Farmscape for September 10, 2015
A newly created position at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine will bring added resources to the study of behavior in swine.
The Prairie Swine Centre in partnership with the Western College of Veterinary Medicine is in the midst of a global search to fill a newly created position for an ethologist who will be expected to assume the role of NSERC Industrial Chair in Swine Welfare.
The successful candidate will be resident at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine and will be part of the multi disciplinary team of scientists at the Prairie Swine Centre.
Prairie Swine Centre president and CEO Lee Whittington says this position will bring new resources into the study of the behavior of swine.
Clip-Lee Whittington-Prairie Swine Centre:
Like the Prairie Swine Centre the position, as we see it, will be looking at behavior of swine and whether that's interaction with other pigs, interaction with people or interaction with feeder design.
The difference is going to be is that we're going to be able to add more resources for the industry because NSERC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, has a program where by industry dollars can be double.
The program, known as an industrial; chair is available to forestry and mining and all sorts of endeavors in Canada and we're using that program to structure a brand new set of resources for the pig industry.
So the chair will actually probably be up to 5 to maybe even 6 positions which will include the leader, and that's the chair, the person they we are interviewing for but they will be able to bring in a post doctoral fellow, some graduate students and a new technician and so building the resources that the industry has available to address some of the challenges that we will face now and in the future.
Whittington expects to be able to offer the position in October.
He hopes the successful candidate will be building the team and working on new projects in early 2017.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork