Dr Ana Maria Villada has spent years unraveling the mysteries of sloths—creatures so physiologically unique that they're closer to chimpanzees than they are to each other. But her work treating electrocution injuries, creating rope highways through fragmented forests, and tracking hand-raised orphans released into the wild reveals something surprising: sloths are far more adaptable than science once believed.

Right now, Ana is in Uzbekistan fighting to protect sloths from international wildlife trade. Yet back in Costa Rica, her biggest challenge isn't the dramatic rescues, it's answering a fundamental question: we still don't know if sloth populations are thriving or declining in the wild.

Discover how the Sloth Institute's "sloth speedways" benefit jaguars, monkeys, and porcupines. Hear why hand-raised sloths can survive in the wild. And learn what makes treating a three-fingered sloth 31% more complicated than treating a two-fingered one.

Links

Learn more about the Sloth Institute

Ana Maria's professional Instagram page.

Check out more details about Ana Maria's PhD at Andres Bello University, Chile. 

Read the press release and information about sloth trafficking for CITES here.

UPDATE: 

SLOTHS HAVE BEEN LISTED ON APPENDIX II BY CONSENSUS!!!! This is a huge win for future conservation efforts! Check out the Instagram post here.

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

By day, Dr. Alexandria Bullen treats cattle and cats at a veterinary clinic on Tasmania's rugged northwest coast. By night, she's out tracking platypuses and bandicoots in the wilderness. In this episode, host Dr. Cat Vendl meets Alex at the Australasian WDA conference to explore how she bridges clinical practice with wildlife research.

Discover why golf courses and urban dog parks are unexpected bandicoot hotspots, what a decade of platypus health monitoring reveals, and how Alex's research uncovered these marsupials' surprising cold tolerance. From her transformative Antarctic journey with Homeward Bound – where migrating seabirds reminded her how interconnected our world truly is – to volunteering with Vets Beyond Borders in Indonesia, Alex shares how stepping outside traditional veterinary roles opened doors she never imagined.

With a PhD on quoll health ahead, Alex delivers an empowering message: you don't need fancy resources or prestigious positions to contribute to wildlife health. Life is a choose-your-own-adventure, and the key is refusing to let imposter syndrome hold you back.

Links

Learn about  Conservation Medicine in Regional Tasmania here

Interested to learn more about the homeward bound journey? Check it out here.

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

Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she ventures into Wyoming's vast wilderness to meet Dr. Samantha Allen, the state's wildlife veterinarian who juggles budget spreadsheets and helicopter captures of bighorn sheep. From her unforgettable first WDA conference moment wielding a Stryker autopsy saw on a porpoise, Sam shares her journey from small-town kid told she'd only work with "cows and cats" to tackling Wyoming's diverse wildlife health challenges.

Discover how chronic wasting disease has become endemic across Wyoming, why older male deer might be the main disease spreaders, and the surprising prevalence of rabbit hemorrhagic disease since 2020. But perhaps most intriguingly, meet the adorable swift fox—a resilient little species where 92% test positive for parvovirus exposure, raising fascinating questions about disease transmission between wild and domestic animals in America's wild west.

Link
https://wgfd.wyo.gov/wyoming-wildlife/wildlife-disease-and-health

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

Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she heads to Vancouver Island to meet Dr. Damien Joly, CEO of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative – though he insists he's just a "boring old disease ecologist!" But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Discover how Canada's unique cooperative approach tackles wildlife diseases across the world's second-largest country, from bird flu that's here to stay to chronic wasting disease threatening deer and potentially caribou.

Damien shares captivating stories from hunting pandemic viruses in Southeast Asian bats (they found a thousand new viruses with some being very similar to COVID!) and saving Mongolian gazelles from unnecessary culling during disease outbreaks. Learn why diplomatic skills matter more than business acumen when coordinating wildlife health across provinces, and get an insider's preview of the upcoming WDA conference in Victoria – where you might spot orcas from the ferry!

Links

The Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative: https://www.cwhc-rcsf.ca/

Wanna learn more about the upcoming WDA2025 conference? Check out the website: https://www.wda2025.com

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

Meet Alexandra Youssef, Lebanon's first and only certified wildlife rehabilitator and co-founder and vice-president of the NGO Lebanese Wildlife, based in Beirut. Alexandra fights to save wildlife amid economic collapse, war, and ancient cultural myths that drive species toward extinction. From the striped hyena (Lebanon's national animal, yet its most killed) believed to hypnotize victims, to snakes executed on sight despite most being harmless, Alexandra battles superstition alongside bullets.

Learn how this former nutritionist turned pioneering rehabilitator personally funds rescues while confronting gunshot-wounded raptors, rabies outbreaks, and deep-rooted folklore. Alexandra reveals how war and superstition create a perfect storm for wildlife destruction, yet demonstrates how One Health principles can bridge human survival and conservation – even when caring for bats and hyenas puts her own safety at risk.

A rare glimpse into wildlife rehabilitation where every rescue is an act of defiance, and changing minds may be harder than healing bodies.

