Wildlife Health Talks

This is the podcast of the Wildlife Disease Association (WDA, https://www.wildlifedisease.org). Our host Dr Catharina Vendl chats with wildlife health professionals including researchers, vets, pathologists and more, about the joys and challenges of their job and the emerging issues of wildlife health locally and worldwide. All of our guests have a longstanding affinity with the WDA and a true passion for wildlife in common. So brush up your knowledge of current wildlife issues and One Health with Wildlife Health Talks.

Wildlife Health Talks is a science podcast hosted by WDA Communications Committee, with 92 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 82.

WDA Communications Committee hosts Wildlife Health Talks, a science show with 92 episodes published.

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  Episode #93

  #93 Amelie and the Taming of a Lyssavirus Panic (Germany)

  Oct 4, 202629 minS4

  When a Daubenton's bat tested positive for a rabies-related virus at a kindergarten in central Germany, the story moved faster than the facts. Headlines screamed "rabies panic," and Dr. Amelie Lisa Arnecke stepped in to stop good science from being drowned out by panic. In this episode, the veterinary pathologist and Leipzig University postdoc walks us through how one grounded bat triggered a vaccination campaign, a media storm, and a 500-person public event, and what she's learned about getting risk communication right before the next one. Amelie also shares how that same case is now shaping a student project on human-bat exposure risk, and what it was like turning the tables to host her own podcast on bats and rabies. Related links Bats in Germany Research project "Bat Health in Central Germany – From Pathology to Protection" (Leipzig University) : Research on bat health, infectious diseases and conservation: https://www.vetmed.uni-leipzig.de/en/institut-fuer-veterinaer-pathologie/forschung/forschungsprojekte/bat-health-in-central-germany Deutsche Fledermauswarte (German Bat Observatory) : Information on native bats, monitoring and species conservation: https://www.deutsche-fledermauswarte.org/?lang=en NABU (Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union) : Facts about bats and practical tips on bat conservation: https://www.nabu.de/tiere-und-pflanzen/saeugetiere/fledermaeuse/index.html (German only) Rabies RKI Guide to Rabies (Robert Koch Institute) : Information on transmission routes, diagnostics, prevention and what to do after possible exposure: https://www.rki.de/DE/Aktuelles/Publikationen/RKI-Ratgeber/Ratgeber/Ratgeber_Tollwut.html (German only) National Reference Laboratory for Rabies (Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut) : Background on rabies diagnostics and lyssaviruses in wildlife: https://www.fli.de/en/institutes/institute-of-molecular-virology-and-cell-biology-imvz/reference-laboratories/woah-who-fao-and-nrl-for-rabies/ EUROBATS – Bat Rabies Information Leaflet : Information brochure on bat rabies in Europe: https://www.eurobats.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/leaflet/Bat_rabies_2024-08_WEB_spreads.pdf Scientific publications Reinhardt F, Wendt S, Pfeffer M, Freuling C, Müller T, Lübbert C. (2026). Rabies in Europe: Epidemiology, clinical management, and prevention. Dtsch Arztebl Int; 123: 108–114. doi:10.3238/arztebl.m2025.0220. Tarantola A. (2017). Four Thousand Years of Concepts Relating to Rabies in Animals and Humans, Its Prevention and Its Cure. Trop Med Infect Dis. Mar 24;2(2):5. doi:10.3390/tropicalmed2020005. Shipley R, Wright E, Selden D, Wu G, Aegerter J, Fooks AR, Banyard AC. (2019). Bats and Viruses: Emergence of Novel Lyssaviruses and Association of Bats with Viral Zoonoses in the EU. Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, 4(1), 31. doi:10.3390/tropicalmed4010031. Li H, Yuan F, Yao Y, Wang J, Li C, Liu Y, Yang J, Zhang Z, Liu J, Liu J, Yang Z, Jin W, Wen D, Shan C, Zheng A. (2026). Ecological vaccination: A strategy to prevent zoonotic spillover from bats. Sci Adv. Mar 13;12(11):eaec0269. doi:10.1126/sciadv.aec0269. What to do if you find a bat Wildtier SOS : First aid and contacts for injured or orphaned wild animals: https://www.wildtier-sos.de (German only) CDC – Bats and Rabies : Advice on handling bats safely and what to do after contact: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/prevention/bats.html We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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  Episode #92

