Join Vets for Climate Action to hear Wildlife health Australia's, Dr Simone Vitali, discuss wildlife health and climate change: evaluating and responding to emerging issues.

Climate change is a "threat multiplier" that interacts both directly and indirectly with a range of other eco-social variables (e.g. habitat alteration, urbanisation, overexploitation, pollution, tourism, and trade) that impact wildlife health. In this masterclass, we will explore some of these interactions in the context of wildlife in Australia, and describe work being undertaken by WHA to better articulate and understand how wildlife health is impacted by
climate change.

About the Presenter

Dr Simone Vitali (BSc BVMS PhD MANZCVS) graduated as a veterinarian from Murdoch University in 1990, working in mixed practice before returning to Murdoch to complete her PhD. She was the Senior Veterinarian at Perth Zoo for over 15 years and has been involved in wildlife veterinary conservation projects involving a range of species, including Carnaby’s cockatoo, brush-tailed bettong, Christmas Island blue-tailed skink, Australian sea lion and Sumatran orangutan.

In 2022 she was the project lead for the National Koala Disease Risk Analysis, the first national DRA for a wildlife species in Australia. Simone jointed Wildlife Health Australia in 2022 as the Program Manager for Emergencies. This program aims to establish WHA as an active, trusted, and key advisor about wildlife health in Australia's emergency systems. Simone co-authored a chapter on climate change and infectious diseases of animals in the
2022 publication, Climate Change and Animal Health (editors C. Stephen and C. Duncan, eds, CRC Press).

Masterclass Order of Events:

7pm AEDT - Opening Remarks

7:10pm AEDT - Presentation by Dr Simone Vitali

7:45pm AEDT - Q&A with Simone

8:00pm AEDT - Masterclass end