Dr. Ruth Cromie

Dr. Ruth Cromie gained a PhD for vaccine development in wildfowl from University College, London, in 1991. Since then she has worked on various aspects of wildlife health from diagnostic technologies to environmental management in both wild and captive animals in the UK and overseas including the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, Smithsonian Institution and Hong Kong University. As WWT’s Head of Ecosystem Health, Ruth is responsible for organisational health and welfare standards, plus WWT’s Ecosystem Health programme which includes surveillance, research, advocacy, contingency planning, capacity building and policy work. Ruth regularly teaches and examines wildlife health and conservation biology on a number of post-graduate programmes. Ruth is an active member of the UN-Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)/Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Coconvened Scientific Task Forces on both Avian Influenza and Wild Birds, and Wildlife and Ecosystem Health. Ruth has worked on resolutions for both the CMS and the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands promoting integrated approaches to dealing with health, in particular of domestic and wild animals, as well as recent production of the Ramsar Wetland Disease Manual which is a substantive practical resource written specifically for land/wetland managers.