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SSC Specialist Group Profile:The Veterinary Specialist Group (VSG)

Group overview
The members
VSG website

List of other Specialist Group profiles

Overview

Increasingly, conservation efforts are incorporating wildlife health considerations into their plans. The SSC Veterinary Specialist Group (VSG) with its global network of experts in various aspects of wildlife health, provides advice on health and disease issues to government agencies, conservation organizations, and zoos around the world. Dr Michael Woodford founded the Group in 1984 and led it for 26 years. Now the Group is led by Dr William Karesh, based at the Wildlife Conservation Society in New York, and Dr Richard Kock at the Inter African Bureau for Animal Resources in Nairobi.

Below, the Group's nine regional coordinators are profiled, reflecting the great diversity of work being carried out by VSG members in all corners of the globe. Many have traveled extensively and worked in several countries to maximize their experience. Their work ranges widely from investigating disease outbreaks, to advising on reintroduction, translocation, and captive breeding operations, to treating animals for the effects of oil spills.

The members

Rupert Woods - VSG Regional Coordinator for Australia, New Zealand, and South Pacific
National Coordinator Australian Wildlife Health Network
BSc, BVMS, MVS, MACVS, PhD
Dr. Rupert Woods or "Rupe", as he prefers to be called, has spent the past 16 years working in the field with wild animal populations, biologists and members of various Parks and Wildlife Services, as well as the Australian Antarctic Division, in applied problems of wildlife management. Rupe earned his BSc. and BVMS from Murdoch University, a MVS from Sydney University in Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine, and a PhD in the chemical restraint of southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina) from the University of Tasmania. Since his days as an academic, Rupe has become a member of the Australian College of Veterinary Scientists. His accolades include a nomination from the American Association of Zoo Veterinarians/World Association of Wildlife Veterinarians for the Hari Jalanka Prize for Contributions to Veterinary Conservation Biology (1997) and winning the Silver Shovel Award with Kevin Brumby (Zoological Parks Board of New South Wales, Australia) for captive breeding of the endangered mallee fowl (Leipoa ocellata). Currently Rupe is President of the Australian Association of Veterinary Conservation Biologists, and in the past has worked as a private veterinarian in West Australia and Tasmania, a curator/veterinarian for the Zoological Parks Board of New South Wales at Western Plains and Taronga Zoos, as well as a biologist/project manager on Macquarie Island. There he investigated a decline in the numbers of endangered southern elephant seals. Recently Rupe headed-up a team investigating chick mortality in shy albatross (Thalassarche cauta) on Albatross Island, Bass Strait. He currently coordinates a team whose primary objective is the development of a National Wildlife Health System for Australia, answering to the Office of the Chief Veterinary Officer (Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry). Rupe is married and has a little boy (four years) and a girl (six months), is a rugby league fan, and plays blues harmonica badly!

Jacob Mwanzia - VSG Regional Coordinator for Sub-Saharan Africa
Senior Veterinary Officer for the United Arab Emirates
Jacob Mwanzia, currently the Senior Wildlife Veterinary Officer for the Environment and Wildlife Management Section in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (UAE), is responsible for the medical care of a wide range of mammals and birds throughout the Emirates' wildlife sanctuaries. Through this position, Jacob implements national wildlife research plans, manages staff, oversees the budget, conducts training and develops health protocols, as well as liaising with the scientific community and the public. In the field, Jacob provides technical support during wildlife capture attempts and translocations. Jacob graduated from the University of Nairobi in 1989 with a Bachelors degree in Veterinary medicine (BVM) and in 1992 he received his Masters degree in Veterinary Public Health (MVPH). After graduating, Jacob was a field veterinarian with the Kenya Wildlife Service where, over a period of six years he worked with a diverse range of species. Other projects in which Jacob is currently involved include health monitoring of semi-captive Arabian oryx in the United Arab Emirates, disease surveillance of desert hare (Lepus capensis) and management and nutritional assessment of semi-captive wildlife in UAE. Jacob has a special interest in conflict resolution in wildlife management based on his experiences in Africa.

