Zookeeping, wildlife rescue, and endometriosis with Ellesha Veness

Welcome back with the WIW podcast listeners!For our May episode we were joined by Ellesha Veness, who is an experienced zookeeper and professional wildlife rescuer. Ellesha shared her career journey with us from breaking into the industry, to working as a zookeeper in some of Australia's most iconic zoos; The Australian Reptile Park and Australia Zoo, to her role as a wildlife rescuer at the Australia Zoo Wildlife Hospital. In the latter role, Ellesha undertook some seriously unique and exciting wildlife rescues of our native animals, and we were lucky enough to gain insight into a few of these rescues. Ellesha was also generous enough to talk us through her long battle with endometriosis. We heard about the hurdles she has been faced with dealing with menstrual health within the wildlife industry, as well as what changes she would like to see to better accommodate other women working in the industry. This episode is not only for women dealing with menstrual health issues, but anyone dealing with chronic health problems, and further to all people in the workplace (particularly leaders) who can help support the large percentage of women who are battling these often invisible diseases. Our listeners were left with some fantastic advice from Ellesha- we cannot wait for you all to hear!You can follow Ellesha on instagram at @elleshaveness, and access her blog post about endometriosis here:https://lifeofellesha.wordpress.com/2025/03/09/another-endometriosis-story/?fbclid=IwY2xjawKmWDJleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETFySVYzSzJqMHVEaXhvbFVrAR56ib0ouE3_327ICU-kZ6HeRRIkvsvwqV8VkvNpfiRStwZKfSr3XGU97fF8QQ_aem_HmAA1vK5GkYtw-A2ETzYbg Any questions or queries contact [email protected] to our resources:Website: https://women-in-wildlife.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/women.in.wildlife/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100077369770841Linked in: https://www.linkedin.com/company/womeninwildlifeMusic by Thomas Hagen from SLAUX