Congratulations to our PhD candidate Lisa Qing Yang!

The JMICAWE team congratulate our new PhD candidate, Lisa Qing Yang for completing her master’s degree in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law at University of Edinburgh and receiving the prize for the highest grade in her cohort for her MSc Dissertation.

Lisa’s master’s thesis aimed to explore what the opportunities and barriers were for Chinese egg producers to improve farm animal welfare by adopting higher welfare production systems. China has been the world’s largest egg producer for decades yet most of the farms still use conventional cages for egg production. With a greater awareness of animal welfare developing in Chinese society, alternative production systems are now being considered. It was this study that interested Lisa to further pursue her PhD on the same topic, with aims to develop strategies that can facilitate Chinese egg producers to change to cage free systems. 

Lisa was pleased to see the project has received positive outcome, she said:

“I believe producers are an indispensable part of the discussion of farm animal welfare improvement. I am pleased to see my thesis received a good grade. More importantly, it lays the foundation of understanding how Chinese egg producers perceive animal welfare and what challenges need to be addressed to help them improve animal welfare. I am very happy that my PhD research will continue to explore a solution-based approach. I hope the findings will support Chinese producers to make the change happen”.

We are very proud of what Lisa has achieved with regards to improving farm animal welfare in China, and look forward to see how this work progresses as part of her PhD studies with us. Well done Lisa!

Welcome to our new JMICAWE PhD Student - Lisa Qing Yang

The JMICAWE team is delighted to welcome new PhD student, Lisa Qing Yang, to the team. Lisa will be doing her PhD part time in China, focusing on poultry farmers and how higher welfare standards might be implemented in China. She is keen to understand how Chinese poultry farmers perceive their current practice on farms and to develop interventions to encourage better welfare practice. 

This project will be built on multidisciplinary knowledge and qualitative research methodologies. Before pursuing her PhD, Lisa obtained her master’s degrees in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law at the University of Edinburgh, Non-profit Organisations and Civil Society Studies at the University of Kent, and Applied Linguistics at Sichuan University in China.

Lisa says: ‘I learnt the term “animal welfare” for the first time in 2010, when I joined an international animal welfare organisation as a Public Relations Officer. During 10 years of working as an animal welfare advocate in China, I have developed a passion in raising awareness of animal welfare to the public and supporting captive animal facilities implementing higher animal welfare practices’.

Lisa has organised public events to communicate animal welfare knowledge with the public and facilitated different international workshops to build capacities of veterinarians, animal carers and academia in China. She currently works for an international consulting company to support conventional egg farmers to convert to cage-free systems in Asia. Before the role of consultant, she worked as the China Researcher Officer at Compassion in World Farming, a leading global farm animal welfare organisation.

Lisa engaged with various stakeholders in the livestock industry with technical expertise to help them improve their farming practices and achieve higher animal welfare standards, with a focus on poultry and pigs. Lisa’s experience of working with stakeholders in the animal- related industries sparked her interest in studying human behaviour change and driving farmers to change to higher welfare practice.

We are excited to have Lisa in the team, and to be able to apply her considerable skill set to improving the welfare of poultry in China.

Delivering workshops and visiting bears - China 2019

Heather and Jess have just returned from a successful trip to China where they collaborated with our long-term partners Animals Asia to deliver a 1 day animal behaviour and welfare seminar to around 60 participants and 2 days of veterinary skills training to veterinary surgeons from across Nanning. The workshop feedback was overwhelmingly positive, and the JMICAWE team look forward to building on this initial workshop with further activities and training events planned over the next three years.

We were also delighted to visit the Animals Asia rescue centres in Chengdu and Nanning – home to over 100 bears rescued from the trade in bear bile. As the previous veterinary director for Animals Asia, it was a great opportunity for heather to reconnect with some old furry friends and also to see the amazing work of Animals Asia continuing on. We were especially pleased to meet Jeanne, a bear rescued from a Nanning bear farm and named in memory of Jeanne Marchig, the benefactor of our own animal welfare centre here at the R(D)SVS.

Virtual Animal Welfare Discussion between Edinburgh and 8 Asian Country representatives

 

 

 

This week, JMICAWE Director, Prof Nat Waran, took part in a live online discussion with animal welfare lecturers working in various parts of Asia, who were attending a workshop hosted by the World Animal Protection.

