Aquadocs

On this week's episode of Aquadocs, Host Michelle Greenfield interviews Dr. Roy Yanong and Dr. Hugh Mitchell, members of the executive board of the AAFV (American Association of Fish Veterinarians). Tune in as we discuss the history of developing this organization and the incredible progress we have made for fish veterinarians at large. (such as a credentialing program in the works). 

On this week's episode of Aquadocs, host Michelle Greenfield interviews Dr. Kathleen Hartman, Senior Staff Veterinarian of Aquaculture Health at USDA APHIS, Veterinary Services. Tune in to learn about the development of the new CAHPS Program (Comprehensive Aquaculture Health Program Standards), which is a nonregulatory framework for the improvement of the health of farmed aquaculture animals to facilitate trade. While there are a number of certification programs that exist for aquaculture, this is the first certification program for aquaculture that specifically focuses on animal health. 

CAHPS Program

Welcome to season 3 of Aquadocs! Thank you to everyone who made the previous two seasons so successful. To kick off our new season, host Michelle Greenfield interviews Dr. Alissa Deming, vice president of conservation medicine and science at Pacific Marine Mammal Center. Dr. Deming describes her day to day experience being a veterinarian for stranded marine mammals in Southern California. Tune in to learn about the process of rescuing, rehabilitating, and releasing these animals. And stick around to the end of the episode to learn more about Dr. Deming's research on a herpesvirus cancer in wild California sea lions.

Check out previous Aquadocs episodes on our website at www.aquadocspodcast.com. 

The story of Loki the Entangled Sea Lion 

The Pacific Marine Mammal Center

Sea lion cancer research paper

Hi everyone! I’m excited to launch season three of Aquadocs this week. From rehabbing pinnipeds, to saving over 1,000 cold stunned sea turtles, to solving the mystery of the electric eel, we’ve got lots of great stuff in store for you. Be sure to tune in every other Tuesday to stay up to date on the latest Aquadocs episodes! And as always feel free to reach out on social media (@aquadocspodcast) if you have any questions or you’d like to be featured on an episode. Thank you again for all of your continued support! Hope you love season 3! 

FishTracker is a student-oriented citizen science project based at Cornell University that records and maps the presence of several species of fish, both endangered and invasive, in New York State. What is awesome about this program is that K-12 students and teachers from New York collect environmental DNA (eDNA) from water samples and send these samples to Cornell for analysis. FishTracker team members then use quantitative PCR to analyze these samples and incorporate their findings into a fish species database and send their results back to the classrooms. This is an incredible program so tune in to learn more and be amazed at ways you can involve young children into important scientific endeavors. Want to get involved, check out their website: https://fishtracker.vet.cornell.edu/. 

There are fewer than 400 critically endangered North Atlantic right whales left in the world. Human impacts, specifically entanglements in fishing gear and vessels strikes, serve as the biggest threats to the survival of this species. On This week's episode of Aquadocs Podcast, host Michelle Greenfield interviews Dr. Michael Moore, senior scientist in the biology department of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution about his long-term work with this species. Dr. Moore recently published a book titled We Are All Whalers: The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility that documents his work with these animals and what he believes we need to do to protect this species. Tune in for a conversation about the stories behind this book as well as a discussion on our social responsibility to step in and help save these whales. 

On this week's episode of Aquadocs, host Michelle Greenfield interviews Dr. David Scarfe PhD, DVM, MRSSAf, CertAqV, a veterinarian and an extraordinary professor at the university of Pretoria in South Africa and Ludwig Maximilians University in Germany. Dr. Scarfe shares his experience working for the AVMA and documents his perspective of the evolution of aquatic veterinary medicine. 

What's the best way to age a dolphin? Previously, veterinarians would pull a tooth and count the rings within it, just like you might try to age a tree by its rings. But a recent study by Dr. Ashley Barratclough provides an even better, simpler, and less invasive option: blood and skin! On this weeks episode of Aquadocs, host Michelle Greenfield interviews Dr. Ashley Barratclough, conservation medicine veterinarian at the National Marine Mammal Foundation about her research in Epigenetics and estimating the age of bottlenose dolphins from blood or remotely sampled skin. This new method opens the door for a variety of future research projects and might even be a way to better understand less studied populations of free ranging marine mammals. 

Research Article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353739030_Accurate_Epigenetic_Aging_in_Bottlenose_Dolphins_Tursiops_truncatus_an_Essential_Step_in_the_Conservation_of_at-Risk_Dolphins

What are the appropriate painkiller drugs you can use in fish? On this week's episode of Aquadocs, Dr. Claire Grosset, assistant professor in zoological medicine at the Université de Montréal, explains a study she recently published about using Robenacoxib, an NSAID (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) in rainbow trout. We discuss the ins and outs of this study, and whether this is a safe and practical drug to use in fish (fun fact, it's commonly used in other species like cats!). And wish Michelle a huge congrats on making it to her clinical rotations! 

To read Dr. Grosset's article, follow this link: https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-zoo-and-wildlife-medicine/volume-52/issue-2/2020-0130/PHARMACOKINETIC-PHARMACODYNAMIC-AND-TOXICOLOGY-STUDY-OF-ROBENACOXIB-IN-RAINBOW-TROUT/10.1638/2020-0130.short

Coral are such an important species that most people probably don't even recognize need veterinary attention. On this weeks episode of Aquadocs, host Michelle Greenfield interviews Dr. Ilze Berzins, an aquatic animal veterinarian who has worked with a number of coral health issues. In particular, we focus on Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (SCTLD), of which over 40 species of Atlantic coral are currently facing an unprecedented infectious epidemic. We’ll discuss why this disease is different from other crises facing coral and what possibilities exist for protecting and saving these coral.