Megafires have killed billions of animals and destroyed millions of acres of habitat in the last few years. For already rare species, these fires can mean extinction. Teams that are focused on protecting wildlife populations and habitats before, during, and after fires are needed to protect species that may otherwise be lost.

This project seeks to help build these teams with the three following objectives:

Objective 1: Determine what elements (funding, supportive local/regional/national law and policies, training, time, expertise, resources, coordination, etc.) are necessary to engage veterinary professionals, ecologists, wildlife biologists, emergency responders and others in Emergency Biodiversity Support (EBS) teams.

• Data will primarily be obtained via evaluation of the Australian response to the Black Summer fires of 2019/20 to understand how and why experts spanning several disciplinary fields collaborated to protect biodiversity in the face of extreme fires. Individuals involved in the response (academics, species experts, wildlife carers, veterinarians, and staff of state government agencies with responsibility for emergency management and biodiversity conservation) will be interviewed using semi-structured interviews.

• Interviews will be analyzed via thematic analysis and relationships between individuals will be analyzed using social network analysis.

• If you were involved in the response and are willing to be interviewed, please reach out, I will be based at Federation University, Gippsland in Australia from Feb 1 to May 31, 2025.

Objective 2: Determine the level of interest in and barriers to US veterinary professionals becoming involved in EBS teams capable of the above goals.

• Data will be obtained via a survey for veterinary professionals in the US, please look out for the survey and fill it out.

Objective 3: Develop a framework that governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations can use to build EBS teams at the local, regional, and national levels.

• Once the above data is analyzed thoroughly frameworks and action plans for developing EBS teams will be developed for the US and then hopefully other countries.

• Please subscribe if interested in the materials we develop from this project.