Southern Cross University is partnering with Wildlife Recovery Australia to give veterinary students rare, hands-on experience in wildlife care and conservation. The collaboration will help address Australia's critical shortage of veterinarians while producing graduates ready for rural and mixed-animal practice.
/prod01/channel_8/media/scu-dep/study/veterinary/images/Veterinary_Medicine_20250526_3218.jpg)
Play video Video transcript
So we know Australia is facing a shortage of veterinarians. This critical skill gap is affecting the level of care that we can provide to our communities, to our animals, and to our wildlife. Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital have established themselves as a critical part of this region, and importantly, as part of our national response to the challenges wildlife are being faced with every single day.
Wildlife are presented to general practice vets all around Australia every single day, and we just felt that, um, they weren't getting a fair deal. Uh, what generally happens is boxes turn up, they get put out the back in a, in a veterinary clinic. At the end of the day, the vets or vet nurses will look at it, and determine whether the animal makes it through the night, or is put to sleep on the spot. So the euthanasia rate and the death rate was just too high. We do everything from triage to treatment, to surgery, to rehabilitation. It is our aim to get the animals back out into the wild where they belong. For us as a teaching group, this is an authentic veterinary workplace where we will work with the veterinarians and veterinary staff who service this facility, work with them to train and teach our students.
These authentic work environments are what we, we plan to introduce during every year, during every opportunity, but certainly in every year of our two veterinary courses. Educating students is really important to me because I want a future with wildlife, and I want wildlife to have the same privilege, the same care, and the same dedication that our domestic friends get.
So part of the partnership between Byron Bay Wildlife Hospital and Southern Cross University will include student placements in the Wildlife Hospital. So those students are gonna be the only ones in Australia that will get hands on experience in a wildlife hospital with wildlife. The demand for knowledge and, and experience with wildlife is huge, and we're gonna work with Southern Cross Universe to meet that demand.
It's estimated right now in Australia that we're probably 1500 vets short. As far as wildlife goes, we're gonna be popping out wildlife trained vets. The regional veterinary practices in particular are finding it hard to recruit and retain, um, veterinary staff. The labour shortage is more acute in the regions.
I would always highly recommend the degree and the university to anyone looking. It's been amazing and the people are amazing.
The partnership delivers hands-on wildlife-training to both future veterinarians and veterinary technology students in a collaboration which strengthens the University's new veterinary courses and the national pipeline for practice ready vets.
Discipline Chair of Veterinary Sciences, Professor Rowland Cobbold, said: "Southern Cross Veterinary Technology and Vet Medicine students, through our unique distributive model, will have access to an authentic clinical training environment managed by expert wildlife vets and nurses. Students will get direct clinical exposure to wildlife triage, treatment, surgery and rehabilitation. These skills are increasingly vital to regional practice where vet clinics regularly treat injured native animals alongside domestic patients."
Founder and CEO of Wildlife Recovery Australia, Dr Stephen Van Mil, reiterated the demand for wildlife knowledge and clinical experience: "Wildlife are presented to general practice vets across Australia every single day. Too often the animals arrive in boxes, are triaged late, and don't get the outcome they deserve. Knowledge and skills in the unique physiology and anatomy of a diverse range of native animals are required to provide effective treatment for wildlife patients."
"Through this partnership, Southern Cross University Veterinary Sciences students will be among the very few in Australia to get hands-on experience with authentic wildlife cases treated at our three facilities: our bricks and mortar dedicated wildlife hospital at Lennox Head, the Byron Bay Raptor Recovery Centre, and Wildlife Recovery Australia (mobile) Hospital."
This partnership will also help address the shortage of veterinarians across NSW and regional Queensland.
"It's estimated in Australia that we're probably 1500 vets short, and we're going to be addressing this shortage through qualified and trained wildlife vets," Said Dr Van Mil.
Southern Cross has a distinctive focus on early clinical exposure and work-integrated learning, with students applying knowledge in real settings. In the Veterinary Technology program, clinical training begins from the first year, while Veterinary Medicine students undertake intensive animal husbandry early and progress to clinical rotations in the third year – developing practice-ready graduates grounded in regionally relevant practice.
"Our mission is to produce practice-ready vets – less purely theoretical and more prepared to step straight into dealing with wildlife, a variety of animals and rural practice," said Professor Cobbold.
"Being from the region and for the region, we also prioritise professional connection and clinical pathways."
