Foreword
Looking through this book is like looking out over a river, whose water is knowledge.
Many of the authors, whose contributions are intermingling currents, are known to me, and I can hear in my mind their voices.
So too can I hear the voices of those whose knowledge contributed upstream, but who are not in these pages. And I have a sense, through stories that I’ve heard, through the communities that they created, through the paths that they forged, of those whose currents lie further back, in the early tributaries that, over many decades, have coalesced into the river that is before me right now.I see the coming together of stream and current, where teacher has guided student, where colleagues have reached out to each other, where friend has shared hard earned experience and wisdom with friend. These are so deeply familiar to me, these enduring relationships in the wildlife health community, and their generosity and openness.
Who could have imagined, in the wild ranges where these streams of knowledge sprung and flowed noisily, that they would come together to make this mighty river? Who could have imagined, in decades past, when hospitals were sheds, when intuition was all you had, when you only had a few others to turn to, that this work before me now would ever exist? And yet those of that time spent countless hours, at the margins, merging into long persistent lives of observation, learning and teaching, building the foundations of knowledge that we now take for granted.
If careful observation, with open eyes, ears and mind, fed these streams and currents, then the gravity that has drawn rain from sky, drawn rain down to stream, and streams down to river, is love. I feel this love, and I have seen it as the driving force behind so many whose names are in these pages, and whose half-forgotten names lie beyond them.
It is a love of the world, of the beauty and wonder of nature, of the wild animals we share this place with, and of those rare and precious moments in which those wild lives cross paths with ours.When we run dry, when our experience and knowledge reach their limit, we will come here to this river, this book, to be nourished so that we can continue in our work. The knowledge that has been given freely is there for us at our need. We will keep it close by, coming to it often, and it will be an important part of who we are as wildlife health practitioners.
Where will this river flow? Perhaps the lands ahead will be parched. But the river will flow on, nurtured by our wildlife health community, and as it winds its way into the world that is coming, it will become an ever more important place for us to turn to.
Associate Professor Andrew Peters BVSc (USyd), MAN- ZCVS (Avian health), PhD (CSU)
Associate Head (Research & Graduate Studies)∕Associate Professor in Wildlife Health and Pathology
School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences
Charles Sturt University, NSW, Australia