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The Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education, University of Edinburgh
It includes:
Dr Rebecca Doyle, JMICAWE Deputy Director highlights the following projects.
MEASURING PIG WELFARE IN UGANDA
The pig sector in Uganda is among the fastest growing livestock sectors and it is characterized by low productivity due to limited resources and veterinary support. As the welfare status of pigs in the system is unknown, a cross-sectional welfare assessment was carried out in four districts in central Uganda (Masaka, Mukono, Mpigi and Wakiso) to identify issues requiring action. These results will form the basis of future intervention programs and act as a benchmark to improve pig welfare and farmer livelihoods.
SILVOPASTORALISM AND ANIMAL WELFARE IN ETHIOPIA
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| Image credit: Tsega Berhe |
JMICAWE has launched an international survey to explore attitudes towards animal welfare of veterinarians and researchers in the UK and Japan. The work is led by a visiting Post Doctoral researcher, Dr Yuki Otani, supported by our Director, Cathy Dwyer, as a collaborative study between the University of Edinburgh and Hokkaido University in Japan.
The UK and Japan are both island, industrial and developed nations, where people live with animals for various purposes – in particular, pet ownership is an important part of both cultures. In the UK, the principles of animal welfare and animal welfare needs are included in legislation (The Animal Welfare Act, 2006). In Japan, on the other hand, people are likely to interact with animals based on a different Japanese concept rather than animal welfare. Instead of welfare, a word ‘Aigo’, which is composed of 2 characters (æ„› and è·) meaning "love" and "protection”, has been widely and historically spread in Japanese society. This word is used in the relevant and the most responsible law for animal management. In this law ‘living being’ is used to represent all animals, whereas animal welfare is relevant to ‘sentient beings’ in the UK.
‘Aigo culture is very beautiful – people love and express empathy with animals. I think, however, this concept is human-based so it could cause conflicts about what is most important to animals among people depending on their own subjectivity. To solve the issue as a society, permeating the animal welfare concept is necessary’ says Yuki, from Hokkaido University.
We are now exploring the fundamental attitude of veterinarians, veterinary researchers, and behaviour/welfare researchers in the UK or Japan via an online survey. We would like to understand the strengths of welfare and Aigo concepts by this survey and develop effective strategies for improving animal welfare in both countries. More information about the survey can be found here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/vet/jeanne-marchig-centre/activities/attitudes
If you are a veterinarian, veterinary researcher, and behaviour/welfare researcher in the UK or Japan and wish to take part you can do so by following this link:
(English) https://forms.gle/9BrdKZovHMbt2WtKA
(Japanese) https://forms.gle/RaamqBZqkV5TE8hv9
JMICAWE is delighted to welcome Dr Rebecca
Doyle to the team as our newest member of staff. Rebecca joins us from the
Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Melbourne,
Australia and has a wealth of experience in teaching and research in animal
behaviour and welfare. In addition, Rebecca has spent more than 10 years in
supporting and promoting animal welfare practices and education in low- and
middle-income countries. She is a contributing scientist to the International
Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, and has worked with
small-holder farmers in Pakistan to promote good welfare. Rebecca also chairs
the animal welfare group at the Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock.
Rebecca will be sharing her knowledge and experience with our undergraduate and postgraduate students at R(D)SVS and developing educational links to vet schools in Africa and Asia with the rest of the JMICAWE team. Rebecca has also conducted animal welfare research with a wide range of species, from crocodiles to wild dogs, parrots, sheep and goats! In particular, she has a background in the development of cognitive measures of welfare. Our students will be offered an opportunity to work with Rebecca on some of these project areas and we are looking forward to seeing where this work will take her!
Rebecca says:
‘Good animal welfare is good for people’s livelihoods and food security, to climate change and One Health. I believe that through animal welfare research and education we can create meaningful improvements in the lives of animals and people. I’m really looking forward to contributing to the great work of JMICAWE to continue making positive impact in this way.’
On World Animal Day on the 4th Oct 2021 we held an online event to celebrate 30 years of the MSc in Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare. The MSc turned 30 in 2020 and after a couple of false starts we managed to pull together the event a year late in 2021. The afternoon event consisted of talks, interviews and short videos from staff and graduates of the programme from across the years. In this guest blog, Programme Director, Dr Tamsin Coombs, tells us about the activities she organised for the day:
We started proceedings with Professor Alistair Lawrence who reminisced on the early planning of the MSc with very interesting excerpts from documents taken from his extensive archive (in his garage!) before taking us all the way through to the present day and looking forward to the next 30 years of animal welfare education. This was then followed by talks by Alick Simmons from the very first cohort in 1990 (Developments in animal welfare policy over the past 30 years), Dr Matt Leach, class of 1995-96 (Recent advances in assessing pain in non-human animals) and Professor Vicky Melfi, class of 1996-97 (Zoo animal welfare since 1997).
These main talks were interspersed by short videos, photos and quotes from other graduates of the programme who got back in touch to tell us about what they gained from the MSc and what they are doing now. We have graduates working in research and teaching around the world; undertaking PhD’s; working for NGO’s and animal welfare organisations; and working in zoos to name but a few. We were also able to showcase some of the many scientific papers that have come about because of research undertaken during the dissertation element of the MSc which also highlights the impact on animal welfare science of the programme.
And to quote Professor Alistair
Lawrence after the event:
“what a great day – it was a real celebration – quite moving really – I am sure David (Wood-Gush) would be chuffed to bits – I can see him smiling with pleasure at what has been achieved and how much of a difference the course has made”