Veterinary Initiative for Endangered Wildlife

VIEW’s approach to wildlife health is simple, sustainable and effective. We partner with existing organizations and entities and help them develop wildlife health programs by focusing on three critical areas of capacity building: training for local wildlife veterinarians and managers, supporting the development of much-needed wildlife health infrastructure, and facilitating research and disease surveillance to better understand wildlife health risks for population recovery.

All of our work rests on three underlying principles. We work in a straightforward, strategic and collaborative manner. Our methods and approaches are evidence-based, scientifically justifiable, time-sensitive, and represent universal best practices. We transfer knowledge, skills and critical infrastructure to create self-sustaining wildlife health programs and economic impact in the areas and countries where we work; currently India, Nepal and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in the Northern Rockies of the United States.

Dr. Deborah McCauley, Founder and Executive Director, has participated in wildlife field capture in North America, Africa and Asia and specializes in Asian and North American endangered species. She has worked with wildlife organizations including the Wildlife Conservation Society, Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks and ZooMontana. Dr. McCauley graduated from Royal Veterinary College and has won numerous global leadership awards including (at) Ashoka in 2017 and Emily Couric in 2019.

Dr. Gretchen E. Kaufman, Associate Director, is a wildlife veterinarian and One Health educator. Working in academia for nearly three decades, and former Director of the Tufts Center for Conservation Medicine at Tufts University, Dr. Kaufman brings a record of international collaboration with university, governmental and non-governmental wildlife conservation organizations on wildlife health research and capacity building. She has been working in Nepal since 2001.

VIEW began its programming in 2013 in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park where we collaborated with the National Trust for Nature Conservation, the premier non-governmental wildlife conservation organization in Nepal, and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation. Nepal was a perfect country for VIEW to begin its work in because it is rich in wildlife biodiversity that was once abundant but is now threatened by the close association between human development and wildlife in ever-shrinking habitats. This proximity creates ample opportunity for pathogens to flow between these groups and across the landscapes that connect them.
TRAINING: Between 2014 and 2018, VIEW trained over 200 local wildlife professionals in wildlife capture, sampling, care, and rehabilitation. These individuals now have the skills to safely sample dead or diseased animals, process those samples and then, where appropriate, rehabilitate and re-introduce those animals back into their natural habitats or where they may become ambassadors, be representative of their species within a zoo setting, or, where possible, be reintroduced into their natural habitats, such as Bengal tigers, numerous other wildlife and working elephants.
In addition to hands-on training(s) and workshops, VIEW has developed written protocols for anesthetic and medical rehabilitation and capture, diet, and the detection and treatment protocols for the elephant herpes virus. These written protocols assure that VIEW’s training and work can be transferred to other wildlife professionals in a sustainable manner.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Nepal lacked infrastructure and a diagnostic lab. VIEW provided funding, expertise, and equipment to create a working field wildlife diagnostic laboratory including a backup power system (generator, battery and solar panels), built a necropsy facility, and supported a wildlife veterinarian to conduct disease surveillance and provide wildlife care.
View secured research to analyze samples in-country with accuracy and reliability: Tigers can get diseases from cats, dogs, and other animals, and not just from other tigers. In fact, VIEW conducted research on 11 wild Nepalese tigers for exposure to potential disease risks and found that all tigers were exposed to diseases that are shared with domestic animals and/or people. When a tiger gets sick, response time is critical to survival. Diagnostic evaluation and treatment must happen quickly.

Previously, little work had been done to investigate the health status in tigers or other endangered wildlife in Nepal. There is a similar challenge both in the United States and globally – we still do not have enough data and research on disease and its impacts on endangered species. Now, however, VIEW has been increasingly able to compare the tests that are done locally with the diagnose disease where it exists.