Ursula Höfle is a veterinary scientist specialised in infectious diseases of wild birds important for conservation and at the interface of wildlife, domestic animals and man. After earning her veterinary degree from the veterinary faculty in Hannover in 1995, she worked for seven years in wildlife rehabilitation and forensic post mortem diagnosis of wildlife casualties in central Spain. She earned a PhD on viral infections of Spanish birds of prey from the veterinary faculty of the University of Giessen in Germany in 2002. After a postdoc in wildboar TB she joined the National research Institute on Game biology (Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos) at the university of Castilla – La Mancha and devoted to research. At IREC she is responsible for the area of avian diseases and pathology. Her primary interests are shared diseases such as avian influenza, West Nile fever or pathogenic enterobacteria but also diseases relevant for conservation such as avian trichomonosis. Since 2011 white storks, their changing migratory habits, association to landfills and their health status are a major part of her research as are endangered species such as the bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), the red kite (Milvus milvus) or the Iberian Imperial eagle (Aquila adalberti) .