Hello, it's Anthony Chadwick from the webinarett welcoming you to another vet chat podcast. We're very fortunate today to have Doctor Fabiola Quesada on the line, who is a member of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons and also an expert in wildlife conservation medicine. Fabiola is the CEO of the Wild Spirit, veterinary charity, and, Perhaps Fabiola, just to start, tell us a little bit about what the charity does.

Hi Anthony, thank you very much for your invitation and for the intro. Well, we are, a charity that we realise we are veterinarians, all of us, and we realise that we vets have a lot of to to do to wildlife conservation, to wildlife conservation. We are based in South Africa.

And we're based in Europe as well. And thank you to all the work that we have been doing for many years in South Africa, we realised that there's a a big gap and need to, to bring knowledge and can in general capacity building throughout the rest of Africa. So this is basically what currently we are doing.

We are increasing equipment. We are bringing equipment and knowledge throughout, well, in different countries in Africa. Currently we have a main project in Gabon, other project in Tanzania, and in DRC as well.

That's fantastic, Fabiola, and I think it's, it's really interesting because, you know, as vets we can go over to Africa. There are obviously lots of projects going on, but they're not always veterinary lad. And some of them can be actually a bit misleading, you know, with things like petting lions and so on.

This is the sort of stuff that we should look out for if we're going to either work in Africa with, with wild animals or do some sort of tourism. We've got to look for these sustainable ethical options which obviously you are. How do we kind of look out for that and make sure that we're going to the right one apart from obviously.

Booking in for one of your South Africa or Gabon courses that I know are coming up in 2023. Well, I think it's extremely important prepared research and try to look if you're a veterinarian and you want to do veterinarian experience with wildlife, try to look for projects that they are living, lead by veterinarians like ours. I mean, if you come to our website directly, you see, it's myself and my colleagues.

We are there, all faces are there, all degrees are there. So, if you are trying to get involved in a project that there are no veterinarians involved, obviously, it is quite challenging. So what you've mentioned just now about petting lions.

Yes, there is like a trend on the fashion of more and more people or more and more volunteers wanting to come to Africa to do some good and, and it's a good initiative, but it can be extremely negative in a way that we never thought about. So currently there is a very unethical industry where there are people that are breeding lions and other species, but maybe mainly lions. Bringing them, taking them from their parents at a very early age just for volunteers to, to pet them.

So then the volunteers come in here thinking that they are saving these lions from, from the death, and they spend a few weeks, a few months with them just feeding them, and then they go back to their countries. And obviously these breeders always tell them that these lions are going to be reintroduced back to the wild, which is not possible. Lions that they were breed in captivity, they cannot be reintroduced in the wild because they are a threat to humans, both in ecotourism or even it is outside in absolutely open areas.

So basically all these lions at the end, they go to the can hunting, so the people shoot them. In the areas where they cannot escape or they kill them directly and they go to the bone trade to the Oceanic countries. So it's a terrific, a terrible future for these animals.

I think it's really fascinating, you know, we're in a very similar business as well because we're trying to do good for sustainability, but actually, or, you know, in my case a lot of training for vets all around the world. It's, it's very much there's a, there's a practical side to that, you know, there's the sustainability side, but there's also the training. So we're both kind of educational companies because I think our mission is very much to make veterinary education accessible and affordable to vets around the world so that the vets in Africa, in Asia, in Europe, all over the world can learn.

You're obviously doing the same thing with bringing vets in from. US from Europe, etc. But also training up local vets and giving them access to the equipment they need to do the job, which is, which is fantastic.

Perhaps tell us a little bit about first of all the courses that you're doing. I know our own Dr. Theo Castro came on one of your courses.

Tell us a little bit about how those courses work. So we started already 12 years ago. Our website for this one I want to visit is the wildspirit.com.

And we wanted to, to fulfil this gap. I know, we know that we are, there are a lot of veterinarians that they want to learn about wildlife medicine, and South Africa have this structure that can provide and we have the, the experts as well here to provide this kind of knowledge. So we welcome 2 to 3 times a year, we welcome veterinarians from throughout the planet.

And then in the 12 days programme, we trained them on wildlife medicine and conservation as much as possible. But then again, we realised that with that, we are not covering a huge gap, which is in the rest of Africa. Even if they we are bringing the knowledge and there is some, some universities that are providing knowledge to, to different countries, there is still the basic needs.

We have this project, for example, in Gabon, we are, we are creating capacity. There is we are protecting 400,000 extra. We are working with local veterinarians, with local researchers.

And we have a research station in the middle of nowhere, dream place surrounded by gorillas, and this research station they don't have even the basics of water, electricity, and absolutely some most of the basic equipment for, for research. There we are studying diseases that can go either way from humans to Great A from great apes to humans. So yeah, when we work in Africa, we need to think on the very difficult logistics and we need to, to break through that.

