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. 

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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

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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 in veterinary pathology at the University of Sydney. 

Listen to Rachael's story!

Check out Rachael's USyd profile: https://www.sydney.edu.au/science/about/our-people/academic-staff/rachael-gray.html

Image courtesy Dominik Fretz

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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 University of Vienna, Austria.

Listen in to her story!

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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 disease ecology at the University of Tasmania in Hobart. 
https://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/biological-sciences/scott-carver 

Check out the video of the Wombot exploring a wombat burrow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Ae8XhEMrxDo Check out Scott’s paper on the physics of poo shapes: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/sm/d2sm00359g/unauth

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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 of health issues including endocrine disruption, decreased fertility and certain types of cancer.

Mel's web page: https://www.utas.edu.au/profiles/staff/biological-sciences/melanie,-wells

Keen to learn more about PFAS and the exposure of wildlife, people, and the environment? Check out https://www.livingpfas.org (a project by podcast host Cat and her colleagues at the University of New South Wales Sydney). 

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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. 

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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 scenarios and sleep in their owners’ bed. And Peri just can’t get enough of them. She might not want to hear it, but I believe she is a true pig whisperer.

https://www.wildlifedisease.org/PersonifyEbusiness/About-Us/Our-People/Executive-Management

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Sarah loves the underdogs of the animal world. In 2013 she got up close with her study species for the first time. When doing an externship at the Seattle Aquarium, she witnessed a natural tragedy firsthand. Sea stars off the coast of Seattle were dying by the millions. The culprit? A disease called sea star wasting. After that, sea stars never let Sarah go again and she decided to dedicate her PhD to the impact changing ocean conditions caused by climate change have on sea stars.

Sarah is a PhD candidate at the College of Veterinary Medicine and a passionate advocate of animal welfare for invertebrates. Sarah wishes to thank everyone who made her PhD research possible; she is especially grateful to the Wildlife Disease Association Wildlife Veterinary Section and American Association of Zoo Veterinarians Wild Animal Health Fund for grands which funded this research.

Cat recorded the interview with Sarah at the conference of the Australasian section of the WDA (WDAA) in late Nov 2022. Wanna learn more about the WDAA conferences? Click on this link.

Learn nore about Sarah's research and the sea stars here. 

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Our host Cat chats with  Dr Jenny Bloodgood about her work with turtles who grow into seafood-loving couch potatoes in rehab, manatees who are not quite ready for climate change and the devastating 12-year aftermaths of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the gulf of Mexico, the largest and most devastating oil spill in history.

Jenny is a vet and marine mammal health researcher at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Alabama. 'Alabama has a coastline?' you might wonder. Yes, it does and even a very pretty one.

By now, Jenny has moved on to her new position as an Assistant Professor of Practice at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and a Wildlife Veterinarian with the New York State Wildlife Health Program in Ithaca, NY.

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