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

Self-described "systems thinker" Dr. Steve Unwin has spent decades working at the human-wildlife interface across four continents and believes we've got our scientific name all wrong. According to Steve, we're not Homo sapiens but Pan narrans: the storytelling ape. Host Dr. Cat Vendl explores Steve's journey from "pretending to be a zoo vet" to creating vital conservation networks and leading Wildlife Health Australia's International One Health Program.
Discover how orangutans taught him patience while conducting "environmental enrichment" experiments on their keepers, why mental health is crucial for wildlife practitioners, and how better storytelling might be our best tool for preventing our own extinction. A refreshing perspective on using compassion and communication to transform wildlife health in an era of growing political isolationism.

Links of the organizations mentioned in this episode that Steve is involved in:
Wildlife Health Australia
PASA
OVAG

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

In this captivating episode, host Dr. Cat Vendl speaks with zoo veterinarian and researcher Dr. Brett Gardner about the unprecedented rabies outbreak in Cape fur seals along South Africa's coast. Brett reveals how this once-impossible disease jumped from black-backed jackals to marine mammals, creating a new wildlife health crisis.

Discover the detective work behind tracing the virus's origin, the devastating impacts on both seal colonies and human communities, and the race to protect sub-Antarctic species through emergency vaccination programs. Brett also shares insights from his PhD research on Australian fur seals, highlighting how much remains unknown about disease ecology in Southern Hemisphere marine mammals—making this episode essential for anyone interested in emerging wildlife diseases and One Health approaches. 

Links

One Health Research Group at the University of Melbourne

Out of the Blue - teaser for the upcoming documentary on the rabies outbreak in cape fur seals in South Africa

Article on the rabies outbreak investigations

Brett's professional Instagram handle: #conservationvet_brett

Footnote:

Brett pointed out that they didn't test the seal the dog came into contact with. The dog being bitten by a seal was not actually witnessed, and the seal wasn't identified or sampled. The dog rabies was linked to seal rabies later via sequencing.

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.

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 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 

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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.

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.

What if we could prevent wildlife health crises instead of always racing to respond to them? Dr. Leanne Wicker has spent decades asking this question – from anesthetizing seals in Tasmanian car parks during lunch breaks to tracking ocean temperatures through Antarctic seal movements, from nearly a decade managing confiscated wildlife during Vietnam's bird flu outbreaks to pioneering the field of veterinary ecology back home in Australia.

Through her work with critically endangered swift parrots, Leanne reveals how a single photo of a lonely nest tree standing in a logged forest transformed her approach to conservation. She's championing a radical shift: understanding that nest failure isn't just about numbers – it's about healthy parents, viable eggs, and well-fed chicks thriving in intact ecosystems. After experiencing the wildlife health frontlines across three continents, Leanne shares her vision for proactive conservation where veterinary expertise helps create conditions for wildlife to flourish, rather than waiting for disaster to strike.

Links
Check out Leanne's current employer and their work:  Enviro-Dynamics

Learn more about the swift parrot project here. 

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 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 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, 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.

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, 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

From Peru's copper mines to penguin colonies, PhD candidate Mya Daniels-Abdulahad tracks a toxic trail that threatens an entire species. Winner of the 2025 BioOne Ambassador Award, Mya reveals how mining waste travels through ocean food chains – with iron accumulating at four times normal levels in Humboldt penguin eggs and cadmium weakening their shells.

Working between Peruvian field sites and Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, Mya uncovers how penguin embryos become trapped in "toxic time capsules" while these vulnerable birds serve as sentinels for contamination affecting entire coastal ecosystems. Discover how populations crashed from hundreds of thousands to just 16,000 birds, and why zoo surplus eggs became crucial for understanding wild population risks in this compelling One Health story.

Links

Check out Mya's winning video here

Mya's paper on the topic

Check out the lab's website Mya works with here

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.

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, 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.

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 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!

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

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/

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

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. 

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

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))

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

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 

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

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. 

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

Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she follows Dr. Ralph Vanstreels tracking high pathogenicity avian influenza from South America to Antarctica. Ralph shares insights from surveying remote coastlines and documenting the virus's impact – over 600,000 wild birds and 55,000 marine mammals affected, with elephant seal populations experiencing 95% pup mortality in some colonies. Learn how viral mutations enabled the jump to marine mammals, the ecological importance of Antarctica's scavenging skuas, and the challenges of conducting disease surveillance in one of Earth's most remote regions while monitoring the virus's continued eastward spread toward Australia and New Zealand. 

Links

Ralph's academic profile: https://whc.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/people/ralph-vanstreels

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Nearly one-third of all parrot species are threatened with extinction, yet most people picture these charismatic birds as noisy pets in cages rather than the complex, emotionally intelligent wild creatures they truly are. In this captivating episode, host Dr. Cat Vendl speaks with Dr. Pat Latas, a founding member of the newly founded IUCN Wild Parrot Specialist Group, whose four-decade journey spans from rescuing a tiny house sparrow as a child to working with critically endangered kakapo on remote New Zealand islands.

Pat reveals how the illegal wildlife trade has exploded into a $40-60 billion global business fueled by social media. Discover why there's a "parrot people stigma" in conservation science, how 14 naturalized parrot species are thriving in Los Angeles (with some endangered Mexican species now more abundant in California than their native range), and why Pat combines her scientific illustration skills with conservation work to protect these beloved yet threatened birds.

Links

Newly founded IUCN Wild Parrot Specialist Group

Parrot Crisis Summit

Pat’s art work

Wanna get in touch with Pat Latas? Email her here: Patricia.Latas[at]ssc.iucn.org

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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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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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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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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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