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 extraordinary panel to celebrate women in wildlife health, their journeys, their achievements, and their honest reflections on working in a field that hasn't always made space for them.

From Taiwan to Kenya, Wyoming to Brazil, Indonesia to Germany, our guests share what drew them to wildlife health and what they've had to navigate along the way, the subtle daily realities of male-dominated spaces, alongside the genuine optimism that comes from seeing more women enter the field and rise into leadership. Warm, funny, and deeply human, this is the kind of conversation that reminds you why community matters in this work.

Watch this episode as a video podcast here.

Learn more about our panelists:

• Dr. AiMei Chang, wildlife veterinarian and academic at the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology in Taiwan, and Secretary of the WDA Asia-Pacific section
• Dr. Sharon Mulindi, Senior Veterinary Officer at Kenya Wildlife Service and a Masters student of Conservation Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, and Vice Chair of the WDA Africa and Middle East section
• Dr. Aricia Duarte-Benvenuto, veterinarian and postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Wildlife Comparative Pathology at the University of São Paulo in Brazil
• Dr. Kim Gruetzmacher, Wildlife and Conservation Veterinarian, working for the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation as Head of the Division for International Nature Conservation
• Dr. Samantha Allen, Supervisor of the Veterinary Service unit (Wyoming Game and Fish Department), State Wildlife Veterinarian for Wyoming, and President of the American Association of Wildlife Veterinarians
• Dr. Fransiska Sulistyo, wildlife veterinarian and consultant specialising in orangutan conservation and rehabilitation in Indonesia, and a PhD student at Adelaide University.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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

Watch the video version of the podcast interview here.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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/

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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!

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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.

We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.