Wildlife Veterinarian & Affiliated Graduate Student

Jess Bodgener is a wildlife vet and conservationist whose research has focused on wild carnivore health. For her doctoral research she is evaluating the health of free ranging leopards in Nepal. Nepal has been identified as a global hot-spot for human-leopard conflict, and her work will investigate whether poor health could be one of the factors contributing to this. Alongside this, she is evaluating existing management strategies to determine the success rate of specific interventions and identify sustainable long-term solutions. Throughout the project she will be working closely with local partners to develop and expand Nepal’s existing wildlife health capacity.

She is supported in these efforts by a multidisciplinary team of advisors including Dr. Martin Gilbert of the Cornell Wildlife Health Center, Prof. Jim Groombridge and Dr. Mahesh Poudyal at the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, and Dr. Himal Luitel of the Agriculture and Forestry University, Rampur, Nepal.