Teresa Collins
Murdoch University, College of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty Member
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These data relate to 'Career Preferences and Opinions on Animal Welfare and Ethics: A Survey of Veterinary Students in Australia and New Zealand ‘ published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education... more
These data relate to 'Career Preferences and Opinions on Animal Welfare and Ethics: A Survey of Veterinary Students in Australia and New Zealand ‘ published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jvme.0615-091R2
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Abstract: The aim of this research was to determine what veterinary students in Australia and New Zealand consider important for animal welfare and ethics (AWE) competence when dealing with wildlife, and to determine how these priorities... more
Abstract: The aim of this research was to determine what veterinary students in Australia and New Zealand consider important for animal welfare and ethics (AWE) competence when dealing with wildlife, and to determine how these priorities correlate with gender and stage of study. These students were asked to state their gender and stage of veterinary education and to rank the importance of six AWE topics: (1) “disaster preparedness,” (2) “veterinarians' duties to wild animals,” (3) “methods and justification for wild animal use” (e.g., harvesting/ hunting, wildlife parks), (4) “tensions between animal-welfare concerns and environmental concerns,” (5) “the nature and status of semiowned animals,” and (6) “euthanasia,” pertaining to wildlife for competence on the first day after their graduation. Data were then analyzed. Of 3,320 students invited to participate, 556 responded to questions about animals in the wild. The AWE topic ranked as the most important was “veterinarians' duties to wild animals,” followed by “euthanasia.” Senior students ranked “euthanasia” as the most important topic. The rankings of “methods and justification for wild animal use” and “tension between animal welfare and environmental concerns” were significantly less important for students in the later years of study than for those in early years. Male respondents ranked “euthanasia” as more important than female respondents did, especially in later years of study. Senior veterinary students ranked “euthanasia” as the most important AWE topic for day one competency.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Education, Veterinary Education, Australia, Animal Welfare, and 15 moreMedicine, Medical Students, Humans, Welfare, Female, Animals, Male, New Zealand, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Feeling, Career Choice, Curriculum and Pedagogy, Veterinary Sciences, Veterinary Medical Education, and Surveys and Questionnaires
Research Interests: Psychology, Animal Welfare, Medicine, Curriculum, Animal, and 3 moreWelfare, RECREATION, and Animals
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Across the globe, producers are moving from individual housing to group housing for sows during gestation. Producers typically group sows of a range of parities together, although the impacts are largely unknown. This study examined the... more
Across the globe, producers are moving from individual housing to group housing for sows during gestation. Producers typically group sows of a range of parities together, although the impacts are largely unknown. This study examined the behavioral expression at mixing for young, midparity, and older sows. Ten mixed-parity groups were filmed at mixing on a commercial piggery. One-minute clips were edited from continuous footage where focal sows of known parity could be identified, and scored for qualitative behavioral expression. Parity 2 and 6 sows were more calm/tired than Parity 4 sows, who were more active/energetic. Parity 2 sows were more curious/inquisitive than Parity 4 and 6 sows, who were more anxious/frustrated. Correlations between qualitative behavioral expression and activity indicated sows scored as more calm/tired spent a greater proportion of time standing, while sows scored as more active/energetic spent more time performing avoidance behavior. Different body language is likely to reflect physical or affective differences in how sows cope with mixing.
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Research Interests: Psychology and Perception
Public concern about Animal Welfare and Ethics (AWE) is growing world-wide, and the veterinary curricula should reflect this concern. Veterinarians are in a strong position to contribute practically and rhetorically to this area. However,... more
Public concern about Animal Welfare and Ethics (AWE) is growing world-wide, and the veterinary curricula should reflect this concern. Veterinarians are in a strong position to contribute practically and rhetorically to this area. However, veterinarians often have different levels of knowledge of animal welfare science and different levels of capacity to reflect upon the ethical dimensions of their actions. To address this disparity, leaders in the field of AWE education were assembled from all eight veterinary schools in Australia and New Zealand to identify means to fulfil educational requirements in these domains. This paper describes the development of shared on-line curriculum resources (entitled One Welfare) for teaching AWE to undergraduate veterinary students across Australia and New Zealand.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Education, Agribusiness, Animal Studies, Veterinary Education, and 13 moreGender, Accreditation, Animal Welfare, Euthanasia, Medicine, Animal Husbandry, Animals in biomedical research, Welfare, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Rs, Veterinary Ethics, Conscientious Objection, and Veterinary Sciences
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This descriptive study explored how end‐of‐life management was taught to students in all eight Australasian veterinary schools. A questionnaire‐style interview guide was used by a representative at each university to conduct structured... more
This descriptive study explored how end‐of‐life management was taught to students in all eight Australasian veterinary schools. A questionnaire‐style interview guide was used by a representative at each university to conduct structured interviews with educators in a snowball sampling approach. Four categories of animals were addressed: livestock, equine, companion and avian/wildlife. This article focuses on the first part of the questionnaire: teaching the technical aspects of euthanasia. Euthanasia techniques were taught at more universities in clinical years than preclinical years. Clinical teaching relied on opportunities presenting, for example, euthanasia consultations. Few universities gave students a chance to practise euthanasia during a consultation and those that did were all with livestock. Competency in euthanasia techniques is an important aspect of clinical practice and these findings can be used to inform curriculum reviews of veterinary training.
