Merry Christmas and a happy New Year - our festive round robin

We wish you a peaceful and restful

Christmas and New Year period,

wherever you are in the world

 

As we come to the close of 2015, we would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you for all that you do to further animal welfare in your work. Without the support and collaboration of people like you, our team would not have been able to achieve what we have over the past year, and certainly the future of animal welfare would not have moved forward as it has.  Highlights of our year include a variety of different animal welfare education activities around the world:

        The success of the ‘Vet Nurse to India’ project, as well as collaborating with the Indian Government to run a production animal health and welfare workshop for veterinarians and researchers working in Animal Science and Veterinary medicine; 

        A working visit to Edinburgh by the Deans and representatives from Chinese veterinary schools to learn about international standards, innovation in veterinary teaching, integration of animal welfare and best practice animal care;

        A Chile Dogs and Society Workshop in collaboration with Chilean veterinary schools to discuss issues of managing dog populations;

        The success of our free online course (MOOC) in animal welfare, attracting more than 70,000 people from 167 countries and leading to publications and webinars to show how successful this has been for up-skilling people around the world in animal welfare;

        The making of the  ’Street Dog’ short video in India and its dissemination through Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-UEb9KOgpE, watched by 30,000+ worldwide and its uptake by Governments, including supporting the US Government’s Anti-Rabies campaign;

 

        The graduation of our first ‘online’ Masters students in Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law and an increase in our Animal Welfare Masters community to more than 150 each year;

    The development of a protocol to audit the welfare of street dogs in trap-neuter-return Programmes, enabling projects to monitor their own welfare standards, and to apply practical solutions to welfare problems that are detected. More info at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVwB3mAOOQg 

 

       Collaboration on the publication of two in-depth resources to improve animal welfare in zoos.  1: The World Association for Zoos and Aquaria’s ‘Animal Welfare Strategy’, and 2: The European Commission’s ‘Good practice guide for implementation of the EU zoos directive’. Both documents contain extensive practical information to support improvements in zoo animal welfare;

        The delivery of animal welfare education to multiple partners around the world including in China, Vietnam, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, Japan, Poland, Turkey, and Portugal.

Finally,  we are extremely grateful to the Marchig Trust for providing the funding that supports the Centre’s work as an integrated unit within the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and for their continued faith in us by agreeing to provide us with continued funding to support our work over the next five years.

With best wishes and many thanks to you all,

from Prof Nat Waran and the team at the

Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education