The Animal Welfare Program has received funding through UBC’s Work Learn International Undergraduate Research Awards (WLIURA) to hire current UBC undergraduate students in a number of different positions for May 2023 to August 2024! These positions are AWP Data Visualization for Dairy Cattle Welfare, AWP History and Communications Student Researcher, and Companion Animal Research Lab Assistant. Learn more about WLIURA here.
For opportunities open to both domestic and international students, check out the part-time Work Learn positions available as an Animal Welfare Program Support Assistant and Humanities Research Assistant – Gene-Editing in Animals (learn more here). To see if you are eligible, visit the Work Learn website.
In order to apply, eligible students must log into Careers Online. Find the positions describe below on Careers Online and follow the directions to apply. If you have questions, you can reach out to us at lesley.dampier@ubc.ca.
WLIURA S23 AWP History and Communications Student Researcher – Job ID 964110
Project: Historical Storyboard: 25 Years of Animal Welfare Science
The Graduate Program in Animal Welfare (AWP) at UBC is a world renowned program specializing in research, teaching and outreach to improve the lives of animals in human care. The research includes farm animal welfare, shelter and companion animal welfare, laboratory animal welfare, the welfare of wildlife in human care, as well as understanding how animals are integrated into our society. The AWP is concluding its 25th year – this anniversary provides an opportunity to evaluate and research our communication and media strategies over time. The discipline of animal welfare is complex; as a science, researchers engage in both theoretical studies and epidemiological studies to understand how animal welfare is impacted by a number of practices and policies. It is also a discipline that addresses “wicked problems”, attempting to integrate science, sociology and communication to better understand the human-animal relationship. Such research requires the engagement of stakeholder interests, understanding public views, and clear communication of the science. For this research project, the Animal Welfare Program is seeking an WLIURA to support research activities including the research of science communication within this specific discipline. Building on a similar project from last summer, the student researcher will focus on synthesizing resources developed throughout the course of the year. In particular, the student will engage in such practices as story mapping to assemble the history of research activities from the past 25 years.
WLIURA S23 Companion Animal Research Lab Assistant – Job ID 964109
Project: Feral rabbit overpopulation in urban areas
Feral rabbit overpopulation in urban areas is a result of pet abandonment and indiscriminate breeding in feral populations. Aside from education and animal control programs, increasing adoption of friendly rabbits into pet homes may additionally reduce populations. Proponents of commercial adoption sites, such as “Bunny Cafés”, claim that benefits to the animals include increased socialization as well as higher adoption likelihood. However, there may be welfare risks for animals displayed at these cafés, particularly for rabbits, who may be coming from feral backgrounds and fearful of people. At “Bunny Cafés”, rabbits may be exposed to numerous strange people throughout the day, although the effect of human presence and interaction on the behaviour of rabbits in “Bunny Cafés” has yet to be assessed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of human visitors on the behaviour of rabbits in a “Bunny Café”. The behaviour and welfare states of rabbits housed at a café will be assessed for 10 hourly sessions using a scan-sampling behaviour coding method utilizing an established rabbit ethogram. Data on the number and duration of humans in the vicinity of the rabbit will additionally be collected. Similarly, data on a yoked number of rabbits will be collected in two additional control environments: a captive managed colony and an unmanaged feral outdoor colony. Behavioural data will be subjected to an exploratory Factor Analysis and a multivariate model will be developed to predict the factor scores by housing location. Understanding the behaviour of animals in animal cafés will improve animal welfare while retaining animal benefits such as increased adoption. This research will also allow for improved community collaborations to tackle rabbit overpopulation in BC.
The student will have regular communication directly with the PI and graduate students in companion animal welfare. They will complete required safety, laboratory, and ethics training from outside parties and through mentorship in the research lab. They will have present progress, ask questions, receive feedback, and explore new study ideas through weekly lab meetings. They will have the opportunity to network with outside agencies such as the BC SPCA and participate in professional development.
WLIURA S23 AWP Data Visualization for Dairy Cattle Welfare – Job ID 964103
Project: AWP Data Visualization for Dairy Cattle Welfare
This project expands on ongoing activities integrating data visualization and data science into the ongoing animal welfare monitoring being undertaken at the UBC Dairy Education and Research Center. For more details on past projects you can see details here: https://awp.landfood.ubc.ca/2022/02/10/peek-a-moo-data-visualization-at-the-ubc-dairy-education-and-research-center/ The increased use of technology in dairy farming provides high-resolution data and can help management decisions. Monitoring individual dairy cattle’s behaviour reveals valuable information and may serve as a health and welfare indicator. The focus of our research group is to use the on-farm sources of data for automated monitoring of cattle health and welfare. Graduate students in our program are implementing an automated system on the UBC dairy farm which could monitor individual animals’ personality, production, and health. One of our research focus is on cattle lameness. Lameness is a prevalent disease that challenges the welfare of dairy cows and causes tremendous economic loss for the dairy industry. However, a reliable and inexpensive lameness assessment method is still lacking. We propose to develop an automatic system for longitudinal lameness assessment for dairy cows. The development of such system involves labeling the video data through crowd-sourcing on Amazon MTurk, algorithm implementation for data analysis, and ultimately the development of a computer vision system. This system will be able to monitor the lameness status of cows on the farm in real-time. Technologies like this will bring dairy farms to a new era and greatly facilitate management decisions. We are looking for a student to analyze newly collected data by implementing algorithms themselves or through the use of existing packages. The student will be working as a critical member of the research team. They will be actively involved in programming, data analysis, and reporting to varying degrees. The student will be working at UBC Vancouver campus.