Animal Ethics Policy and Law

We are delighted that our MSc IAWEL team and IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) are working together to provide current information for the online students studying the Animal Ethics Policy and Law course which is part of the online Masters in International Animal Welfare, Ethics and Law programme (MSc IAWEL).

Protection for elephants, or is it just an elaborate sham? That’s one such question that students may be addressing in their MScIAWEL presentations this week, after trucks transporting four young elephants were intercepted while transferring the calves to a “rehabilitation” centre last week. According to a report by South Africa’s National Council of SPCA’s the elephants had been removed from their wild herds, because their mothers were to be shot at one of South Africa’s most infamous hunting ranches in North West Province.

“Do conservation officials actually know what their responsibilities to elephants are, and do they even care?” says Jason Bell, Director for the IFAW Elephant Programme ( www.ifaw.org). Someone issued permits for these calves to be removed and transported – entirely contrary to the Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants in South Africa which says wild elephant calves may not be removed from their herds as a result of their mothers being identified for hunting. IFAW called on the Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs to look into this as a matter of urgency, reminding  them that there is legislation in place to protect elephants from cruelty and exploitation, and that it needs to be observed.

Our MSc IAWEL students will be giving online presentations, to Dr Fritha Langford of the MSc IAWEL and Paul Todd, Dr Jason Bell and Cindy Milburn from IFAW.

The students are presenting their research and potential solutions to a variety of issues surrounding the welfare, conservation and use of elephants including:

• The legislative frameworks surrounding wild animals in different countries
• The key policy drivers in regions with elephants and regions where ivory products are retailed
• The potential conflicts between welfare and conservation of elephants
• Risks from over-population of elephants in fragmented habitats
• The ethics of ‘sustainable’ culling of elephants

Having three senior members of IFAW available to give feedback to students, is a real honour for this programme and a fabulous opportunity for the students.

 

 

Controlling companion animal populations in developing nations

Companion animal populations can be particularly problematic in developing countries where public policy and education about the issues is often sparse. Many of these nations have a dog and cat over-population issue that requires sensitive management, especially as they also derive significant income from tourism. In this regard the pacific island nations are no exception. Following on from an article about public perception of dogs in (independent) Samoa, recently published in Animal Welfare, Mark Farnworth, a PhD student supervised by JMICAWEs Prof Nat Waran, investigated how tourists perceive the problem of free-roaming dogs during their visits to the Samoan islands (Mark worked in collaboration with Massey University and Uppsala University).

The earlier study demonstrated that, although the Samoan people identified dogs as important for society, little was done to control the population. This led to welfare issues as humans and dogs clashed, including a high rate of dog bite injuries and reports of harm inflicted upon dogs. As a result, most Samoans felt something needed to be done. Their second study, not yet published, looked at tourism as Samoa's number one industry. It investigated how the attitudes of tourists may align with those of locals and where problems could arise. Many tourists felt the dogs in Samoa were a problem requiring management and many also felt that the dogs had a negative influence on their enjoyment of the holiday. Some had experienced aggression and even attacks from free-roaming dogs. Importantly however, tourists were extremely averse to management which had a negative welfare impact and strongly supported humane options including legislation and sterilisation campaigns.

This body of work supports the idea that more investment should be made in controlling companion animal populations in developing nations and areas dependent on tourism may be particularly amenable to change. Effective and welfare friendly methods may not only improve the experiences of tourists but may boost the economy. Likewise effective management, health care and education may reduce dog bite injuries and zoonotic disease transfer and improve the overall well-being of the local population, dogs and people alike.

If you wish to contact Mark for further information, please visit www.ed.ac.uk/vet/jmicawe

Thanks to http://lindsay-meyer.com/ for use of image of stray dogs on beach

Vietnam aims to strengthen animal welfare in veterinary education, research and practice.

Last week, JMICAWE vet Heather Bacon travelled to Hanoi, Vietnam to participate in an animal welfare training event. Hosted by the Hanoi University of Agriculture and sponsored by WSPA and Animals Asia, the two-day meeting showcased the extensive efforts being generated across Vietnam to strengthen animal welfare in veterinary education, research and practice.

