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Capacity building for wildlife health professionals: the Wildlife Health Bridge

Meredith, Anna; Anderson, Neil; Malik, Pradeep; Nigam, Pafag; Thomas, Alexandra; Masters, Nic; Guthrie, Amanda; Davidson, Hannah; Patterson, Stuart; Amin, Rajan; Skerratt, Lee; Kock, Richard; Sainsbury, Anthony

Authors

Anna Meredith

Neil Anderson

Pradeep Malik

Pafag Nigam

Alexandra Thomas

Nic Masters

Amanda Guthrie

Hannah Davidson

Stuart Patterson

Rajan Amin

Lee Skerratt

Richard Kock

Anthony Sainsbury



Abstract

The Wildlife Health Bridge (WHB) was established in 2009 with the aim of improving the expertise and knowledge base of wildlife health professionals in biodiverse low and middle income countries. The WHB centers around partnerships among educational institutions: the Zoological Society of London, the Royal Veterinary College, the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, the Wildlife Institute of India, and the University of Melbourne Veterinary School. The vision of the WHB is to grow global capacity in highly trained wildlife health professionals through educational programmes and a synergised network. The WHB aims to provide quality education in wildlife health, ecosystem health and wildlife biology, facilitate the interchange of students between collaborating countries for research studies and provide a global graduate network of wildlife health professionals. In addition to established Masters’ level wildlife health training programmes run by the partner organisations, the WHB has developed a collaborative field-based course, Interventions in Wild Animal Health, provided annually in India since 2016, with planned future delivery in additional biodiverse, low and middle income countries. To date, this field course has trained 138 veterinarians, enhancing local and international capacity in managing emerging wildlife health issues and building global professional linkages. The WHB’s Wild Animal Alumni network facilitates networking and exchange between WHB institutions and graduates, with over 701 members from 67 countries, half of which are biodiverse low and middle income countries. Collaboration between educational institutions has allowed both for new ideas and ongoing lessons to be learned regarding delivery of materials. By providing bespoke training of veterinarians and wildlife biologists in the principles and practice of wildlife health, the WHB is building global capacity in trained wildlife health professionals, with an aim of impacting conservation practice that will benefit human, domestic animal and wildlife health.

Citation

Meredith, A., Anderson, N., Malik, P., Nigam, P., Thomas, A., Masters, N., …Sainsbury, A. (2022). Capacity building for wildlife health professionals: the Wildlife Health Bridge. One Health & Implementation Research, https://doi.org/10.20517/ohir.2022.03

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 11, 2022
Online Publication Date May 27, 2022
Publication Date May 27, 2022
Deposit Date Oct 31, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal One Health & Implementation Research
Publisher OAE Publishing
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
DOI https://doi.org/10.20517/ohir.2022.03

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