This summer I'm investing in a HEALTHIER future for me & for endangered species. I'm aiming to run 100K starting on 15th August. That is 20k per day (almost a half marathon a day!)for 5 consecutive days for Wildlife Vets International. Your support is greatly appreciated and will keep me motivated to reach my fundraising target and complete my challenge. Thank you

I wanted to let you know where it is likely that the funds you raise through this challenge will go. We have just been given the opportunity to provide support for an Indonesian workshop that is being hosted by Forum Harimau Kita (The Sumatran Tiger Conservation Forum) and backed by local government. The goal is to design a national surveillance programme for Canine Distemper Virus in wild tigers and to equip those working on the frontlines with the knowledge and skills they need to make this a reality.

Knowing the level of threat from a disease can only be determined through collecting samples from individuals and analysing the samples to determine the level of canine distemper virus or antibodies. Then the level of the threat to a species can be determined and hopefully mitigated. As you can appreciate this isn’t an easy job in wild species. This workshop is a hugely important and exciting step forward and will result in the world’s first coordinated national tiger surveillance programme for CDV.

 Typically, this workshop has taken ~8 years to come to fruition and when it does, it comes with very little notice. The workshop is due to be held in September. If you would like to know more about how this workshop and the subsequent surveillance goes, please sign up to our newsletter.