  #91 Randy and the blast from WDA's past (USA)

  Sep 6, 202628 minS4

  For most of this week at the WDA conference in Chicago, Dr. Randy Zarnke has been the one holding the microphone. He is the reason the WDA History Project exists, having had the idea of recording the association's long-timers before their stories are lost. So in this episode we turn it around, and Randy answers the questions. Randy spent 24 years as the wildlife disease guy at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and has recorded 202 oral history interviews with veteran Alaskan hunters, trappers and bush pilots. He shares what makes someone open up on tape, what surprised him about the careers of WDA's most successful members, and what he would tell a student who feels too intimidated to approach the group of longtime WDA members standing in the corner. Spoiler: they will almost always turn around and ask your name. We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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  Episode #90

  #90 Billy Karesh and how the One Health term was born (USA)

  Aug 23, 202629 minS4

  The term One Health didn't come out of a strategy meeting or a peer-reviewed paper. It came out of an interview with a journalist who wouldn't drop a question. Dr. Billy Karesh was explaining why Ebola killing gorillas mattered, and the reporter kept pushing: is this a human disease or an animal one? Eventually Billy said there's just one health, the pathogens don't care about our categories. Recorded in Chicago for the WDA History project, Billy looks back on building WCS's field veterinary program from nothing in 1989, the first WDA meeting he actually remembers, and what it means to hand the next generation a rapidly evolving organisation in a rapidly evolving world filled with wildlife health challenges. Plus the direction he's quietly moving in after 40 years with animals. It involves plants. Link Billy Karesh's LinkedIn profile We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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  Episode #89

  #89 'Waking Up the Snake' by Anne Poelina (Australia)

  Aug 9, 202624 minS4

  Who could believe a blue-tongued lizard can teach you how to be a good human being? Professor Anne Poelina can, and by the end of this episode you might too. For International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, we're re-playing Anne's Carlton Herman Memorial Lecture from the 2024 WDA conference in Canberra. A Nyikina Warrwa woman, scientist, filmmaker and poet, Anne is the inaugural chair of the Martuwarra Fitzroy River Council in Western Australia's Kimberley, and she has spent decades arguing that you cannot separate land, water, people and non-human kin. Her talk, "Waking Up the Snake", is about waking up consciousness: why the Whanganui's legal personhood puzzled her elders, why the destruction of habitat to create a "nature repair market" makes no sense, and why the wildlife health community, already practised at caring for things that can't speak for themselves, might be exactly the audience she needs. Ancient wisdom, hard politics, and a stubborn coalition of hope. Links Check out Anne Poelina's website . We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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  Episode #88

  #88 Maria Teresa and a single drop of finch blood (Mexico & USA)

  Jul 26, 202630 minS4

  What if the birds you walked past this morning were quietly fighting off bacteria that have been devastating poultry farms for decades, and you'd never know, because they show absolutely no signs of being sick? That's what Dr. Maria Teresa Reinoso Perez discovered when she started looking inside seemingly healthy house finches in Mexico. More than 70% of the birds she sampled were carrying Mycoplasma gallisepticum - a pathogen that causes severe disease in US bird populations, yet not one of them looked ill. The infections were invisible from the outside, but their immune systems told a very different story. In this episode, Maria Teresa takes us from her hometown of San Luis Potosí, where she handled her very first finch as an undergraduate, to Cornell and back - explaining why finding a poultry pathogen quietly circulating through wild ecosystems matters for all of us, what won her the 2026 BioOne Ambassador Award, and what she's chasing next in the Galápagos. Links Read Maria Teresa's essay on her research on finch leukocytes that won her the BioOne Ambassador Award! Maria Teresa's website and social media: website Instagram X We'd love to hear from you ... share your thoughts, feedback and ideas.

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