Birds Vet / Avian Vet Melbourne

Melbourne University
Both Dr Phil and Dr Pat are Senior Academic Fellows at Melbourne University and we regularly have third and fourth year veterinary students, both from Australia and overseas, doing rotations at our clinic, particularly to learn about veterinary care for birds but also for dogs, cats and pets. See the link Vet Students for further details.

School Involvement
We give talks to schools at various year levels and participate in career days advising students about careers in veterinary science. We support local schools and kindergartens in fund raising projects.

Helping sick and injured wildlife
Working in conjunction with volunteers of Wildlife Rescuers and the Wildlife Care Network, we treat surrendered sick and injured wild birds for free or substantially reduced fees.

Biolinks and wildlife corridors
There is little purpose to rehabilitating injured wildlife if concurrent efforts are not made to try to retain and restore wildlife corridors or biolinks and to promote wildlife conservation in schools and local communities. Dr Pat has been a long time member of the Wader Study Group, who study and promote conservation of shorebirds along the East Asia Flyway and the group regularly stays at Harewood, her home on Western Port Bay when they are canon netting birds in there. She is also involved with the Cardinia Environment Coalition in trying to promote wildlife corridors along the waterways leading into Westernport Bay.

Saving Bali Starlings and restoring Orangutan forest habitat
Indonesia has the second highest number of threatened and endangered bird species in the world (103). Since 2007 Pat has been visiting Indonesia regularly and working with local veterinarians there. The clinic actively supports our colleague Dr Bayu Wirahuydha and the Friends of the National Parks Foundation www.fnpf.org in their efforts to address this huge challenge using a sustainable holistic conservation approach.