So basically we have created the, all the structures that, that, that needs to be done to protect this wildlife and at the end of protect humans as well from diseases. Fabiola, we live in the UK in probably one of the most nature denuded places on the planet, you know, the, the, the actual vegetation is very low, the the the tree cover, etc. And there's a tendency, isn't there for us to then go in and say, oh, you know, Brazil needs to stop cutting its rainforest down or Africa needs to get, you know, stop getting rid of its wildlife, whereas we've done all of those things.

We can really be accused of hypocrisy coming in as a, as a European into an African country. We did it 2 or 300 years ago. Is there a danger that with some NGOs that they come in with ideas which are very European and they don't listen enough to the local population?

I think, I think the majority there, unfortunately, and I think this is one of the reasons why we started the foundation, Wall Street fun. We, even if I'm originally Spanish but I have been living in South Africa for the past 12 years and I always said I grew up in Africa with Africa local people, because this is where I always developed my, my veterinary career. And I think that it's a totally different approach when you try to solve problems and understanding what are the real needs and together and along with the local professionals.

And yes, even though with an open-minded and international approach. So yes, hypocrisy is a huge problem today throughout in any NGOs or government institution or in general, I think we are. Unfortunate hypocrite, without even knowing that, no, we are still, we are the one that we are consuming this, this wood, that the, the timber that come out of the forest, I mean, from the rich countries, and, so this is something that, that we are creating the problem.

So we need to bring with solutions absolutely saying we destroyed, so now they can destroy it, absolutely not the question. So we are in a world that is getting smaller and smaller. We destroyed, we killed already 60% of the wildlife population on the planet.

We are facing the massive extinction, the 6th 1, the first after the dinosaurs, and definitely something we must do. But that require proper solutions that is that they are practical solutions and they are sustainable solutions for the planet and for the local people as well. I think you're really true, you know, we have a world overshoot Day, and I know the UK hits its use of resources for what the planet can cope with by mid May, mid to late May.

Obviously countries like Tanzania are, you know, very, very late in November, December time. They're living within their resources. It is a problem, you know, with all the carbon offsetting and so on.

We need to. We need to all live a bit more simply, you know, particularly in the West, don't we? Yeah, exactly.

I mean that is one that definitely we need to do. And the other thing, on the other hand, we need to protect the nature, nature areas that we currently have. I mean we have massive forests still, still we do, but unfortunately the only way that they are producing.

Money is by cutting them. It destroying them. So the planet is not even still paying and no one is paying for protecting this forests just to keep them alive, so then they can produce oxygen, so then they can keep us, all of us alive and save us all from things like climate change, for example.

So the planets still need to wake up and invest on protecting this kind of ecosystems. So it's . It's kind of, you know, we are quite of out of our comfort zone, in an area that we are not only treating animals and calculating doses and so on, but all protection it goes much more, it goes in the protection of the whole ecosystem.

Because at the end of the day, if I want to protect wildlife, I'm not protecting one species. I'm protecting the ecosystem where they live and ultimately, absolutely, yes, we protect some of the species like now we have all gorillas, all rhinos and no elephants that we can kill species. That we can focus on them, but originally as well, traditionally the conservation projects that they were focusing on one species at a time, they were not winning because again we need to protect the ecosystem if we want to protect this this species.

I've just recently read a book by David Gilson, who's an expert in insects, professor in the south of the UK. And very much as you said, ecosystems, food webs, if you don't have any insects, the rest of those bigger species also can't survive the birds, and then the bigger birds and then, you know, the mammals and so on. So we need to actually conserve and losing a dung beetle, for example, because we over overwhm our cows can have a massive effect on the whole environment, can't it?

Yes, exactly. The, the book is called Silent, yeah, yeah, it's sitting next to on my, on my table bed, I'm halfway through as well. So, yeah, exactly, I'm talking about in nature everything is connected and we, we think in a, in a system, you know, and we think as veterinarians.

Let's go back to think as a veterinarians. What is a good doctor? These ones that understand the animal, the dog, as a system.

And I understand that pathologies is everything connected. So sometimes you do a surgery and it's localised, but in many occasions, many pathologies, you need to treat it as a full animal itself, no. So exactly, it's happening with nature.

And now let's talk about veterinarians as well and diseases. I mean, by the fact that we are destroying the natural ecosystem. We are bringing out so many diseases that before they were hiding there on the, on, on the balance with nature.

Nature was protecting us from these pathogens that they were happily living on the hiding places and now we are consuming the, the system we're consuming actively is the, the wildlife trade is higher than ever in history. There's more human consuming, they're travelling more than ever. So the, the chances of increasing diseases spillover of disease, diseases are just greater and greater.

