Joel graduated in 2016 from the Onderstepoort Faculty of Veterinary science and after completing his compulsory community service year in 2017.
He began his wildlife career in 2018 under the mentorship of Dr. Cobus Raath at WildlifeVets.com. In 2020, he and Dr. Ben Muller embarked on a new journey with WildScapes Veterinary & Conservation Services. Joel is dedicated to wildlife conservation, extending his role beyond veterinary work, to the greater over-arching challenges that our ecosystems face. His career highlights, to name a few, include collaring forest elephants in the Odzala-Kokoua NP and fitting collars across multiple species in Iona NP with African Parks, placing ossicone units on Tanzanian giraffes with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, capturing Kulan in Kazakhstan with Conservation Solutions, being part of the landmark rewilding of rhinos from the African Parks rhino re-wilding project and participating in wildlife captures across the USA. He has played a vital and ongoing role in dehorning over 1000 rhinos in Greater Kruger National Park since 2019 and assisted in the capture of 260 elephants in Malawi with Conservation Solutions, so far working in 12 African countries. Joel’s passion extends to predator and pachyderm conservation. He holds an MSc in leopard immobilisation and currently contributes to a comparative immobilisation protocol for free-ranging black rhinos. Beyond the sphere of veterinary science, Joel sits on the board of the Lion Management Forum of South Africa, is a part of the IUCN Giraffe Specialist Group and is a director of the NGO Back to Africa.