Wildlife Health Talks
Episodes
82 episodes
#82 Briana and the Social Media Epidemic (USA)
Every day at Project Wildlife in San Diego, Briana Eisan sees the consequences of a scroll: baby raccoons scooped up by well-meaning strangers, people reaching bare-handed toward bats, wildlife encounters going viral for all the wrong reasons. ...
#81 Sharon and Wildlife on the Edge (Kenya)
Northern Kenya is one of Africa's most biodiverse landscapes, and one of its most demanding places to be a wildlife vet. Dr. Sharon Mulindi, senior veterinary officer at Kenya Wildlife Service, covers a vast stretch of this arid, wildlife-rich ...
#80 Wendi, Slow Lorises and lived One Health in Indonesia
What happens when a wildlife vet who spent years nursing slow lorises back to health walks into a live animal market, not to rescue animals, but to sit down with the vendors selling them?That's exactly what Dr. Wendi Prameswari does. Bas...
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#79 Justorien and the Fight for Madagascar's Lemurs
Dr. Justorien Rambeloniaina grew up in northeastern Madagascar watching lemurs captured and killed, not yet knowing they were among the world's most endangered primates. Today he's fighting for them on every front, reconnecting fragmented fores...
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#78 Conversations with Women of Wildlife (A Panel Discussion on the occasion of International Women's Day)
Six women. Five continents. Decades of experience spanning wildlife veterinary practice, disease research, government policy, and international conservation. Recorded for 2026 International Women's Day, this episode brings together an extraordi...
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#77 Steve and Some Good Gnus in Southern Africa
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 th...
#76 Andrew and the Future of Wildlife Hospitals (Australia)
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 Wildlif...
#75 Dennise and the Wild Cats of Costa Rica
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 ana...
#74 Ny Aina and the Women Leading Madagascar's Conservation
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.N...
#73 Niraj and The Carcass Café: How Carrion Shapes Wildlife Disease Risk (Australia)
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: scavengin...
#72 Ana Maria and the sloths (Costa Rica)
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 thr...
#71 Alex and the Bandicoots: Redefining the Wildlife Veterinarian (Australia)
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 Au...
#70 Leanne and the Swift Parrot's Future: Reimagining Wildlife Health Before Crisis (Australia & Vietnam)
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 temper...
#69 Mya and the penguins (USA & Peru)
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 ...
#68 Ralph and HPAI in the Southern hemisphere (Argentina)
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 w...
# 67 Pat and the parrots (USA)
Nearly one-third of all parrot species are threatened with extinction, yet most people picture these charismatic birds as noisy pets in cages rather than the complex, emotionally intelligent wild creatures they truly are. In this captiva...
#66 Kate and the albatrosses (USA)
A snowstorm that closed highways led English literature student Kate Huyvaert to an unexpected path—becoming one of North America's leading experts on wild sheep disease. From discovering that 25% of albatross chicks aren't raised by their biol...
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#65 Nick and the Lord Howe Island stick insects (Australia)
Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she meets Dr. Nick Doidge, zoo veterinarian and researcher, working to save the world's rarest insect – the Lord Howe Island Stick Insect, nicknamed the "tree lobster."Thought extinct for 80 years, these living...
#64 Melting the Ice in People's Hearts: Indigenous Voices on Planetary Health (Canada)
In honor of International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples on Aug 9, join host Dr. Cat Vendl for a special episode featuring two powerful Indigenous voices in health and healing. Meet Dr. Nicole Redvers, a member of the Deninu K'ue First N...
#63 Nelson and the gorillas (Uganda)
Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she ventures into Uganda's misty mountains to meet Dr. Nelson Bukamba, one of the world's few gorilla doctors providing life-saving veterinary care to our planet's most endangered relatives. Nelson's journey from a he...
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#62 Sam and the swift fox (USA)
Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she ventures into Wyoming's vast wilderness to meet Dr. Samantha Allen, the state's wildlife veterinarian who juggles budget spreadsheets and helicopter captures of bighorn sheep. From her unforgettable first WDA conf...
#61 Damien and Canadian wildlife diseases
Join host Dr. Cat Vendl as she heads to Vancouver Island to meet Dr. Damien Joly, CEO of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative – though he insists he's just a "boring old disease ecologist!" But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Disco...
#60 Alexandra and wildlife conservation in times of war (Lebanon)
Meet Alexandra Youssef, Lebanon's first and only certified wildlife rehabilitator and co-founder and vice-president of the NGO Lebanese Wildlife, based in Beirut. Alexandra fights to save wildlife amid economic collapse, war, and ancient cultur...
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#59 Steve and the tale of the Storytelling Ape (Australia)
Self-described "systems thinker" Dr. Steve Unwin has spent decades working at the human-wildlife interface across four continents and believes we've got our scientific name all wrong. According to Steve, we're not Homo sapiens but Pan narrans: ...
#58 Brett and rabies in Cape fur seals (South Africa & Australia)
In this captivating episode, host Dr. Cat Vendl speaks with zoo veterinarian and researcher Dr. Brett Gardner about the unprecedented rabies outbreak in Cape fur seals along South Africa's coast. Brett reveals how this once-impossible disease j...