Topics were varied, including a range of subjects from farm animal welfare assessment, wildlife trade issues and animal welfare in aquaculture. Heather presented on captive wildlife welfare issues, a significant problem in Vietnam, where a thriving illegal wildlife trade exists alongside a range of small zoos, circuses and government-run wildlife centres, which all present a vast range of challenges to good animal welfare.

The workshop also included several field trips comprising visits to local veterinary clinics, a pig farm, and dog slaughter market. Dog meat is widely consumed in Vietnam and dogs are traded from Thailand to supply the consumption market. There are at present no humane farming or slaughter methods of dogs for human consumption.

The programme ended with a commitment from the Hanoi University of Agriculture to continue to support and develop research in animal welfare, to improve the lives of production animals across Vietnam. The JMICAWE looks forward to continuing collaboration to support these developments.

A successful 3rd workshop in India

Successful third workshop on Companion Animal Welfare held in India

JMICAWE’s Director, Prof Natalie Waran; Veterinarian and JMICAWE Outreach Manager, Heather Bacon and Welfare Veterinary Nurse, Hayley Walters, have just returned from Kerala after having delivered a week long companion animal welfare workshop for Kerala Veterinary and Animal Science University Faculty members.

This is the last of the three workshops provided by The University of Edinburgh with the support of the British Council’s Knowledge Economy Partnership Scheme.

15 members of the Kerala clinical teaching team from two campuses attended the workshop, during which they learned about how to utilize a problem based learning approach to deliver teaching in the area of companion animal welfare, welfare assessment, shelter medicine and clinical skills development.

The Edinburgh team took a variety of animal alternatives with them, including manikins designed for enabling students to practice their suturing, catheter placement and blood-taking skills as well as on-line teaching resources for teaching physiological, pharmacological and anatomical course content without the need for live animals.

The team was delighted to be accompanied by Ruth DeVere, Head of Education for the World Society for the Protection of  Animals who was keen to learn more about the work of the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education in India, as well as to explore ways to collaborate in future.

The KVASU Vice Chancellor, Dr Ashok and senior colleagues at the University will be hosting the final symposium later this spring to show-case the way in which the programme has helped with capacity building and up-skilling their staff in innovative and student-centred approaches to teaching, as well as embedding animal welfare and ethics into their curriculum.

Animal Welfare Futures Conference - a great success

The Applied Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare Master students (MSc AABAW) organised a one-day conference on Animal Welfare Futures, held at Easter Bush Campus on Thursday 14 February. 

Their Programme Director, Dr Susan Jarvis, commented ‘that the students did an excellent job in organising a really interesting and thought provoking day’. 

Issues relating to global use and production of animals, climate change, economics of animal welfare, future of animal welfare legislation and changing attitudes to animal welfare were all discussed in the question sessions and during the Panel discussions.

The speakers included: Harry Eckman, Mike Appleby, Alistair Stott, Christopher Wathes, Heather Bacon and Xavier Manteca (by Webinar).

Thanks to the speakers, staff from both the R(D)SVS and SRuC, everyone who attended and well done to the students!!

New resources at Clinical Skills Lab

The R(D)SVS Clinical Skills Lab has recently benefited from a number of new resources, kindly purchased through funding from the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education (www.ed.ac.uk/vet/jmicawe).

These will be fantastic resources for clinical skills training for our students, and include an exciting new equine colic simulator, canine neutering mannikins and a bovine rectal palpation simulator (see attached photos).

We also have several mannikins for students to initially learn and develop essential clinical skills such as canine intravenous access,  endotracheal intubation and auscultation in a safe, welfare-friendly environment.

If staff and students are interested in seeing the resources that we now have on offer for clinical skills training, then please feel free to call in to our ‘Open House Day’ next week – details below:

R(D)SVS Clinical Skills Lab - Open House Day

Date: Thursday 21^st February 2013

Time: 9.00 - 5.00pm (feel free to call in on an open-access basis between these hours)

Venue: Clinical Skills Lab, room 1.21, 1^st floor of New Vet School

 

R(D)SVS WELFARE VETERINARY NURSE, ASSISTS WITH DOGS TRUST PROJECT IN BOSNIA

Our Welfare Veterinary Nurse, Hayley Walters was delighted to be invited to join the Dogs Trust team in Sarajevo in February this year. The team were responsible for providing up-skilling to 6 Bosnian veterinary surgeons in the areas of anaesthesia, surgical skills and ‘trap, neuter and release’ work. The course took place at the only veterinary training school in Bosnia, the University of Sarajevo - veterinary faculty, over a five day period.  