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The prevention of pregnancy is desirable for female cattle destined for sale in the northern Australian rangelands for both economic and welfare reasons. Controlled access to bulls is often not feasible, nor are any non-surgical methods... more
The prevention of pregnancy is desirable for female cattle destined for sale in the northern Australian rangelands for both economic and welfare reasons. Controlled access to bulls is often not feasible, nor are any non-surgical methods currently available. Many females are therefore surgically spayed. This study describes a technique for uterine tube resection (UTR), which leaves the ovaries intact and is performed using a vaginal approach, and compares the outcomes from 70 Brahman cows subjected to the procedure with 60 heifers spayed using the dropped ovary technique. The animals were monitored for 10 days following the surgery. There were no mortalities, and two animals were treated for illnesses after the UTRs and recovered. The animals subjected to both surgical procedures showed signs of pelvic discomfort and mild inflammation during recovery. The cows gained an average of 9.3 kg (SD 14.5 kg) of weight over the 10 days of the study compared to the spayed heifers, which lost 3...
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Traditionally, the main focus in behavioural studies of group-housed sows has been how aggression changes over time, with little attention paid to other (not necessarily negative) aspects of behaviour. For example, it has been established... more
Traditionally, the main focus in behavioural studies of group-housed sows has been how aggression changes over time, with little attention paid to other (not necessarily negative) aspects of behaviour. For example, it has been established that, compared with open group pens, the presence of partial feeding stalls results in reduced levels of aggression over the first 90 min of mixing (Barnett et al, 1992), but there are few data regarding other behaviour. Behaviour is dynamic and negative interactions are not the only welfare-relevant actions, and therefore other behaviour such as investigation (sniffing/interacting with pen or another animal), time spent walking, standing (in the group or stalls) or lying should also be quantified to provide a more holistic picture of sow activity at mixing into groups. There are also limited studies on sows mixed at 5 d post-mating. We predicted that behaviour of sows changes over the 90 min post-mixing and that the expression of aggression is tra...
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The need for undergraduate teaching of Animal Welfare and Ethics (AWE) in Australian and New Zealand veterinary courses reflects - increasing community concerns and expectations about AWE; the demands of veterinary accreditation; and... more
The need for undergraduate teaching of Animal Welfare and Ethics (AWE) in Australian and New Zealand veterinary courses reflects - increasing community concerns and expectations about AWE; the demands of veterinary accreditation; and fears that, unless students encounter AWE as part of their formal education, as veterinarians they will be relatively unaware of the discipline of animal welfare science. To address this need, we assembled leaders in the field of AWE education from the eight veterinary schools in Australia and New Zealand and used modified deliberative polling to identify resources that can address the learning and teaching needs of undergraduate veterinary students in AWE. This paper describes the role of the poll in developing the first shared online curriculum resource for veterinary graduate learning and teaching in AWE in Australia and New Zealand. The poll highlighted the importance of three core learning and teaching strategies to be used in the new resource: sce...
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Animal welfare is increasingly important for the Australian livestock industries, to maintain the social licence to practice, as well as ensuring market share overseas.
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This descriptive study explored how end-of-life management was taught to students in all eight Australasian veterinary schools. A questionnaire-style interview guide was used by a representative at each university to conduct structured... more
This descriptive study explored how end-of-life management was taught to students in all eight Australasian veterinary schools. A questionnaire-style interview guide was used by a representative at each university to conduct structured interviews with educators in a snowball sampling approach. Four categories of animals were addressed: livestock, equine, companion and avian/wildlife. This article focuses on the first part of the questionnaire: teaching the technical aspects of euthanasia. Euthanasia techniques were taught at more universities in clinical years than preclinical years. Clinical teaching relied on opportunities presenting, for example, euthanasia consultations. Few universities gave students a chance to practise euthanasia during a consultation and those that did were all with livestock. Competency in euthanasia techniques is an important aspect of clinical practice and these findings can be used to inform curriculum reviews of veterinary training.
