Dr. Damien Higgins - Veterinarian

Dr. Higgins is a contract pathologist assisting the Registry with special projects, such as compiling teaching cases for this site.

Damien Higgins graduated from the University of Qld, Veterinary Faculty in 1990. After graduation he worked in companion and farm animal practices in Australia and the UK, moving into zoo practice in 1994 at Currumbin Sanctuary and then at Taronga Zoo where he completed a Master of Veterinary Studies in Wild Animal Medicine and Husbandry.

In addition to performing fieldwork on koala, northern hairy-nosed wombat, bandicoots and kangaroo, he was employed by the Australian Marine Mammal Research Centre and the Australian Antarctic Division, to develop anaesthesia protocols and health-monitoring programs for leopard and crabeater seals and assist with pack-ice seal population surveys during three Antarctic summers.

Published works cover echidna reproductive physiology, seal anaesthesia, koala immunology and pathology, and a collection of clinical and necropsy material from stranded cetaceans. He recently completed a PhD at the Faculty of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney, on the pathogenesis and mmunology of chlamydial disease of koalas and is continuing research in the role of environment and host response in disease susceptibility in koalas.

Recently he has taught clinical and general pathology at the Faculty of Veterinary Science and has developed teaching cases in ruminant disease for the faculty, and has been constructing similar wildlife disease cases for the Australian Registry of Wildlife Health.