Visiting Fulbright scholar to investigate what the US could learn from Australia's response to Black Summer bushfires

Australia's devastating bushfires in the summer of 2019 and 2020 had a profound impact on Jacey Cerda.  As news of the widespread destruction and loss of more than a billion animals spread internationally, Dr Cerda, who was working as an attorney in Colorado at the time, says she was so invested in wildlife conservation that she decided to pursue a career as a conservation veterinarian. 

Five years on, Dr Cerda is a postdoctoral researcher at Colorado State University and was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship, a program allowing her to learn more about the response to the fires that first drew her attention to Australia. Dr Cerda has made Federation University's Gippsland Campus her base from February until the end of May and is looking to understand how and why experts spanning several disciplinary fields collaborated to protect biodiversity from the Black Summer bushfires. 

The decision to move to veterinary medicine was not a complete jump into the unknown, having studied wildlife biology at university and worked as a field biologist, including doing compliance work. This involved ensuring oil and gas companies were operating within environmental policies and laws. Her work and data revealed decreasing populations of mule deer, pronghorn and other important species in western Wyoming, and that oil and gas companies were drilling within buffer zones set for the protection of at-risk species. 

"I had all this data that was important for wildlife, and the government didn't really care. Nothing was done. I decided I should go to law school to understand how and why the government could ignore scientific data," Dr Cerda said. She then ended up practising as a trial attorney for several years.  

"I knew I wanted to come back and do wildlife conservation work, so I decided on the veterinary degree because it allows you to do research and on-the-ground clinical animal welfare work. Australia’s 2019-2020 fires took place right before I started veterinary school." 

Dr Cerda says she will explore the responses to the fires, looking at biodiversity management and on-the-ground wildlife welfare management. She says some of the interventions during the fires were progressive and not seen before in the United States, where many states also battle destructive fires. 

"I am looking at the response during the bushfires and using that as a case study to understand how to build effective biodiversity management and wildlife welfare teams that can help wild animal species before, during and after fires," Dr Cerda said. 

"It's a thorough investigation and evaluation of what happened during the fires, what interventions occurred, and how and why they occurred. I'm particularly interested in the pressures that encouraged some of these interventions – was it public concern for wildlife and biodiversity, was it political pressures, or was it international pressure because of the articles that I saw? 

Dr Cerda is particularly interested in how the laws and policies around biodiversity management and wildlife welfare during fires have developed in Australia compared to the US.  She plans to create team-building frameworks and educational and policy toolkits that she can take home and use to advocate to US wildlife agencies and decision-makers on why they need to start developing plans to protect wildlife and biodiversity in the face of disasters and climate change. 

"That's the ultimate goal, to apply what we learn. Taking the best lessons and best practices from the Australian context and response and then bring that to the US to start building plans to protect species ourselves in this age of megafires." 

The Fulbright Postdoctoral Fellowship is a flagship foreign exchange program that allows candidates to travel internationally for research and study. Dr Cerda was looking at postdoctoral research options and began looking for people who were "invested in, had done research in and lived in" regions affected by the fires. She found Wendy Wright, Federation University's Professor of Conservation Biology, online and got in touch. 

"I thought the Fulbright would be an excellent opportunity, so I just called Wendy out of the blue. We had a Teams chat – it was early 2023 when I first reached out – the Fulbright application was due that September.  We had a great conversation and then started on the application, along with my postdoctoral mentor at Colorado State University, Dr Tracy Webb, for the Fulbright fellowship.”  

 “After several rounds of review, I was accepted as a Fulbright Scholar with my fellowship ultimately funded by the Regional Universities Network in Australia and hosted by Federation University’s Future Regions Research Centre." 

 Dr Cerda says growing up in rural western Wyoming has allowed her to feel at home in Gippsland. Her work is taking her all over Victoria for research interviews, which form a significant part of her data collection. She will also visit Kangaroo Island, which suffered significant damage and loss from fires, and Sydney for more interviews. 

"My primary focus is on Victoria, but I'm also interviewing people in other states to get different perspectives on how responses occurred and how interventions for biodiversity occurred," she said. 

"I most look forward to telling the story of the unique Australian perspectives regarding biodiversity management and wildlife welfare before, during, and after fires. I'm very excited to go home and tell that story.  

"We'll write the typical formal peer-reviewed publications that are done in research, but I'm also really hoping to do some more creative writing – getting more of the story out for people to think more in terms of human interaction with the environment in the face of megafires."