Along with providing and demonstrating quality veterinary nursing management of the patients, Hayley was responsible for delivering intubation and anaesthesia tutorials, as well as demonstrating and promoting the use of alternative training methods for suturing and intravenous catheter placement, using animal ‘manikins’ and training models to enable students to develop and practise their skills.

“It was a privilege to be asked by Dogs Trust to join their team in Bosnia. I was really impressed by the wonderful hospitality shown by the Bosnian veterinarians being up-skilled, and especially pleased by their eagerness to learn more about best practice surgical skills, anaesthetic monitoring and pain relief”.

Sarajevo has a human population of 300,000 and a street dog population of between, 11,000 – 13,000. Shooting dogs for population management became illegal 5 years ago and since then, with no other management in place, dog numbers have grown dramatically with the resulting animal welfare and public health concerns’.

With more Dogs Trust led workshops planned throughout the year, the number of skilled, competent Bosnian vets placed around Sarajevo will increase thus ensuring the neutering campaign to be a humane, successful answer to the problem. In addition, the JMICAWE team hope to work together with Sarajevo University veterinary faculty to help provide more information for veterinary undergraduates on animal welfare science to help with creating a more sustainable approach to humanely managing dog and cat populations in the future.

Improving animal welfare through improved veterinary skills

There are few situations that a newly graduated vet fears more than equine colic. This tricky, life-threatening condition may be challenging to both diagnose and treat, and has many causes and various symptoms. Because of its life-threatening nature, students rarely have the opportunity to gain experience in basic colic examination techniques or to see the different types of colic that may present.

However students at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary studies will now have the opportunity to practice enhanced techniques in equine colic diagnosis to better enable them to prepare for the real thing, thanks to generous funding from the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education.

The equine colic simulator, developed by the University of Calgary, Canada, is a life-like equine model, complete with internal organs and allows for a variety of simulated scenarios including a variety of obstructions and an abdominocentesis simulation. http://www.vetsimulators.com/catalogue/in-development/15-equine-colic-simulator

The simulator joins a range of manikins and models utilised by the R(D)SVS and supported by JMICAWE to better prepare students for their life ‘in practice’ and to reduce the need for live animal use in education. Improved clinical skills lead to an enhanced educational experience and ensure that veterinary students are more dexterous and well-trained before accessing live-animal patients in real-clinic scenarios.

The Future of Animal Welfare - 14th February 2013.

THE FUTURE OF ANIMAL WELFARE

CONFERENCE

ORGANISED BY THE MSc AABAW STUDENTS of the UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

THURSDAY 14 FEBRUARY

THE ROSLIN INSTITUTE, EASTER BUSH CAMPUS, EH25 9RG

Register at: animalwelfarefuture@gmail.com

February 14^th, 2013 – The Roslin Institute Building Auditorium (G-022)

9:00-9:30	Registration
9:30-9:35	Introduction to Conference
9:40-10:15	Harry Eckman, CFAF – Human Attitude and Behaviour Change in Relation to Animal Welfare
10:20-10:55	Mike Appleby,  WSPA  – Animal Management, Animal Welfare, and the Future of the World
10:55-11:10	REFRESHMENTS
11:10-11:45	Alistair Stott, SRUC – Economics and Animal Welfare
11:50-12:30	Panel Discussion A
12:30-13:30	LUNCH
13:30-14:05	Christopher Wathes, RVC – Farm Animal Welfare in Great Britain: Past, Present and Future
14:10-14:45	Heather Bacon,  JMICAWE – Animal Welfare Around the World
14:45-15:00	REFRESHMENTS
15:00-15:45	Xavier Manteca (Webinar),  Universitat Autonoma De Barcelona  – The Future Of EU Legislation on       Farm Animal Welfare
15:45-15:55	Video Presentation
16:00-16:30	Panel Discussion B and Closing Remarks

Good clinical decision-making is central to being a good vet

This week, both the staff and students here at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies were delighted to engage in an ethical debate and discussion, led by Dr James Yeates, Chief Veterinary Surgeon for the RSPCA. The topic was “Decision-making in practice and the role and responsibilities of the veterinary surgeon”.

