What if the very fences built to protect livestock have been quietly driving one of Africa's greatest wildlife crises? Professor Steve Osofsky, one of the architects of the One Health movement, has spent over 30 years trying to solve exactly that problem in the vast five-nation Kavango-Zambezi Conservation Area, home to the majority of Africa's elephants. 

Steve shares how WOAH’s breakthrough recognition that a biosafe beef value chain can be considered equivalent to fence-based management of foot and mouth disease risk has allowed for a paradigm shift in southern African livestock disease management for the first time in over 70 years. He also points to how reviving the lost art of herding is helping to open new markets for farmers living alongside wildlife, reducing losses to lions, and offering the possibility of restoring wildlife corridors through less reliance on fencing. 

This is a story about bio-diplomacy, breaking down institutional silos, and finding win-wins in one of conservation's most stubborn standoffs. After 30 years, Steve is cautiously optimistic, and his reasoning is hard to argue with.

Links

Profile on the Cornell website

Program websites of AHEAD and the Cornell K. Lisa Yang Center for Wildlife Health

Cornell Chronicle news piece: Removing Southern African Fences May Help Wildlife, Boost Economy

Most recent paper on the issue: Using Qualitative Risk Assessment to Re-Evaluate the Veterinary Fence Paradigm within the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area

Related paper from 2013: Balancing Livestock Production and Wildlife Conservation in and around Southern Africa's Transfrontier Conservation Areas

The Manhattan Principles on “One World, One Health”: https://www.oneworldonehealth.org/sept2004/owoh_sept04.html

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What if the key to saving more wildlife isn't treating more animals, but preventing them from ending up in hospitals in the first place? In this episode, host Dr. Cat Vendl speaks with Dr. Andrew Hill, a senior veterinarian at Currumbin Wildlife Hospital, one of the world's busiest wildlife facilities treating over 16,000 animals annually. Through his Churchill Fellowship, Andrew traveled 75,000 kilometers visiting ten major wildlife hospitals, uncovering a sobering truth: admissions are rising globally.

Discover how a Minnesota veterinarian triaged 60 cases in under two hours, why Toronto's skyscrapers now go dark during bird migration, and the staffing ratios that prevent both animal mortality and veterinarian burnout. Andrew shares transformative insights on why collaborative long-term strategies, not individual heroics, are reshaping wildlife rehabilitation worldwide.

This podcast episode is also available with the video:

https://youtu.be/7ND_jGhnMVY

Links

Learn more about Andrew's findings here. 

Check out Andrew's work place, the Currumbin Wildlife Hospital here. 

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Journey to Costa Rica's Osa Peninsula with wildlife veterinarian Dennise Ortiz, who tracks pumas and ocelots to answer a critical question: do biological corridors connecting fragmented forests actually work?

From midnight captures to analyzing GPS data, Dennise reveals how these cats navigate between national parks, farmlands, and dangerous roads. Meet Jerry the ocelot, who survived a car strike and reappeared days later, and experience life through Tico the puma's camera collar as he hunts and courts females across his territory.

Discover how movement data is reshaping Costa Rica's reforestation efforts and transforming local communities from viewing these apex predators as threats to becoming conservation allies in one of Earth's most biodiverse places.

Links

Learn more about the NGO Dennise works for: https://osaconservation.org/

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From Madagascar's forests to the heart of conservation: meet Dr. Ny Aina Tiana Rakotoarisoa, a veterinarian on a mission to save critically endangered radiated tortoises while transforming how women lead in wildlife conservation.

Ny Aina reveals the hidden crisis driving thousands of tortoises into illegal trade. It's not just about their striking beauty. She explores the local beliefs, economic desperation, and gender inequality that fuel the problem, then shares how her NGO, Women Rise Wildlife Research, is training local women as conservation leaders and breaking centuries of exclusion from the field.

From the shocking realization that communities don't see themselves as owners of their own wildlife, to her vision of expanding women's involvement across Madagascar, Ny Aina offers a refreshingly honest perspective on what real conservation change looks like and why it starts with listening to the people closest to the problem.

Links

Learn more about Ny Aina's NGO 'Women rise wildlife research' here: https://wr-wildliferesearch.org/

Want to share your work with the wildlife health community? Email us (communications[at]wildlifedisease.org) and become a guest on the show!

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What if the biggest threat to Australia's wildlife during a disease outbreak might be lying dead in the bush? Join host Dr. Cat Vendl with Niraj Meisuria, a PhD student investigating one of disease ecology's most overlooked frontiers: scavenging and carcasses.

From wedge-tailed eagles brawling over kangaroo kills to brushtail possums turning carnivorous, Niraj reveals how carcasses act as ecological 'cafés', hotspots where wild dogs, dingoes, and domestic animals converge. His research in Cape York explores a sobering scenario: if rabies reaches Australia's remote north, could carcasses accelerate its spread through dingo populations?

Discover why pathogens can persist in carcasses for months—or even years—and why understanding these hidden disease pathways could be critical for Australia's biosecurity.

Links

Check out the website Niraj's Disease Ecology Lab at Sydney Uni here.

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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.

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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.

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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. 

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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

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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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