scholarly journals An Investigation into the Perceptions of Veterinarians towards Calf Welfare in New Zealand

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 421
Author(s):  
Ria van Dyke ◽  
Amy Miele ◽  
Melanie Connor

Despite recent legislative amendments to address areas of highest risk to the welfare of calves (Bos taurus) in New Zealand, there are prevailing concerns that animal welfare science knowledge has not been adopted in practice. As a part of a larger, nationwide study investigating the perceptions of veterinarians towards calf welfare, the aim of the current work was to investigate the perceptions of veterinarians towards the level of welfare protection afforded to young “bobby” calves in New Zealand. This study also explored concerns for welfare compromise and identified barriers to welfare-related change for calves more generally. An electronic mixed-methods survey was completed by 104 veterinarians registered with the Veterinary Council of New Zealand. The findings revealed that veterinarians strongly disagreed with the specifications of certain calf welfare regulations. Veterinarians also identified areas at highest risk of calf welfare compromise across the production chain and barriers to welfare-related change. These findings demonstrate considerable support among veterinarians for improving the level of welfare protection afforded to calves. Given the discrepancies that exist between the current regulatory regime and veterinary perspectives, the knowledge gained from this study can be used in support of regulatory reform to strengthen calf welfare in practice and policy in New Zealand.

2021 ◽  
pp. 155868982098402
Author(s):  
Rhiannon Martel ◽  
Matthew Shepherd ◽  
Felicity Goodyear-Smith

While literature on mixed methodology predominantly focuses on North American and European philosophical stances, non-Eurocentric worldviews and indigenous philosophies are also relevant to mixed methods research. This article aims to present the indigenous Māori worldview ( te ao Māori) and how this lends itself to mixed methods research, in a New Zealand European and Māori partnership, to conduct bicultural research. The authors use the Māori metaphor He awa whiria (braided river) to describe combining the strengths of two distinct worldviews into a “workable whole.” A framework brings together these two different paradigms as equals, incorporating both numerical and opinion-driven results. The authors illustrate this with a research example of creating a bicultural research framework, underpinned by mixed methods research philosophy.


Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1882
Author(s):  
Ria van Dyke ◽  
Melanie Connor ◽  
Amy Miele

While veterinarians are instrumental to the welfare of calves (Bos taurus), limited knowledge exists concerning veterinary perceptions towards perioperative pain management in calves. As a part of a larger, nationwide study investigating the perceptions of veterinarians towards calf welfare, the current work sought to quantify veterinary perceptions towards perioperative pain management, including barriers to its use, and investigate demographic influences affecting those perceptions. An electronic mixed-methods survey was completed by 104 veterinarians registered with the Veterinary Council of New Zealand. The current work revealed that most veterinarians considered a multimodal approach as the most effective method for ameliorating perioperative pain in calves, rejected the practice of differential treatment based on developmental age, and perceived that postprocedural pain persists beyond 24 h for the majority of procedures included in the survey. Despite this, veterinarians identified certain barriers that may inhibit the provision of pain mitigation on-farm, including costs, inadequate recognition of pain, and ingrained farming practices. Certain demographic effects were found to influence perceptions towards perioperative pain management, including gender, the number of years since graduation, and species emphasis. Nevertheless, the current work demonstrated considerable support among veterinarians to improve pain management protocols during routine husbandry procedures. The asymmetries that exist between the current minimum provisions of perioperative pain management and veterinary perspectives suggest that substantive improvements are necessary in order to reconcile New Zealand’s existing regulatory regime with developments in scientific knowledge.


Author(s):  
D. W. Minter

Abstract A description is provided for Bombardioidea stercoris, a dung-inhabiting fungus associated with Bos taurus, Cervidae, Lepus europaeus, L. timidus, Oryctolagus cuniculus and Ovis aries. Some information on its morphology, economic impacts, habitats, dispersal and transmission and conservation status is given, along with details of its geographical distribution (Canada (Quebec), Argentina, Chile, Falkland Islands/Malvinas, Spain (Canary Islands), Australia (Victoria), New Zealand, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark (including Faroe Islands), Estonia, France, Germany, Irish Republic, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, UK and former Yugoslavia).


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Amy Hill

<p>This paper explores one very important issue in the regulatory regime for medicines in New Zealand and around the world- the deficit of information about medicines available to doctors, patients and independent researchers. Much of the information about safety, efficacy and quality of drugs is held and controlled by pharmaceutical companies and regulators. The public is entitled to this information in full.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Anna Huia Williams