The 4 day annual workshop held in Bangkok, brought together key drivers for animal welfare education, from veterinary schools in a range of countries, including; Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, China and Taiwan. Using Skype, Prof Nat was able to pose a question related to the importance of using good evidence for underpinning effective animal welfare policy and legislation, and to consider how effective this would be for tackling an animal welfare concern relevant to the key driver's own country. The key drivers raised some interesting points, such as: the difficulties with separating ethical concerns from evidence based arguments and how public opinion led legislation may not always be best for animal welfare; the problem with having legislation that cannot be enforced and the concern that evidence from studies in other parts of the world addressing the needs of a species, is often disregarded in favour of more research being needed 'in country'. All issues that are relevant to others working towards changes to benefit animals.

Prof Nat Waran said 'It was really good to be able to interact with colleagues from different parts of the world to share ideas, knowledge and concerns, and to work towards an improved understanding of how we can mainstream animal welfare for education as well as for underpinning sound policy and practice'. With the use of modern technology, we can look forward to many more of these sorts productive interactions with colleagues all over the world'.

 

 

The Crate Escape – Dog Trafficking in the News

Scottish readers may have spotted JMICAWE’s Heather Bacon in the Sunday Mail at the end of last month, as she was asked to give an interview on the dog meat trade in Asia which has hit the international headlines recently following the Yulin Festival earlier in the year. Heather has witnessed first-hand some of the practices that go on in Asia to obtain, transport and kill these dogs, and was asked to talk about it after a report was released by our partner Animals Asia on the illegal dog meat trade.

You may recognise Heather and Hayley’s own dogs, Stewart, Mothi and Matilda (pictured below) who were rescued from the dog meat trade when Heather and Hayley worked over in Asia a few years ago.

You can read the full article by clicking on this link;

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-vet-fight-free-dogs-6140300

 

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Chinese Deans Visit JMICAWE in Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh has been working with the Chinese Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) since 2013 when we signed a unique agreement enabling both parties to collaborate on innovative veterinary research and educational programmes.  The agreement - the first between the CVMA and a UK university – also aimed to promote and strengthen the role of the vet in China, particularly in the area of animal welfare. 

Since 2013 this agreement has been supported by a range of innovative veterinary educational initiatives including the delivery of a Massive Open-access Online Course, with video tutorials subtitled in mandarin, and co-organising the animal welfare education stream at the annual China Veterinary Conference – delivering animal welfare CPD directly to Chinese veterinary practitioners.

 

Continuing this body of work, last week we were delighted to host the Deans and senior Professors from China’s three top Veterinary schools: China Agricultural University, Nanjing Agricultural University, and the Inner Mongolia University, plus colleagues from the CVMA at a workshop on “International Veterinary Education and Animal Welfare”, here at the Royal (Dick) school of Veterinary studies. The Deans interacted with a range of clinical, research and academic staff, and focussed on the ways in which robust research, teaching and practice of good animal welfare supports excellence in veterinary education. Of particular interest was the investment the R(D)SVS has made in promoting the use of non-animal alternatives in the veterinary curriculum, and the Chinese delegation were particularly interested in this practical approach to promoting good animal welfare whilst also supporting an excellent learning environment.

 

The trip, funded by World Animal Protection, also allowed the delegation to visit the Royal Veterinary College in London, and to meet with John Blackwell, President of the British Veterinary Association, to discuss the role of the vet in safeguarding animal health and welfare, both nationally and internationally.

Animal Welfare is of increasing importance within the Chinese veterinary curriculum, having recently been incorporated into the final undergraduate veterinary examinations, but is often still poorly understood as a robust, and evidence-based subject. The use of live animals in teaching is widespread across Chinese Universities, and such practices may undermine theoretical welfare teaching, as well as decreasing student empathy for animals.

Collaborations such as this one are important in promoting animal welfare as a rational and science-based subject, essential for global trade and food security. In addition the positive relationships, educational workshops and teaching exchanges developed by the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education, at the University of Edinburgh, are helping to support the integration of practical and welfare-friendly alternatives into the Chinese veterinary curriculum, as well as championing the role of the veterinarian as an international ambassador for good animal welfare.