Jaime Samour - VSG Regional Coordinator for North Africa and the Middle East
Medical Director of the Fahad bin Sultan Falcon Center
Dr Jaime Samour is Medical Director of the Fahad bin Sultan Falcon Center which, when complete, will be the world's largest falcon medical, research and teaching facility. Jaime's career as a veterinarian started at Veracruz University in Mexico where he graduated with honours in August 1978. After graduation, he worked at small, large and exotic animal practices in El Salvador, his native country, from 1978 to 1980. He then obtained a Wildlife Management Diploma from the post-graduate school at Chapingo University, Mexico. Shortly after, Jaime crossed the Atlantic to study at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). As a visiting research fellow at ZSL, Jaime worked on a series of projects involving mostly birds and reptiles. While still based at ZSL, he earned a Masters degree and PhD through the Royal Veterinary College, University of London. He then began working in the Middle East, first in Bahrain, where he worked with falcons and other birds, mainly conducting surgical sexing. Later, Jaime was given a position at the al Areen Wildlife Park as the Senior Veterinary Officer where he was responsible for the health of a large collection of ungulates (hoofed mammals) and birds from Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In 1993, Jaime became the Head of the Veterinary Science Department at the National Avian Research Centre (NARC) in Abu Dhabi. While at NARC, Jaime, along with Tom Bailey and several other colleagues, designed and executed one of the most comprehensive and ambitious avian research programmes to date. Jaime has authored and co-authored over 150 publications on wildlife disease.

Marcela M. Uhart, Med. Vet. - VSG Regional Coordinator for South America
Field Veterinary Program, Wildlife Conservation Society
A veterinarian with the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Field Veterinary Program since 1996, Dr. Marcela Uhart is an Argentine citizen, born and raised on a ranch in the Argentine pampas. From an early age, she was determined to become a vet to better protect the creatures living next to, and often in conflict with, farming operations in her country. The lack of wildlife subjects in local veterinary school curricula and her desire to work with wildlife led Marcela to become active in conservation organizations, volunteering in their offices and education programmes while she was still a student. Shortly after, she had the opportunity to volunteer as a field assistant for WCS biologists and field veterinarians who were establishing a wildlife health monitoring programme in Patagonia. It was there that she received her first training from WCS field vets and learned how she might apply veterinary medicine to wildlife conservation. That summer changed her life. Now a WCS field vet herself, Marcela has worked ever since to address the critical shortage of training opportunities for young veterinarians in Latin America. Professional outreach remains a major focus of her work, collaborating with local universities and leading workshops in several Latin American countries.

Marcela spends much of her time in the field, collaborating with numerous non governmental organisations and researchers in Argentina by providing veterinary expertise in wildlife handling and immobilizations, translocations and health monitoring of wildlife populations. She has worked on sea lions, elephant seals, penguins, small carnivores, caiman and raptors, as well as "agricultural-conflictive" species such as rheas, large rodents and large ungulates (hoofed mammals), including guanaco and pampas deer. Through her ongoing work with the WCS, Marcela has forged relationships with government agencies as well as local research institutions, and helps introduce new policy measures to benefit wildlife. An example of this was the establishment of a program to control agricultural pesticide use, implemented with the support and endorsement of a research government agency known as INTA. As a consultant to field researchers and local conservation groups Marcela has traveled to Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador and other Latin American countries. In November 1998, she became one of the founding members of the first Association of Latin American Wildlife Veterinarians. As the VSG coordinator for South America, she hopes to reinforce and revitalize the relationship between wildlife specialists from the developed and developing nations, in an effort to bring excellence and available expertise to the benefit of local professional development and biodiversity conservation.

Pradeep Malik VSG Regional Coordinator for South Asia
Senior Reader & Head, Dept. of Wildlife Health Management, Wildlife Institute of India
Years ago, wildlife veterinarian, Dr. Pradeep Malik realized that India's once rich biodiversity was considerably depleted and decided to use his veterinary expertise to conserve wildlife. Today, Pradeep is Head of Wildlife Health Management at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) where he has worked for the past 15 years. Here he provides veterinary medical support for institute projects; immobilizing wild animals and conducting studies of infectious diseases in both wild and domestic species; carrying out ecological and genetic studies, overseeing translocations and release of captive-raised animals, and developing programmes to minimize wildlife-human conflicts. Pradeep and the health team at WII also provide technical assistance to State Wildlife Agencies with health management, wildlife immobilization and translocation of wild animals. Increasingly over the last few years, the department has been responding to the demand for specialized training courses in wildlife health management and consultation for protected area managers. Pradeep also worked with Dr. F. Josh Dein at the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wisconsin (US) to develop a nationwide programme entitled "Indian Wildlife Health Co-operative (IWHC)". This programme began in 1995 to protect the health of wildlife resources in India and is a collaboration between the Wildlife Institute of India, United States Fish & Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Health Research Center, and five Veterinary Schools in India. Drs. Malik and Dein are also trying to strengthen and expand the IWHC to include other veterinary schools in India.

