Speaker Bios
Bridey White
Bridey White is the Technical Officer in Oiled Wildlife Response at Wildbase, Massey University.
Bridey has worked with animals since her early teens, originally in a zoo setting, then in 2005 she moved to Palmerston North taking up a position at Massey University, Wildbase to provide husbandry and nursing care of native New Zealand wildlife. This role was a real privilege as Bridey was working with some really special native species. She was able to utilise rehabilitation and husbandry skills gained from her zoo career, refined working at Wildbase Hospital, in a national oil spill response event in Oct 2011, the grounding of the C/V Rena on the Astrolabe Reef, Tauranga. As part of the Wildbase response effort Bridey managed a team of volunteers in the husbandry and care of oiled wildlife with the aim to provide rehabilitation care until release.
Since 2014 Bridey's role has been in Wildbase Oil Response Team as a Technical Officer. She provides support for oiled wildlife response activities including assisting with the development of Oiled Wildlife Response training courses. Her rehabilitation and husbandry skills complement the existing expertise and knowledge in oiled wildlife response within Wildbase. Bridey enjoys teaching undergraduate students in avian behaviour, training zoo animals, caged bird welfare, oil spill response and managing compassion fatigue. During her long career working with animals it has become apparent, that to do the best for animals we need to build resilience in the profession. To support this, we engaged with Massey University School of Social Work to collaborate in research of wellness in wildlife carers and to develop CPD for veterinary nurses in compassion fatigue.
Angelina Martelli
Angelina is the Senior Wildlife Veterinary Nurse at Wildlife Hospital Dunedin. She has been working as a Veterinary Nurse for over 16 years and working in Wildlife for approx. 11 years. Angela started out at Wellington Zoo in 2008 and moved to Dunedin to open the Wildlife Hospital at the start of 2018.
Dr Janelle Ward
Janelle is the current Chairperson for WReNNZ and also works part-time for the NZ Department of Conservation, where she is tasked with improving wildlife rehabilitation processes, technical advice for permits and finding solutions for ongoing issues. She also works part-time for a fenced wildlife sanctuary in the Waikato, where she manages the species work. Janelle has a passion for species conservation and restoration of New Zealand's unique ecosystems and loves working with native birds. In her spare time she creates and delivers training for wild bird care and rehabilitation. Other interests include long beach walks, yoga, music and hanging out in nature.
Rosalie Goldsworthy
Rosalie is an experienced wildlife rehabilitator specialising in Yellow-eyed Penguins and long-term member of WReNNZ.
Rosalie began rehabilitating wild birds in Days Bay, Wellington in September of 1994. Rosalie and her neighbour, Vivienne, decided to do this together and it did not take long to realise that there was a real need and they established the Eastern Bays Little Blue Penguin Foundation, as a charitable trust to help fund their work. It was a steep learning curve and in their first year Rosalie and Vivienne helped over 270 birds, 64 of which were natives. Within 7 years they had worked with 94 different species.
From the beginning they consulted with the best experts they could find – Taronga Zoo for seabirds, Silvia Durant for garden birds, Dawn Morton for natives, particularly Harriers, and many others. Their centre closed in 2001 and Rosalie moved to Moeraki to continue the work for Penguin Rescue. She rehabs mostly penguins and manages the 2 largest Yellow-eyed Penguin colonies left on mainland New Zealand, which make up 20% of the population.
Steve Attwood
Steve has a broad experience of journalism, public relations, community engagement and training gathered during more than 40 years in the communications sector. As a communications manager, Steve has a record of proven success in media issues management and crisis response.
His approach to consultation, community engagement and public information has earned him the respect of his colleagues, clients and community organisations. In his time as a journalist, Steve had the Maori, political, local authority, agriculture and business reporting rounds.
His experience in covering and representing the rural and agricultural sector is informed by his own background. He is South Island born and has a deep knowledge of rural Canterbury.
Privately, Steve is a published author (one of his short stories has been made into the award-winning New Zealand short film ‘The Colonel’s Outing’) and is a skilled photographer (his wildlife and native plant photography has appeared in a number of national and international publications), writer and blogger about our landscapes, native wildlife and conservation issues.
For more information visit Convergence.
Karen Talbot
Karen has been a volunteer for 4 years at the South Island Wildlife Hospital. She had a Medical Professional background before retiring, which has become useful when learning the intricacies of wildlife care. Karen is also a very keen amateur photographer.
Ron Lindsay
Ron has always had a passion for birds, as a youngster he started keeping and breeding cage birds, a hobby which went on well into his adult life. He studied Stroud’s book on avian medicines, diagnosing and making up potions to cure ailments in his birds. More recently as a wildlife photographer he has done several exhibitions on New Zealand Birds. Ron's involvement with the New Zealand Raptor Trust started with a phone call from Vaughan Skea asking if he would be interested in being part of an organisation rescuing and rehabilitating native raptors. Ron responded positively and was soon part of the trust board of the new organisation. Ron's current responsibilities are Secretary, PR and Education.
Dr Laura Young
Laura works part time for the Kea Conservation Trust and part time for DOC on kea research and on plant conservation among a range of other topics. Laura completed her PhD in alpine ecology in 2012. Her research showed that kea are by far the most important dispersers of seed of most mountain plants and declining kea populations may be detrimental for native plants in the long term. Laura has also been involved in a range of biodiversity monitoring, research and conservation projects – from kea to plant communities in Panama – and enjoys working with local communities to achieve conservation outcomes. She has a three-year old girl who just loves coming along on field trips into the hills!
Thomas Stracke (MSc)
Thomas has a masters degree in biology (study on penguin parasites), rehabilitates penguins at Christchurch Penguin Rehabilitation and works as an Intensive Care Nurse in Christchurch Public Hospital.
Tracie Poole
Tracie is a Wildlife Rehabilitation Technician at Central Energy Trust Wildbase Recovery, located in Palmerston North.
Tracie has been raised in a conservation conscious household and has always been involved with animals and nature. She started her education at Bay of Plenty Polytech studying Animal Care, followed by Animal Handling and Rural Conservation where she decided to pursue further avenues in animal behaviour, particularly wild animals. She successfully completed Unitec’s Captive Wild Animal Management as a student keeper at Wellington Zoo which has given her the building blocks on which to apply her ongoing wildlife rehabilitation efforts. Tracie said:
“What I wish to achieve as a rehabilitator is to increase and fine tune my expertise in caring for and rehabilitating our wildlife, have a positive effect on native wildlife populations and by doing so, contribute to our nation’s wider conservation goals. I am glad to be a part of the wildlife rehabilitation community.”
Dr Pauline Howard (BVSc)
Pauline is a small animal veterinarian at the Hornby Veterinary Centre in Christchurch. with a keen interest in wildlife. With an enthusiastic, capable group of volunteers, Pauline helps run the South Island Wildlife Hospital. They have a small hospital in the carpark of Willowbank Wildlife reserve. South Island Wildlife Hospital offers support to local wildlife, veterinarians, SPCA, rehabbers and DOC. They have enjoyed treating a wild range of birds – from juvenile shags with parasite problems, penguins and Harrier hawks to kea with lead poisoning. Pauline has a very supportive husband, Peter and three adult children Alice, Andrew & Martin.