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 ...
Mar 24, 2024•28 min•Season 2Ep. 32
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...
Mar 10, 2024•20 min•Season 2Ep. 31
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, scienc...
Feb 25, 2024•25 min•Season 2Ep. 30
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 esse...
Feb 11, 2024•20 min•Season 2Ep. 29
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 somet...
Jan 28, 2024•16 min•Season 2Ep. 28
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 wildlif...
Jan 14, 2024•22 min•Season 2Ep. 27
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 ...
Dec 17, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 26
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 inclusi...
Dec 03, 2023•32 min
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 N...
Nov 19, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 24
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...
Nov 05, 2023•24 min•Season 1Ep. 23
‘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 ...
Oct 22, 2023•25 min0
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 verteb...
Oct 08, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 21
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 episod...
Sep 24, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 20
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...
Sep 10, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 19
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 h...
Aug 27, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 18
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: [email protected] We'd love to...
Aug 13, 2023•17 min•Season 1Ep. 17
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 wi...
Jul 30, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 16
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 mount...
Jul 16, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 15
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...
Jul 03, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 14
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.wdalatinoame...
Jun 18, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 13
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 aar...
Jun 04, 2023•29 min•Season 12Ep. 1
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 s...
May 21, 2023•26 min•Season 1Ep. 11
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. We'd love to hear from you ....
May 07, 2023•35 min•Season 1Ep. 10
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 We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas....
Apr 23, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 9
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 i...
Apr 09, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 8
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 ...
Mar 26, 2023•23 min•Season 1Ep. 7
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 di...
Mar 12, 2023•27 min•Season 1Ep. 6
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...
Feb 26, 2023•21 min
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. We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feed...
Feb 12, 2023•22 min•Season 1Ep. 4
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...
Jan 29, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 3