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The feeding and drinking behaviours of sheep were monitored using RFID technology at a commercial pre-embarkation feedlot in Western Australia with the aim of characterizing feeding and drinking patterns of inappetent sheep that might... more
The feeding and drinking behaviours of sheep were monitored using RFID technology at a commercial pre-embarkation feedlot in Western Australia with the aim of characterizing feeding and drinking patterns of inappetent sheep that might allow them to be treated. Feeding and drinking behaviours of sheep were compared with their survival and change in body condition. Patterns of number of visits and the time spent at feed and water troughs were analyzed for a total of 8,206 sheep, representing four consignments that were monitored for a range of 6-31 d. Data for feeding and drinking behaviours were compared for the first 6 d. For animals that were alive at exit, 18.9% of sheep attended the feed trough for less than 0.25 h d-1 (15 min per day) on day 1; this decreased to only 2.4% of sheep by day 6. Of the sheep monitored, 0.93% died (n = 76); Salmonella spp. infection was the leading cause of death (n = 40; 52.6% of all deaths) across all months and was accompanied with inanition. There...
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Across the globe, producers are moving from individual housing to group housing for sows during gestation. Producers typically group sows of a range of parities together, although the impacts are largely unknown. This study examined the... more
Across the globe, producers are moving from individual housing to group housing for sows during gestation. Producers typically group sows of a range of parities together, although the impacts are largely unknown. This study examined the behavioral expression at mixing for young, midparity, and older sows. Ten mixed-parity groups were filmed at mixing on a commercial piggery. One-minute clips were edited from continuous footage where focal sows of known parity could be identified, and scored for qualitative behavioral expression. Parity 2 and 6 sows were more calm/tired than Parity 4 sows, who were more active/energetic. Parity 2 sows were more curious/inquisitive than Parity 4 and 6 sows, who were more anxious/frustrated. Correlations between qualitative behavioral expression and activity indicated sows scored as more calm/tired spent a greater proportion of time standing, while sows scored as more active/energetic spent more time performing avoidance behavior. Different body langua...
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Animal welfare is increasingly important for the Australian livestock industries, to maintain social licence to practice as well as ensuring market share overseas. Improvement of animal welfare in the livestock industries requires several... more
Animal welfare is increasingly important for the Australian livestock industries, to maintain social licence to practice as well as ensuring market share overseas. Improvement of animal welfare in the livestock industries requires several important key steps. Paramount among these, objective measures are needed for welfare assessment that will enable comparison and contrast of welfare implications of husbandry procedures or housing options. Such measures need to be versatile (can be applied under a wide range of on- and off-farm situations), relevant (reveal aspects of the animal’s affective or physiological state that is relevant to their welfare), reliable (can be repeated with confidence in the results), relatively economic to apply, and they need to have broad acceptance by all stakeholders. Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA) is an integrated measure that characterises behaviour as a dynamic, expressive body language. QBA is a versatile tool requiring little specialist equ...
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Understanding live export industry workers’ attitudes and beliefs toward animal welfare can provide insight into their decision-making processes and likely behavior. Industry workers (n = 265) with various roles within the supply chain... more
Understanding live export industry workers’ attitudes and beliefs toward animal welfare can provide insight into their decision-making processes and likely behavior. Industry workers (n = 265) with various roles within the supply chain were surveyed from different global regions. Participants were divided into ten categories according to their industry roles and compared using ordinal regression. Respondents were highly likely to have a positive attitude toward animal welfare; the majority of workers enjoyed working with livestock (95.8%) and agreed that livestock should be treated with respect (97.7%). Workers demonstrated a strong understanding of animal welfare concepts, 168 respondents (63.4%) provided examples of ways they had improved animal welfare in their workplace, and 164 workers (61.9%) suggested ways that animal welfare could be improved further. Most workers (95.8%) agreed that animal welfare was satisfactory in their workplace. Five out of the 24 multiple-choice respo...
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Veterinarians are in a strong position of social influence on animal-related issues. Hence, veterinary schools have an opportunity to raise animal health and welfare standards by improving veterinary students' animal welfare and... more
Veterinarians are in a strong position of social influence on animal-related issues. Hence, veterinary schools have an opportunity to raise animal health and welfare standards by improving veterinary students' animal welfare and ethics (AWE) education, including that related to animals used for scientific purposes. A survey of 851 students in the early, mid, and senior stages of their courses at all eight veterinary schools across Australia and New Zealand was undertaken on their first day of practice (or Day One Competences) to explore how veterinary students viewed the importance of their competence in the management of welfare and ethical decision-making relating to animals kept for scientific purposes. From highest to lowest, the rankings they assigned were: ; ; ; ; ; and . Female students rated , , and significantly higher than male students did across the three stages of study. The score patterns for these three variates showed a trend for the male students to be more like...