<p>In formal education and training, internal assessment (in which assessor judgements are made within education organisations) is widely used for summative purposes to contribute to the award of qualifications. In many jurisdictions including New Zealand, organisations that conduct these high-stakes internal assessments are required by regulation to engage in moderation within the organisation and with external quality assurance bodies to quality-assure those assessments. However, policies are rarely implemented directly as intended. Instead, they are enacted by organisations, that is, policies are interpreted and translated, with multiple factors influencing this process. One such factor is the person who takes the role of ‘policy narrator’ and leads the policy interpretation and translation within the organisation. In New Zealand there is further potential for enactment variation because education organisations are largely self-governing, and thus have substantial freedom regarding organisational systems and practices. Moderation is commonly held to have both accountability and improvement purposes. However, it is unknown what policy narrators within New Zealand organisations consider the functions of moderation to be.  This study sought to explore what the academic leaders who are responsible for moderation in New Zealand secondary and tertiary organisations (i.e., those likely to be policy narrators) perceive as the functions of internal moderation and national moderation conducted by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA moderation). Further, the study sought to ascertain whether there are any observable differences in perceptions according to organisation type. A pragmatic mixed methods sequential research design was implemented. An online survey instrument was developed informed from interview findings, and then administered using a census approach to collect data (n = 221). Both qualitative and quantitative data analyses were conducted.  Academic leaders were found to believe that moderation functions across multiple embedded contexts, from the immediate assessment event, to organisational and societal contexts. Internal and NZQA moderation were seen to work in the narrowly-focused area of assessment quality, and the broader areas of professional learning, organisational quality assurance, maintaining public and stakeholder confidence, and educational quality (internal moderation only). Instead of subscribing to the dominant improvement and accountability discourses, for the most part academic leaders tended think of moderation in more encompassing ways than the literature suggests.  Respondents from Private Training Enterprises (PTEs) tended to see the organisational quality assurance and educational quality functions as being more important or having a stronger emphasis, and to hold a broader view of moderation functions, than those from schools.  These findings could assist those in organisations to recognise and examine the influence of their own perceptions on practice, and identify opportunities to optimise how their organisations use moderation. The findings enable policy makers to ascertain the degree of alignment between policy intent and enactment, and could inform policy development and communication to the sector. Further, the potential for NZQA to increase the broader and improvement-focused aspects of moderation practice, while maintaining—and enhancing—its accountability focus is highlighted.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Nadine Dodge

<p>This thesis investigates the scope for compact development to accommodate population growth in Wellington, New Zealand. The topic is particularly significant for New Zealand as the great majority of the population lives in urban areas, historical development has been dominated by low density urban form, and transport and urban form are two of the main domains in which the country can reduce its carbon emissions. The influence of urban planning and residents’ preferences on achieving sustainable outcomes is investigated.  Historical and current planning rules and transport policies in the City are analysed to determine their influence on the provision of compact development. Wellington’s transport policy shows a pattern of path dependency: historical decisions to favour car oriented investment have driven subsequent transport investments and influenced the ease of using different transport modes. Planning policies show a similar pattern of path dependency: planning rules enacted in the 1960s endure in present planning despite being packaged with different justifications and regulatory regime. Current planning rules severely restrict infill development in most existing neighbourhoods, which reduces the availability of housing in accessible medium density neighbourhoods and likely increases the cost of this type of housing.  A stated choice survey was conducted of 454 residents of Wellington City to investigate the extent to which there is an unmet demand for compact development and alternatives to car travel. The survey held presentation mode constant across two completion modes (internet and door to door with tablet completion), allowing the impacts of recruitment and completion mode to be examined. Survey recruitment mode appeared to influence both response rates and the representativeness of the survey, while completion mode appeared to have little or no impact on survey responses.  Using the stated choice survey results, a latent class model was developed to examine the preferences of residents and the trade-offs they are willing to make when choosing where to live. This type of model allows for the identification of preference groups as a means of understanding the diversity of preferences across the population. The study found that there is an unmet demand for medium density, accessible housing, but that affordability is a barrier for households to choose this type of housing. There was also an unmet demand for walking and cycling, with more residents currently driving than would prefer to use this mode, and more residents preferring to walk and cycle to work than currently use these modes. The ability to use a desired travel mode appears to be related to the neighbourhood in which a person lives, with residents of medium and high density neighbourhoods being more likely to use their preferred travel mode.  This study also modelled future development trajectories for Wellington based on demand for housing, neighbourhood and transport attributes. This preference based growth model was contrasted with the City’s plan for development over the next 30 years. Comparing the two scenarios, the planning based trajectory performed better than the demand based scenario in terms of both carbon emissions and achieving compact development.</p>


2011 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 429-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dilip Kumar Das ◽  
Michael G. Baker ◽  
Kamalesh Venugopal

1998 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 631-646 ◽  
Author(s):  
P McDermott

The antagonism of neoliberalism to local intervention raises questions over the future of planning theory and practice. Recent reviews suggest planning's response to regulatory reform has been to become more flexible, although this may simply reflect nothing more than instrumental pragmatism. Drawing on regulation theory in this paper I review the reforms which have taken place in New Zealand since 1984, when New Zealand moved sharply from a form of regulation described as ‘peripheral Fordism’. Planning after Fordism risks being confined to mediating environmental relations, despite the likelihood of far-reaching social conflict and economic contradictions in the emergent form of capitalism. Two choices face planning in New Zealand; adapt to the mandate of environmental management or extend planning to confront other (social and economic) challenges in the emergent form of capitalism. The second alternative requires planners to adopt a more active and critical role than has been evident to date.


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