer bushfires and their profound impact on wildlife, challenging long-held beliefs about the Australian bush's resilience. Through moving stories, including the remarkable recovery of a Wallaroo with a broken spine, Diana reveals both the heartbreak and hope in wildlife rehabilitation. She offers unique insights into innovative wildlife protection solutions and the evolving role of wildlife carers in the face of increasing environmental challenges.

Links
Visit Dianna's website and learn more about her wildlife rehab work
@rocklilywombats on Instagram

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

In this episode, our host Cat Vendl takes you to Berlin to meet Anna Langguth, a PhD candidate studying one of the most devastating wildlife diseases recorded in mammals: white nose syndrome. From childhood bat enthusiast to innovative researcher, Anna shares her fascinating work on understanding how Australian microbats might respond to this deadly fungal disease before it reaches their shores.
Learn about her groundbreaking approach to studying bat immune responses by growing bat wing cells in petri dishes, her insights into the complex relationship between bat hibernation and immune function, and why prevention might be our best strategy against this disease that has already claimed over 6 million microbats in North America. This forward-looking research showcases a rare example of scientists working to understand disease susceptibility before an outbreak occurs, potentially helping to protect Australia's unique bat species.

Links
Twitter: https://x.com/anna_langguth

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/alangguth.bsky.social

Instagram: a_langguth 

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Join us for an eye-opening conversation with K9 Jenns, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney's Bat One Health Research Team, who brings a transformative perspective to the study of flying foxes and their viruses. Through the lens of queer ecology,  K9 reveals how their personal journey has enriched their understanding of the complex relationships between bats and viruses, challenging traditional binary thinking in both science and society.

Discover how their team's collection of over 60,000 biological samples is unveiling new insights into virus ecology, including the discovery of 24 previously unknown Hendra Virus relatives. Learn why these findings matter for both bat conservation and public health, and how embracing complexity – whether in virus-host relationships or gender identity – leads to richer scientific insights and a more inclusive understanding of the natural world.

Link

Bat One Health research group

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

In this episode, our host Cat Vendl sits down with Dr. Tim Cernak, who is revolutionizing wildlife conservation through an unexpected lens: Conservation chemistry. From developing human medicines at Merck to fighting wildlife extinction with artificial intelligence, Tim shares how he's creating a "One Health Pharmacy" – where cutting-edge drug development meets conservation. Discover how the same tools used to combat COVID-19 are now being deployed to save endangered species, from frogs battling deadly chytrid fungus to hemlock trees threatened by invasive insects. Through fascinating examples and accessible analogies, Tim demonstrates how modern chemistry, AI, and robotics could help prevent the next mass extinction – one molecule at a time.

Links
https://cernaklab.com/
https://lsa.umich.edu/chem/people/faculty/tcernak.html

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Join our host Dr. Cat Vendl as she takes you to Oklahoma, where Will Funk directs wildlife rehabilitation at WildCare Oklahoma, caring for over 8,000 native patients annually – from hummingbirds to bald eagles, and even tarantulas! Will shares his fascinating journey from studying red kites in London to investigating mysterious neurological outbreaks in raccoons that challenge conventional wisdom about parvovirus. Discover his research on raccoon roundworm, a zoonotic parasite with serious public health implications for both wildlife and humans.

Will makes a compelling case for wildlife rehabilitation centers as vital surveillance stations bridging conservation, disease monitoring, and public health. From heartbreaking losses to triumphant recoveries – including a remarkable bald eagle that survived highly pathogenic avian influenza against all odds – this episode offers a unique window into the evolving world of wildlife health at the intersection of rehabilitation, research, and One Health.

Wanna learn more about Will’s work? Follow these links!

https://www.wildcareoklahoma.org/

"Funk's Wildlife Disease Lab" on Facebook and @ok_wildlife_disease on Instagram

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she speaks with Dr. Sonia Hernandez, Wildlife Disease Association president and professor whose research spans continents and species. From studying prehistoric-looking tapirs adapting to human landscapes in Costa Rica to tracking white ibises navigating between Florida's wetlands and city parks, Sonia shares insights from her remarkable career.

Discover how her journey from intimidated veterinary student to association leader has shaped her vision for science communication in an era of growing skepticism. Along the way, Sonia offers valuable wisdom for wildlife health professionals about staying adaptable and finding unexpected paths to meaningful work—crossing borders both geographical and disciplinary to address today's complex wildlife health challenges

Links
https://hernandezlabuga.wixsite.com/wilddisease/dr--sonia-hernandez
https://hernandezlabuga.wixsite.com/wilddisease
https://warnell.uga.edu/directory/people/dr-sonia-m-hernandez-dvm-daczm-phd 

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she travels to New Zealand's Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari, where Dr. Janelle Ward leads native species restoration behind the country's largest predator-proof fence. Discover how four kiwis introduced in 2005 grew into hundreds, leading to the largest kiwi translocation in history. Janelle reveals the challenges of managing this booming population, from specialized conservation dogs tracking elusive birds to navigating new health conditions as the sanctuary reaches carrying capacity. Learn how deep partnerships with local Māori iwi enrich conservation through co-governance and cultural practices, creating a sanctuary where biodiversity thrives and a thousand-year vision for restoration unfolds—one bird at a time.

Links
https://www.sanctuarymountain.co.nz/ & https://www.linkedin.com/in/janelle-ward=b692a01b 

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

Join host Dr. Cat Vendl with Dr. Helen Schwantje, British Columbia's pioneering wildlife veterinarian of nearly three decades. Journey from her unexpected career beginnings to her groundbreaking work with bighorn sheep and the complex fight to save mountain caribou through a variety of conservation strategies. Helen shares insights about Indigenous partnerships and previews the upcoming WDA conference in Victoria, where scientific presentations will blend with diverse perspectives in a spectacular coastal setting – where you might just spot an orca! 

Discover how building communities and fostering collaboration has shaped a remarkable career dedicated to protecting Canada's iconic wildlife.

Links

Wild sheep foundation

Caribou Conservation Alliance

International WDA2025 conference in Victoria, BC, Canada

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.