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Land transport is an unavoidable experience for most livestock, yet there is limited research comparing animal welfare under different conditions. We video recorded sheep responses during short (2 h) commercial road transport journeys.... more
Land transport is an unavoidable experience for most livestock, yet there is limited research comparing animal welfare under different conditions. We video recorded sheep responses during short (2 h) commercial road transport journeys. Using Qualitative Behavioural Assessment, observers (blinded to the treatments) scored the behavioural expression of sheep and reached significant consensus in their scoring patterns (p < 0.001). There were also significant effects of vehicle crate design (sheep transported in a ‘standard’ crate were more calm/relaxed than those transported in a ‘convertible’ crate), deck position (sheep on upper decks were more curious/alert than those on lower decks), and sheep breed (fat-tail sheep were more agitated/distressed than merino sheep) on observer scores. We only found marginal differences for sheep originating from feedlot or saleyard. Significant effects of vehicle driver (included as a random factor in all but one of our analyses) suggest driving p...
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The welfare of sheep transported by sea is a pertinent issue for Australia’s agriculture industry and a subject of concern amongst the general public. Evaluating the effect of sea transport on the welfare of livestock requires an accurate... more
The welfare of sheep transported by sea is a pertinent issue for Australia’s agriculture industry and a subject of concern amongst the general public. Evaluating the effect of sea transport on the welfare of livestock requires an accurate system of reporting. This study piloted an animal welfare monitoring protocol during two sea voyages from Australia to the Middle East. Sheep health and behaviour were analysed to determine if the protocol could detect animal responses to voyage conditions such as feeding management and changes to the pen environment. Data were recorded for target pens of five different commercial lines of Merino sheep. Principle Components (PC) analysis on behavioural data identified three principal components which were compared with voyage day, management and environmental conditions using general linear mixed modelling (GLMM). PC factor 1 scores (23.35 % of total variance) showed that resting and recumbency increased as the voyage progressed. PC factor 2 scores...
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Animal welfare represents a complex synthesis of the biological state of the animal, including both physical and mental aspects, and the interpretation of this state by human observers. A positive welfare state allows for normal growth... more
Animal welfare represents a complex synthesis of the biological state of the animal, including both physical and mental aspects, and the interpretation of this state by human observers. A positive welfare state allows for normal growth and function, but also implies freedom ...
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These data relate to 'Career Preferences and Opinions on Animal Welfare and Ethics: A Survey of Veterinary Students in Australia and New Zealand ‘ published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education... more
These data relate to 'Career Preferences and Opinions on Animal Welfare and Ethics: A Survey of Veterinary Students in Australia and New Zealand ‘ published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education http://dx.doi.org/10.3138/jvme.0615-091R2
Research Interests:
Animals used in teaching are a highly valued resource and yet their use stimulates much controversy. The scope for using animals for educational purposes is wide and decisions about their use are made based on the specific learning... more
Animals used in teaching are a highly valued resource and yet their use stimulates much controversy. The scope for using animals for educational purposes is wide and decisions about their use are made based on the specific learning objectives, the species required and the nature of the use which must involve a detailed cost-benefit evaluation. Our consideration and approval of such use is broadly based on sciencebased and ethics-based concepts. We need to know what guarantees good welfare of our subjects (the science) and how important the use is, and whether it can be justified (ethics). Scientists are well advanced in assessing the degree of any harm done by identifying the various components of welfare (e.g. physiology and behaviour), but there is a need to take a more holistic approach - that is taking a ‗whole animal‘approach, such as, using qualitative assessments and seeking the opinions of the wider community. As animals may have good or bad experiences in our hands, we have...
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There is increasing interest in methods for the habituation of feral rangeland goats to intensive farming conditions. We tested whether there were production performance and behavioural differences between groups of rangeland goats in an... more
There is increasing interest in methods for the habituation of feral rangeland goats to intensive farming conditions. We tested whether there were production performance and behavioural differences between groups of rangeland goats in an intensive farming system that were either exposed to a high degree of human interaction (HI, n=60) or low degree of human interaction (LI, n=60) over 3 weeks. In the HI group, a stockperson entered the pens twice daily and calmly walked amongst the goats for 20 mins. In the LI group, a stockperson only briefly entered the pens to check water/feed (daily/weekly). At the end of each week the goats were weighed and drafted into 12 subgroups of 10 animals (i.e. 6 sub-groups per treatment). Each sub-group was then tested for agonistic behaviour, avoidance of humans, and flight response. During the flight response test video footage was collected and later used for analysis using Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA). For QBA analysis, the videos of ea...