Wildlife Health Talks

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 s...

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 Ca...

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...

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...

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 Ph...

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 consi...

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 i...

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 o...

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 n...

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....

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 Briti...

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 curr...

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 Surveillan...

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 th...

‘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 lo...

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...

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...

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 s...

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 Conservatio...

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 a...

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 hum...

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. ...

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...

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 webs...

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,...