And this is like diseases like Ebola and COVID-19 have obviously come from from animal species which, as you say, if we weren't in quite so close contact with them, there would be less of a less likelihood that that would happen. Absolutely. So this so consumption of wildlife is something that has happened historically, but again before it was in a kind of sense of Of a balance because they were less humans and it was, you know, harvesting in a very traditional way, but now it's a commodity, so it's for richers and more and more people want that.

So not only that there is very much few wildlife that the again, the, the demand is way greater. So yes. Exactly we have things like Ebola and we have like things like Ebola or like HIV that directly come from the consumption of, of wildlife and I'm not going to go to the discussion of SARS.

It came from bats or or or or a lab, but the facts are there. And something that we are trying to do throughout our foundation as well is the awareness of, if you just think of the amount of millions that we just spent on COVID or the amount of millions that they were, they spend on Ebola to try to prevent more humans from getting this disease. However, how much millions has been spent on protecting this wildlife and this ecosystem before?

I can tell you 0 very, very little, and still today, so we are still, we're just waiting for new disease to occur, to jump into humans and it's just simply because we are not protecting wildlife. And it's really interesting, you know, you were making the point which I absolutely agree with. We have some as vets, I think we're very good at looking holistically, which maybe even doctors don't do as well as us, but certainly politicians don't.

And I was at COP 26 and you know there's all fine words said, but I think it's so important that this next decade is really pivotal. If we don't get it right this decade, then we're in a real mess. Tell tell us a little bit about, you know, you're talking a bit about it.

What is the situation like for animals like rhinos and lions and elephants and How does maybe the South African model differ from maybe models in places like Tanzania and Kenya and what are your thoughts around that whole area of how we conserve these, these beautiful environments on which some very beautiful species and sometimes not very beautiful ones sit, but those not beautiful ones are still really important for the whole environmental protection, aren't they? Well, you know, talking about different systems can be quite complicated, but let's talk about species and this is, let's bring numbers to wake up everybody and, and it's desperate. So the situation is desperate.

You talk about we have 10 years and this is exactly what we have. I came to South Africa 12 years ago, and that 12 years we have lost half of the population of rhinos on the planet, half of the population of the elephants on the planet and half of the population of the lions. And this is the and we are talking of the most iconic species on the planet.

These ones that we all grow with a little teddy next to us and we all dream and we all grow up with the lion king, and these animals, they're all disappearing. Like disappearing on our lifetime, it's in 10 years' time we don't wake up and we don't do that now. It's not about, you know, awareness anymore.

It's about actions today. It's about helping vets to do their job on the ground. We're talking about they left 25,000 or 23,000 lions in the wild, and that's it, the whole continent.

We're talking about 7000 cheetahs in the whole continent. About 300,000 elephants. In 2016, they were killed only 60,000 elephants.

Now the average is between every year between 10,000 and 30,000. Elephants killed per year. I mean, it's, it's great and this is happening today.

I mean, in our conversation, every one elephant is killed every 15 minutes. And this is happening for the ivory. Rhinos are killed here in, in South Africa, live in the reserve outside there where they live, they come and they kill them for the rhino horn.

Actively just because originally it was to believe that the rhino horn, it was, it was, it could be used as an aphrodisiac for an Asiatic countries. Now currently it's a commodity. So if one day rhinos go to extinction, these people, they have a commodity.

That this, it cannot be replaced. It's not even a diamond that you can look for it. It's gone.

It's finished. So unfortunately we, we are, this is the situation we are facing. So the different areas.

So we have the threats that we're talking here about is the human threat is the greed of humans then for looking for this specific species like elephants is just for the ivory. That's the only reason. Lions is just because of of the trade and now as well the, the just in the reserve where I'm living as well there's a lot of, of, of just when they put the wire and the animals traps that they can, they just put and it's snares, it's snaring thank you for the work, so I mean and they're just looking for any kind of species and this is something that is increasing and increasing.

Then we're talking about the other threat is that the loss of the habitat, more and more humans, more and more houses. There is no place for these poor animals to move around and to survive, and the poor, the ones that they, they manage, then there are diseases that we are triggering that these diseases that are coming from livestock and from humans to them. And again we are triggered in new diseases that they were again on harmony before and now they're affecting wildlife tremendously like Ebola for example on great apes.

So the threats are coming everywhere to this very few wildlife that this is still on this planet. How do we, Fabio, you know, I'm always aware of problems and I always say to people, what are the solutions? How do you see us?

On the ground, how do you see us turning some of these trends around because this is obviously it's not sustainable hunting is it either? Yeah, again, you know, hunting, there is some ways of hunting that it can be sustainable. So, and there's a conversation that is a long conversation.

