Professor Paul McGreevy of University of New England and Dr Samantha Finnerty of University of Sydney are conducting research into assessing a One-Welfare approach to post-fire wildlife assistance.
This research project aims to assess the potential risks, benefits, and welfare outcomes of wildlife provisioning and the motivations of volunteers who invest significant resources in the practice.
Did you provide food or water for animals post bushfires?
The pair (and their team) are conducting an anonymous survey that includes questions about your activities in provisioning for wildlife following the 2019/2020 bushfire season (“Black Summer”), including where you provisioned, what animals you targeted, and what you provided saying "We are also interested in your experiences of grief and burnout, as well as your feelings about animals and institutional support".
The survey is completely anonymous. Any demographic data collected will be used to only to enable survey analysis; it will not be used in any way to identify individuals.
Involvement in this study is voluntary and you can stop participating in the study at any time without consequence and without needing to provide an explanation. However, once you complete and submit the survey, because it is anonymous and they do not know who you are, they will not be able to withdraw your responses.
Questions
Some questions about your experiences in provisioning for wildlife following the bushfires may be of a sensitive nature. These questions will enable researchers to enhance their knowledge of the potential risks, benefits, and welfare outcomes of wildlife provisioning and the motivations of volunteers who invest significant resources in the practice. With permission, they may quote your responses to the open-ended questions in the reporting of this study.
Use of Information
Information from the survey may be used in academic journal articles and conference presentations.
Upsetting Issues
The researchers say "It is possible that the questions about your experiences in provisioning wildlife following bushfire events may be upsetting to you. The questions are mostly general, but if the research does raise any personal or upsetting issues, you may wish to contact your local Community Health Centre or Lifeline on 13 11 14. If you become distressed whilst answering the questions in the survey, please stop immediately and contact one of the above groups".
Storage of Information
All data will be electronic and will be stored on cloud.une.edu.au, UNE’s centrally managed cloud server managed by the research team. It will also be kept on a password protected computer in the same location. Only the research team, and Qualtrics (during data collection) will have access to the raw data. Once data collection has ended, the data will be removed from the Qualtrics survey and stored on the UNE Cloud.
Disposal of Information
All data collected in this research will be kept indefinitely. They do not intend to dispose of the data, but if we do, the electronic files will be deleted from the UNE Cloud.
Approval
This project has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of New England (Approval No HE21-244, Valid to 31/12/2022).
Researchers Contact Details
Feel free to contact the researchers with any questions about this research by email at samantha.finnerty@sydney.edu.au or pmcgree2@une.edu.au, or by phone on 0421 210 591 or 0423 464 505. You may also contact our co-investigators: A/Prof Amy Lykins (alykins@une.edu.au), Dr. Brooke Kennedy (bkenne27@une.edu.au), Professor Phil McManus (phil.mcmanus@sydney.edu.au), A/Prof Catherine Herbert (catherine.herbert@sydney.edu.au), Dr. Bidda Jones (bidda.jones@sydney.edu.au), Dr. John Martin (jmartin@zoo.nsw.gov.au), Ms. Michelle Shaw (mshaw@zoo.nsw.gov.au), and Professor David Raubenheimer (david.raubenheimer@sydney.edu.au).
Complaints
Should you have any complaints concerning the manner in which this research is conducted, please contact:
Research Ethics Officer
Research Services
University of New England
Armidale, NSW 2351
Tel: (02) 6773 3715
Email: humanethics@une.edu.au
