Sara Kophamel

Australian Government | ABARES · Department of Climate Change Energy the Environment and Water

The impact of a range of different threats has resulted in the listing of six out of seven sea turtle species on the IUCN Red List of endangered species. Disease risk analysis (DRA) tools are designed to provide objective, repeatable and documented assessment of the disease risks for a population and measures to reduce these risks through managemen...

Wildlife health assessments help identify populations at risk of starvation, disease, and decline from anthropogenic impacts on natural habitats. Here, we provide an overview of available health assessment studies in non‐captive vertebrates, and propose a framework to strategically integrate health assessments in population monitoring. Using a syst...

Animal health is directly linked to population viability, which may be impacted by anthropogenic disturbances and diseases. Reference intervals (RIs) for haematology and blood biochemistry are essential tools for the assessment of animal health. However, establishing and interpreting robust RIs for threatened species is often challenged by small sa...

Adipose tissue is the main energy store in sea turtles and fluctuates in response to dietary conditions and external stressors. Monitoring programmes commonly use body condition indices (BCIs) to infer the nutritional and health status of sea turtle populations. However, BCIs have poor predictive power for estimating adipose tissue. We introduce th...

Bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) is gaining popularity in wildlife studies as a portable technology for immediate and nondestructive predictions of body composition components, such as fat-free and fat masses. Successful application of BIA for field-based research requires the identification and control of potential sources of error, as well...

Loss of adipose tissue in vertebrate wildlife species is indicative of decreased nutritional and health status and is linked to environmental stress and diseases. Body condition indices (BCI) are commonly used in ecological studies to estimate adipose tissue mass across wildlife populations. However, these indices have poor predictive power, which...

The impact of a range of different threats has resulted in the listing of six out of seven sea turtle species on the IUCN Red List of endangered species. Disease risk analysis (DRA) tools are designed to provide objective, repeatable and documented assessment of the disease risks for a population and measures to reduce these risks through managemen...

A three-year-old female intact Leach's giant gecko (Rhacodactylus leachianus) kept for breeding purposes was presented for mass removal of the right ovary. Six weeks after discharge from the hospital, ultrasound and radiography rechecks revealed a similar morphological alteration on the left ovary and ovariectomy of the left ovary was also performe...

La directiva europea sobre bienestar animal establece que se deben proporcionar "materiales manipulables" a cerdos de cebo con el fin de enriquecer su ambiente y de estimular su comportamiento natural. A lo largo de este artículo se plantearán diversas cuestiones: ¿Por qué es importante la conducta exploratoria y cuáles son las consecuencias si no...

The aim of this study has been the compilation of a group of cases of reptiles with reproductive system problems and the evaluation of their respective anomalies by means of echography. The materials and methods have, therefore, comprised the study of seven patients, two control and five that had possible reproductive system problems that were anal...

We have developed an animal model of hepatocellular carcinoma by implantation of VX2 tumor fragments as a method that will allows us to test antineoplastic protocols in future trials. For this, small fragments of VX2 tumors were surgical implanted in the left lateral hepatic lobe of six New Zealand white rabbits. After performing ultrasonography an...