The Smithsonian‘s conservation biology global health programme One Health runs at Mpala Research Centre, in collaboration with Kenya Wildlife Services and Ol Jogi Wildlife Conservancy.

Mpala hosts a veterinary research fellowship under One Health.

This research fellowship is offered to two individuals, one Mpala veterinarian and one foreign veterinarian with the aim that the veterinarians with different backgrounds can learn from each other as well as exchange knowledge and expertise with each other. The fellowship allows for the vets to participate in wildlife clinical interventions as well as conduct research with One Health focus.

One Health recognises that the health of the environment, humans, and animals, both wild and domestic, are linked. The multidisciplinary approach calls for holistic research methods and is very open to collaborations with different types of researchers. Therefore, fellows work closely with researchers at Mpala to help enrich their research from a vet’s perspective.

In addition, the Mpala vet fellow is also involved with projects at Mpala that require animal immobilization such as collaring projects as well as projects that require collecting animal samples. Currently our fellow is working on a Rhino reproductive hormone study at Ol Jogi conservancy where rhino monitoring rangers and conservation managers help to collect fecal samples from the female eastern black rhinos in order to further understand their population growth levels in hopes of conserving the endangered species.

From the Mpala vet: https://nationalzoo.si.edu/global-health-program/news/poop-scoop-how-dung-helps-us-understand-rhino-reproduction