Jorge Paredes - VSG Regional Coordinator for Mexico, Central America and Caribbean
Royal Veterinary College, London (working on Masters degree)
Jorge Paredes was born in Mexico, a country he believes is rich in biodiversity and strong cultural contrasts. Growing up in Latin America, he was often astonished by the natural beauty while concerned about the "health" of the ecosystem. It was during Jorge's high school years that he started to travel around the remote areas of Mexico's National Parks, learning about local community members' views towards conservation. After Jorge's first year of veterinary school, he volunteered for field work in Africa where he explored the wildlife of Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, immersing himself in primate ecology and the risks and benefits of ecotourism in African National Parks. It was this trip that opened his eyes to the need for multidisciplinary collaboration as a means for finding solutions to the world conservation crisis. After veterinary school Jorge went to work in Congo as part of a primate reintroduction project, where he had the chance to experience the fascinating culture of the other side of the African continent and to see the reality of working in a country suffering political instability (and later on civil war). After Congo, he traveled to South Africa, working in wildlife translocation and conservation. After Jorge's years in Africa he decided to go back to Mexico to join the staff of the Mexico City Zoo's General Direction (there are three zoos in Mexico City) as the Field Wildlife Veterinary Coordinator. During this time he collaborated with the Wildlife Conservation Society providing veterinary expertise in wildlife management, immobilizations, bio-sampling and health assessment of wildlife populations in zoos, different protected areas and national parks. Currently, Jorge is at the Royal Veterinary College (part of the University of London and the Zoological Society of London), working towards a MSc in Wild Animal Health. He is relishing this opportunity to improve his research skills and to share his viewpoints with international scientists working on conservation strategies in different parts of the world.

Koichi Murata - VSG Regional Coordinator for East Asia
Department of Wildlife Science, College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University
Koichi, from Kobe, Japan (the city famous for its earthquake) has a varied background in zoo and wildlife medicine. His first foray into wildlife medicine was as a parasitologist, earning a PhD in the subject at Gifu University. Koichi then began his career as a zoo veterinarian, spending the next 23 years at Kobe Municipal Oji Zoo where he worked with every species imaginable. Despite the diversity of animals he worked with, he developed a special penchant for endangered birds, especially the Oriental white stork (Ciconia boyciana) and Rock ptarmigan (Lagopus mutus). Koichi's recent work in the field has combined his love for avian creatures with his early PhD work during investigations into specific blood parasites in the Rock ptarmigan and their influence on the bird's population decline. As part of this field project, Koichi has traveled to the "alpine zone" of Japan, an area inhabited by these elusive birds, to collect biological samples. These trips have required arduous treks up 3,000m slopes - a feat that makes Koichi feel forever young! Back at sea level, Koichi is an Associate Professor for the Department of Wildlife Sciences at Nihon University.

David Jessup - VSG Regional Coordinator for the United States and Canada
California Department of Fish and Game
Dr. David Jessup is the Senior Wildlife Veterinarian of the California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG). His laboratory in Santa Cruz, California, responds to environmental disasters (such as oil spills and die offs) involving marine mammals and birds, investigates the effects of various forms of pollution, conducts pathology and epidemiology research and service on marine species, cooperates with and provides the biomedical perspective on a variety of environmental and ecological field research efforts, and provides animal care for a limited number of sea otters involved in conservation research.

"I've been at this for over 27 years now and these days others do much of the intellectual heavy lifting. My job is to make sure everyone gets paid, that we stay on track and keep moving forward, that we do good science, but also that the science informs policy decisions".

Long term support of several Federal and State agencies and a number of universities and non governmental organisations are central to the success of the CDFG programme.

Before he started working on marine species, Dave had developed programmes to address the health and welfare needs of deer, elk, bighorn sheep, pronghorn, bears, cougar, wild turkeys and waterfowl. "I was fortunate enough to get into wildlife veterinary medicine very early on, there were only a handful of vets working full time in wildlife conservation, when it was just beginning to be accepted and recognized as a really cool thing to do with your life. It was what I was put on this earth to do and I have been lucky enough to find the support to build programs and help others enter this side of the profession. I get a lot of satisfaction from seeing my colleagues and intellectual children take wildlife medicine to levels I've only dreamed of."

Dave has also worked on wildlife projects in Mexico, India, Zimbabwe and South Africa. As the VSG regional coordinator for North America, he hopes to foster and encourage cooperation and collaborations that will bring more intellectual, financial and organizational resources to bear on problems in developing nations. He also hopes to promote ecological perspectives on health that include human and livestock interests and to continue to see the integration of preventive veterinary health perspectives into the management of North American wildlife.

Kai Frölich - VSG Regional Coordinator for Europe
Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin
Kai Frölich, from Germany, joined the Veterinary Specialist Group in 1997 to lend his expertise on captive and free-ranging wild animals having qualified as a veterinary surgeon at Berlin Free University in 1990. He was recently appointed as regional coordinator for Europe but his research into wildlife health takes him to countries such as Argentina, Poland, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Africa.

