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Blogs from the Field

A healthy future for wildlife, people, and planet.

Ava kneels next to a sedated lion lying on the ground at night. The lion’s face is partially covered with a cloth, and Ava is holding a bag of medical supplies, smiling at the camera. A vehicle is visible in the background.

It’s 3 a.m. in the Namibian bush. A team of us circles around a sedated lion to take DNA samples while two other male lions lurk nearby. We haven’t gotten an ounce of sleep, and I haven’t had a hot meal in a week, but I've never felt more alive than at this moment....
Foggy landscape at sunrise

The sun had long since submerged beneath the tree line, and the Bueng Pan ranger station was settling in for the evening. Smoke from the kitchen fire drifted over the grassland, and a radio burbled away to itself happily in Thai....
Kristina Ceres in Tasmania.

In October 2023, I had the opportunity to travel to Tasmania, the island state of Australia, to learn more about one of its most iconic species, the Tasmanian devil. Tasmanian devils are the world’s largest carnivorous marsupials, and they play a key ecological role as scavengers and in suppressing populations of invasive species....
Free-roaming dogs in Nepal

It was 5:30 am and I was already sweating when I stepped out of my wooden sleeping hut and into the steamy dawn at Nepal’s Chitwan National Park.  It was already 85°F but would reach 105°F before noon. I was up before the sun to complete my summer intern research project - a census of free-roaming domestic dogs in the park’s buffer zone....
Head veterinarian, Dr. Ana Bastos, and veterinary intern, Sarah Abdelmessih with the cheetah cubs after their vaccinations.

This past summer, with support from Cornell’s Expanding Horizons Program, I had the opportunity to work with the Cheetah Conservation Fund in Otjiwarongo, Namibia as a veterinary extern....
Ana Pantín with sheep in Tajikistan.

I vividly remember the night before I left for Tajikistan; I was nervous, excited, and utterly exhausted. I had just finished wrapping graduation gifts for my roommates and had just about moved everything out of where I was living for the last two years (including my bed)....
Camera trap image of an adult dhole

Six years ago, on a regular workday, I was sitting at my desk tagging photos from a camera trap survey. Late in the afternoon, a picture of an uncanny species baffled me. It looked somewhat like a domestic dog, but taller and longer-bodied....
Portrati of a Snow Leopard

It all started with an unexpected text message - “Do you know of any veterinarians willing to assist a snow leopard collaring project in a remote corner of eastern Kyrgyzstan?” One jumped immediately to mind…me!
Amir Sadaula collecting blood from an immobilized rhino.

As I write this in summer 2020, it is almost six months since the first reports that a mysterious new pathogen was emerging in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Given the pandemic that ensued, few of us remain unaware of the omnipotent reach of wildlife-origin microbes to disrupt our health, our economies and our liberty....
Amur tiger in winter

The fate of our wildlife lies at the hands of our policy makers – an obvious statement perhaps, but sometimes these forces work in unexpected ways....