Veterinary scene down under: Improving wildlife disaster preparedness, plus the launch of the Journal of Australian Postgraduate Research

A blackwalk underway post-bushfire (Image courtesy of The International Fund for Animal Welfare)

Collaboration and training aid wildlife in disasters

Five years ago, Australia experienced the devastating Black Summer bushfires which scorched millions of hectares of the landscape, 33 people perished, and an estimated 1 billion animals were killed or displaced nationally.¹ Since then, wildlife and animal welfare organizations are working to strengthen disaster preparedness and response capabilities across the country.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) is one of the organizations which has been part of this collaborative approach focused on helping the wildlife and emergency response sectors be better prepared to rescue and care for injured animals in the face of future disasters.

“An effective and resilient response system requires collaboration across various sectors, organizations, and levels of government. It cannot be achieved by one individual or group. When we all work together, we can build a well-coordinated emergency response plan for wildlife across multiple levels of government and regional networks,” explained Robert Leach, IFAW’s Animal Rescue Program officer, to dvm360®.

“IFAW now acts as a conduit between the wildlife sector and government agencies in Australia. And in addition to direct field support, we’ve worked with key wildlife rescue organizations and agencies to improve the capacity and coordination of wildlife response during bushfires—including post-fire ‘blackwalk’ search and rescue training, and specialized wildlife training for veterinary professionals.”

As part of this work, IFAW partnered with Western Australian wildlife hospital WA Wildlife to upskill general practice veterinary professionals in wildlife triage and treatment through a hands-on mentorship program.

“Extending on the great work that’s been delivered on the eastern side of the country, our 3-day Mentorship Program for Veterinary Professionals is designed to increase the capacity of general practice veterinarians to triage and treat sick and injured wildlife brought to them by members of the public and wildlife rehabilitators, while also establishing a cohort of trained veterinary professionals able to respond to, and support wildlife impacted by emergencies including bushfires. We’re not considering them as specialists, but they’re certainly wildlife-capable,” said Leach.

“The program is attracting a wide geographical range of participants, including a significant representation from regional areas—underscoring the broad reach of the program and extending critical wildlife triage and treatment capacity to areas where wildlife incidents may be more frequent and resources more limited.

A kangaroo injured in a bushfire is brought in for triage and treatment (Image courtesy of Robert Leach)

In addition to practical sessions in wildlife treatment in clinical settings covering wildlife specific techniques for radiography and anaesthesia, the program included training in triage and emergency response scenarios such as bushfires, flood, and oil spills.

“The feedback from the participants so far have been overwhelmingly positive, describing that the course boosted their confidence in multiple aspects of wildlife handling and treatment. We’ve received such great interest to date, conveying the desire by the state’s veterinary sector for additional learning opportunities in the wildlife and emergency response field,” said Leach.

“We saw over 50 veterinary professionals completing their mentorship in just the first 6 months of this program running, and we’re pleased to announce that the program will be extended for another 6 months to meet the demand and continue building this much-needed capacity.”

IFAW also implemented a wildlife search and rescue training course to upskill wildlife rescuers to be confident operating on firegrounds, which has been rolled out in New South Wales.

“This training has been designed to upskill the everyday wildlife rescuer into a capable and confident wildlife emergency response team member with the knowledge and understanding to efficiently and safely undertake their tasks on firegrounds. Outside of an agency-led wildlife response, this training is also applicable to any volunteer-led post-fire search and rescue operation, colloquially named as ‘blackwalks’,” explained Leach.

“Historically, wildlife groups that undertake these operations have their own in-house training, likely passed down by generational knowledge. IFAW’s training has been designed to combine these learnings with up-to-date best practices to provide a standardized knowledge baseline for both the wildlife sector and emergency management agencies involved in wildlife responses.”

Leach said that firegrounds, even well after fires are extinguished, can be highly dangerous for untrained personnel.

“This training not only teaches the technical aspects for planning and undertaking a fireground search, but also reinforces the safety elements necessary for teams to not just focus on the animals, but have their own safety prioritised,” said Leach.

“We also know that fireground operations are just as mentally taxing as they are physically, so we found it critical to include a module on responder mental health to normalize and provide support for some potentially incredibly traumatic scenarios that these responders may be faced with.”

Leach said he is proud of the progress that IFAW has made in connecting various groups, government and response agencies, and building capacity in the wildlife sector.

“However, there is much more that needs to be done, especially through greater government recognition and resourcing for the critical role the veterinary and wildlife rescue community plays in disaster response,” said Leach.

New Journal of Australian Postgraduate Research launches

Rachel Westcott, PhD, BVMS(Hons) BSc, from south Australia, launched a new online open access scientific journal, the Journal of Australian Postgraduate Research, with the mission to help postgraduate students of all levels at Australian universities publish their work and begin a publication profile.

The idea for the new journal came about because of Westcott’s journey completing her own PhD in 2018 from the School of Medicine at Western Sydney University, which focused on emergency management and public health.

“My PhD was by papers, with an exegesis connecting the published research. Publishing was an experience. Finding a journal that ‘fitted’ was tricky, given that most veterinary journals are about veterinary medicine. Publishing is slow, expensive, complicated and reviewer comments can be brutal and not always for the best,” shared Westcott to dvm360.

Rachel Westcott, PhD, BVMS(Hons) BSc and Emilis Prelgauskas, B.Arch FRAIA HE014, Engine Room Solutions directors, at the JAPR stand at the Quality in Postgraduate Research 2024 conference in South Australia (Image courtesy of Lee McBride)

“PhD scholarships, like mine, are generally only for 3-and-a-half years. The publishing of 1 paper can take 12 months or more, so if you need 4 or more published or accepted papers for a PhD, you will either run out of time, money, or both, which leads to a whole new array of problems!”

After successfully navigating the publication process and finishing her PhD, Westcott together with her architect partner, started to think about how things might change for the better for postgraduate students, and the Journal of Australian Postgraduate Research was born.

“We have developed a new model of peer review to give students and supervisors greater control of the process, and to make that process faster, simpler and much less expensive. We have Word and Latex templates, and issue Digital Object Identifiers to identify each publication like other journals and publications do,” explained Westcott.

The journal has an editorial board, and Westcott is the editor of the publication and is happy to assist postgraduate students with any questions about submitting papers for publication.

“One of the great things about a veterinary undergraduate degree is that it can take you many places. A number of vets of my acquaintance are stepping sideways into research—not necessarily in a primary veterinary research area —and often, as I did, in parallel with regular veterinary practice,” said Westcott.

“Our mantra is accelerating excellence, and whilst the postgraduate journey can be challenging, it is worth it. We encourage you to consider pursuing that path.”

For further information on the Journal of Australian Postgraduate Research, visit https://engineroomsolutions.com.au/.

Reference

1. Friends of the Earth Australia. Australia’s Black Summer. Friends of the Earth Australia. Published May 2020. https://www.foe.org.au/australia_black_summer