And they prefer not to go there because it's again it's a long conversation, but there is a way of sustainable, respectful way of some specific species in some areas that hunting can be acceptable and can be sustainable and can be contribute to the protection of species. Again, some specific species and some areas. Let's keep it there.

Do you, do you think that? Tourism can be part of the solution, or is that part of the problem for Africa? Both tourism is a huge solution.

Without tourism, it will not be eco reserves. So the beauty of people coming to visit wildlife, it brings revenue, create is sustainable. It makes understand the local communities that your wildlife alive on their natural ecosystem brings more than that on all these areas, all the ways will be farming lands.

So this is extremely important and as well, every single human that come or I would want to believe that the great majority of humans that come to Africa or to any natural area and they interact with wildlife on the natural ecosystem, they absolutely fell in love with the reality of nature, with the beauty of nature, and then you create awareness and so the people they want to protect. But again, in situations like great apes, for example, create the risk of disease transmission from humans to great apes, and this is why again our job is extremely important to create the surveillance first and then to put the system in place so we don't transmit these diseases, especially the respiratory virus amongst others, to to great apes. We did some great work with Gladys Colima, who's in Bindi with the gorillas, doing a little bit of support for her, but again, that's great to see what they are doing, that the sustainable tourism seems to work.

The number of gorillas are increasing, but obviously, you know, we need to have that distance if we're going to see them that we're not going to give them flu or COVID or whatever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, the beauty of, of their work that they are doing there is absolutely, it's amazing, but we're talking about numbers that they went down to 400 animals and luckily they are increasing now, but how much you had the whole planet with the eyes on this small little population and you have top top organisations in the planet around there to protect this population of gorillas and that's amazing and they must carry on.

But now we need to remember that this the rest of the continent that they leave attention as well. They, and the project I have, for example, in Gabon, I'm talking of the higher concentration of gorillas on great apes in the whole Gabon. I'm talking about 20,000 great apes, and we have zero support.

Just because we, it's not so much media, media around and it was not so famous around and because yes, we are not so the intervention, we are still on the face of habituating these gorillas to humans, so then they can get attention from us. I love the the area that you were talking about there. I think you said 100,000 hectares and I've just recently got control, well.

Had a relationship with the council where we will get 0.1 of a hectare in my local area to grow a community orchard, which will be for the people and obviously you know what you're doing is absolutely tremendous, but we shouldn't forget the power of individuals, individuals doing good as you are doing, but then within your foundation. All of us, you know, I'm still a person of hope that we can turn this around, but it's obviously a really difficult situation as well, isn't it?

I think there are, I must believe that there is hope. I need that to, to keep fighting. I think that's the only way that keep us going, they believe that we can make a change and, and you know what, on the other hand, we are, yes, we are a lot of human destroying.

But it's the first time of history that is a whole generation of people awake, ready to protect this planet. So, basically, what we need to learn to change is, OK, now we want to learn to protect this planet and these are the hopes there. Now we just need to bring the next step is and say how we do it.

But again, this mass of people is there. 20 years ago, it was not so many people that loved wildlife and they, they were aware of climate change and they were aware that we need to do something. And so this is why I really believe, and I, I received a welcome here to South Africa every year, a few, about in total about 40 students every year, and then people hunger.

They're really, they really, all they want to do is to know how they can do something to protect this, this planet. And actually they are, they are the hopes, but again, it's the action need to come now. It is not time for wait anymore.

Hm. Fabiola, how can we potentially help with webinar vet and vet chat? Is there some charitable giving that we can do with the charity while Spirit, or how, how do you think perhaps people listening to this, how can they help as well as the sort of practical things that hopefully they're all acting in a sustainably aware way?

What can they do specifically for you? Well, we will love if they want absolutely . Engage and, and donate to our programmes.

So again, if they want to come and visit Wild Spirit Fund, that's the foundation there, and then we are welcome, you're welcome to go and have a look to our programmes, to do on charity programmes, some people, they have initiative and they want to, to create their own little donation programmes and then be much more close to us. We are totally transparent on that. Then we have the projects as well.

Come and visit the project that we have in Gabon. Come, you guys are welcome. We are open as well to collaborations with universities.

Again, we have projects reserve projects and within the universities and therefore their funds to run the project. And then absolutely we have the projects as well here in South Africa for these veterinarians that they want to come and join us and learn on the ground, they're most welcome as well to come and join us. Fabiola, it's been fantastic speaking to you.

You're so inspirational. Thanks for all the great work you do, muchas gracias, and I hope to see you soon. Hasta Pronto.

See you soon. Thank you very much, and I'm looking forward to chat with you soon again. Thank you so much, Fabiola.

Adios. Adios, thank you.