New member of staff joins the JMICAWE family

JMICAWE is delighted to welcome Miguel Somarriba Soley to the team! Miguel will be joining the MSc International Animal Welfare Ethics and Law programme team to help with programme co-ordination, and will also work with JMICAWE in its animal welfare training project in China. Miguel brings a wealth of varied expertise to the team. He is a veterinarian who qualified in his native Costa Rica, and has worked for the WSPA (now World Animal Protection) in their Animals in Disasters Programme, taking part in disaster management and recovery projects in Latin-American and the Caribbean following natural disasters. He has also worked with organizations providing free veterinary care in rural and indigenous communities in Central America.
 
Miguel moved to Edinburgh to take the MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare, and then joined the SRUC Animal Behaviour and Welfare Research team, firstly as a research assistant and then to conduct his PhD research. Miguel has many and varied interests: his PhD focused on stress in beef cattle and its effects on the microbiome, feed efficiency and methane emissions. In the past he has worked on animal welfare research in domestic species, and has been involved in service dog training, captive animal enrichment and training, animal management during natural disaster situations, behavioural medicine and veterinary private practice. Miguel is also a provisional member of the APBC, working towards full certification in clinical animal behaviour.

Miguel says: ‘I am very excited about joining JMICAWE. I feel genuinely proud to take part in the great work done by JMICAWE to improve animal welfare around the world through education, training and influencing legislation. I appreciate the opportunity, and I will strive to have a positive effect on animals’ lives through my work in JMICAWE and IAWEL.’

We are excited to have Miguel on board, and look forward to his impact on the team’s activities.

Scottish Animal Welfare Commission

 Plenary meeting of Scottish Animal Welfare Commission

JMICAWE director, Prof Cathy Dwyer, chaired a plenary session of the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission (SAWC) on Friday 11^th September. The meeting had to be held entirely online but, despite a few hiccoughs, the technology held up well and interesting and varied discussions were held. The Commission focuses on protecting wild and companion animals, as well as providing scientific and ethical advice to the Scottish Government. The remit of the Commission is to look at how the welfare needs of sentient animals are met by policy, consider possible legislative and non-legislative routes to protect animal welfare and identify research requirements as an evidence base for future policy developments.

At this plenary session the Commission considered the impact of Covid-19 on animal welfare – of particular concern in the UK has been a significant rise in the number of people looking to acquire puppies, where those puppies are being sourced and whether this will impact on future health and welfare of dogs.  SAWC also considered what is an appropriate definition of sentience when applied to animals, and for which species is there sufficient scientific evidence to consider that they are likely to be sentient. As part of the remit of the Commission is to specifically consider the protection of wildlife, SAWC also considered whether current conceptions of animal welfare could apply to wildlife, and specific issues relating to the management of deer, beaver and Scottish wildcats.

More information about the work of the Commission can be found here: https://www.gov.scot/groups/scottish-animal-welfare-commission/

Welcome to our new students coming to Edinburgh!

This week is Welcome Week for all our new students arriving at Edinburgh to begin student life, and an especially warm welcome (and welcome back) to our new and returning veterinary students. We are also delighted to be welcoming our next cohort of Masters students to the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies (R(D)SVS), whether they will be joining us at the Easter Bush campus or online to begin or continue their studies in animal behaviour and welfare.

In these uncertain times Welcome Week, and the first semester will feel a little bit different to usual for all of us, but the education teams have been working really hard to keep the campus secure and to provide a hybrid model of teaching with a blend of online and in person teaching. We are confident that our students will still have a great experience with us, and some of the new ways of teaching may even be an improvement on what we used to do in the past! For our MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare it is a particularly special year since it marks 30 years since the course began, as the oldest MSc programme in animal welfare in world. We will also be planning events to celebrate this special milestone. 

The R(D)SVS is consistently ranked as one of the best veterinary schools in the world (most recently voted top in the UK by Guardian Newspaper: https://www.ed.ac.uk/vet/news-events/news-and-archive/2020-news/guardian-league-table-2021), and is located in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. If you are interested in studying with us as a veterinary student then you can find out more information here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/vet and see a video about student life here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNpX_DV7l4c

Or if you are interested in our postgraduate teaching in animal behaviour and welfare (or other subjects) then you can find out more here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/vet/studying/postgraduate

We hope to be welcoming you to our campus one day too!