Since 1992, Kai has been a research scientist at the Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research where he has gained much of his experience in the field of wildlife diseases. In 1993, he received a doctoral degree at Berlin Free University, for his thesis "Bovine viral diarrhea (BVD/MD) in different free-living and captive cervid populations". In April 2000, Kai earned a second doctorate on "Characterization of the health status of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) in heavily polluted areas (cadmium, lead, PCB) in comparison to slightly polluted areas". His impressive research record continued, and in 2001, Kai finished an additional thesis on "investigations of the epidemiology of selected infectious diseases in wildlife", also through Berlin Free University. His current research focuses on viral infections of wildlife and disease as an ecological indicator, and potential regulator of populations in the wild. Current projects in Germany include investigations into infections in free-ranging carnivores; epizootiological (disease outbreak) and ecological investigations on the status of the European brown hare (Lepus europaeus); serological investigations into foot-and-mouth disease in free-ranging roe deer; transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), or prion diseases in free-ranging and captive cervids, and "pinching off" syndrome (severe symmetrical loss of flight feathers on both wings) in sea-eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla).

Károly Erdélyi - VSG Regional Coordinator for Eastern Europe
Department of Wildlife Diseases, Central Veterinary Institute, Budapest
Károly Erdélyi currently works at the Central Veterinary Institute of Budapest where he specializes in diagnostic pathology, parasitology and epidemiology issues in wildlife health, while in his "free time" he is completing his Ph.D. on diseases of wild carnivores in Hungary.

Since Károly's graduation from veterinary school, he has been championing wildlife health issues across his region, and has a special penchant for carnivores. To bolster his ability to make a difference in this field, after vet school, he earned an MSc. in Wildlife Biology and Management. During his graduate and post graduate studies he gained research experience in brown bear ecology, parasitology, transportation stress of pheasants and ecology and diseases of endangered raptors.

In 2002, Károly and a team of researchers completed a three-year assessment of the health status of nestlings and endangered raptor species in Hungary and are now preparing their first publication. The team is working closely with Spanish colleagues on the molecular comparison of pox samples from different species of wild birds, including bustards, the Spanish Imperial Eagle and other raptors.

Although sometimes described as an "uphill battle", Károly believes that the discipline of wildlife disease, and its role in conservation, has recently made great strides in Hungary. Károly and his colleagues are in the process of founding an association (or rather a college of zoo and wildlife veterinarians) that he hopes will have an ever-increasing focus on conservation issues.

Károly has also been working with various collaborators to help raise awareness of wildlife health issues in the field. He has made progress on this front by working with NGOs like WWF who are initiating reintroduction and in situ conservation projects in his region with species such as pond turtles and beavers. He is also working with local national parks on improving a long established Great Bustard hatching and rearing project.

Károly was very excited to be asked to be the VSG Regional Co-coordinator for Eastern Europe. He has always held IUCN in great esteem and values the way in which the organization strives to provide solid scientific information necessary to solve conservation problems. The request for him to join the VSG came as a sudden and unexpected honour and what he calls a "reassurance" whilst facing his many challenges.

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Tom Bailey - VSG Regional Co-Coordinator for North Africa and the Middle East
Veterinarian, Dubai Falcon Hospital
Dr. Tom Bailey currently works as a Falcon and Wildlife Veterinarian for the Dubai Falcon Hospital, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Tom's career as a veterinarian started at Bristol University in England where he graduated in 1991.

While at Bristol he was project leader of the Savannah Wildlife Project in 1991, a joint veterinary/educational community project at the Chipangali Wildlife Trust, Zimbabwe. This was the first post graduate expedition organised by Bristol University vet students and was sponsored by the University, Bristol Zoo, the Royal Geographic Society and the Zoological Society of London.

In 1992, after a spell in mixed practice in Devon, UK, Tom was a consultant for the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust and he worked with the Nene Recovery Team in Hawaii. In 1993 Tom was offered a position as veterinary officer at the National Avian Research Center (NARC) to develop the veterinary science department. During his time at NARC, Tom completed a part-time PhD through the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology entitled 'Disease, therapeutics and preventive medicine in avian captive breeding programmes: the example of the houbara bustard'.

In 1999 Tom moved to the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency of Abu Dhabi where he co-ordinated veterinary research and established the Abu Dhabi Falcon Hospital and a wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center. In 2001 Tom returned to the UK where he took the MSc in Wild Animal Health at the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Veterinary College.

Recently Tom completed a Certificate in Zoological Medicine through the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and has become a Diplomate of the European College of Avian Medicine and Surgery. In addition to clinical work with raptors, Tom is the supporting clinician for some wildlife collections in Dubai and co-ordinates an internship programme for the hospital. Tom has authored and co-authored numerous wildlife disease publications and is currently co-editor of Falco, the newsletter of the Middle East Falcon Research Group (www.falcons.co.uk/MEFRG/).

List of Specialist Group Profiles

SSC Veterinary Specialist Group Profile SSC Veterinary Specialist Group profile