Conservation Medicine program

Our veterinary science students receive training in wildlife and exotic pet medicine. To foster graduates with advanced skills for a changing world, students also receive training in conservation medicine, which centres on biodiversity and species conservation through health optimisation. This extends the One Health approach taught in prior units, which recognises the inter-relationships between human, animal and environmental health. 

Students are trained in wildlife and exotic pet medicine to enable them to effectively deal with the sick and injured wildlife and exotic pet clinical cases that they will inevitably encounter when working in either urban or rural private practice. Our students are taught in the Conservation Medicine program’s teaching facility at Perth Zoo, as well as at local wildlife rehabilitation centres.

Our final year students can apply to study Advanced Topics in Wildlife, Zoological and Conservation Medicine, one of six stream units available to final year students. This unit focuses on aspects of wildlife, zoological and conservation medicine, and students undertake learning activities via clinical placements at collaborating partner institutions throughout Australia and overseas.

Students are also able to apply to participate on annual Conservation Medicine field trips to Namibia and Tasmania. These trips provide students with an immersion experience in the fields of wildlife and conservation medicine.

The Conservation Medicine program has a strong track record of innovative and contemporary research focused on wildlife health and conservation, both in Australia and throughout the world. Research in this group focuses on wildlife health and disease within ecological contexts in order to conserve endangered species and investigates the inter-relationships between human, animal and ecosystem health, and the impact of environmental change on these relationships, using a One Health approach.