“Good clinical decision-making is central to being a good vet. This requires not only enough medical knowledge, but also accurate welfare assessment and sound ethical reasoning. Best practice (as described in textbooks) can take us so far, but not many cases allow such ‘best practice’” says Dr Yeates, and in his presentations he discussed the concept of ‘Bespoke best practice’, tailored towards a particular animal in a particular situation, rather than a textbook case.

Dr Yeates also emphasised the role of the veterinary profession in guiding positive animal welfare decisions, and our responsibilities to both our patients and clients.

This presentation was part of the ‘Ethics and Welfare’ lecture series championed by the Jeanne Marchig International Centre for Animal Welfare Education, to encourage discussion and debate on animal welfare and ethical issues relating to the veterinary profession.

Excellence in Animal Welfare teaching recognised by students at Edinburgh

The animal welfare team at Edinburgh has been involved with the design and delivery of innovative animal welfare education since 1990 when the Masters in Applied animal behaviour and welfare (MSc AABAW) was launched under the directorship of JMICAWE’s director, Professor Natalie Waran.

Since then the team have developed a variety of successful animal welfare taught programmes with the most recent being the PG Masters in International animal welfare, ethics and law, delivered on-line (MSc IAWEL) under the directorship of Dr Fritha Langford.

In 2007, Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA) launched the EUSA Teaching Awards to recognise excellence in teaching, student support and the use of imaginative delivery methods. The Teaching Awards are entirely student-led, with students nominating online and a representative panel of students deciding who will win the final awards.

We are extremely proud to announce that Fritha, our inaugural Programme Director for the extremely popular MSc IAWEL has been nominated for the following awards:

1.    Teaching with Technology –in recognition for the excellent online teaching she has given, as well as acknowledging the easy to follow layout of the online platform and the excellent quality of content for this ODL programme.

And the

2.    College of Veterinary Medicine Teaching Award –in recognition for the good teaching at Edinburgh University, through teaching animal welfare on the on-campus MSc AABAW and the online MSc IAWEL.

Congratulations Fritha on receiving both these nominations, and fingers crossed that you are short listed as a winner at the Ceremony on the 3^rd April 2013.

Dr James Yeates giving a talk at the Dick Vet

Dr James Yeates will present his talk on Thurs 31 January,

LT1 @ 5.15pm

Title: Ethics and Clinical Decision-Making

"Good clinical decision-making is central to being a good vet. This requires not only enough medical knowledge, but also accurate welfare assessment and sound ethical reasoning. Best practice (as described in textbooks) can take us so far, but not many cases allow such "best practice" (especially as a RSPCA vet).

This talk takes us through steps in ethical decision-making of real cases, with chances to practice decision-making in real life situations (with no fear of embarrassment)"

James Yeates BSc BVSc DWEL DipECVS(AWBM) PhD MRCVS is Chief Veterinary Officer at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (UK) and Honorary Lecturer at the University of Bristol (UK). James is Chair of the British Veterinary Association Ethics and Welfare Group and is a member of the BVA Council, the Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law Veterinary Association Committee, the British Small Animal Veterinary Association Scientific Committee and the International Fund for Cat Welfare Committee 

He has previously been Honorary Secretary for the Society of Practising Veterinary Surgeons, a Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and the BSAVA Petsavers clinical scholar in animal welfare ethics and law at the University of Bristol. James has a Bachelors of Veterinary Science, a Bachelors in Bioethics, a RCVS Certificate and Diploma in animal welfare science, ethics and law and a PhD in veterinary ethics. He is a Diplomate of the RCVS and European College of Animal Welfare and Behavioural Medicine. James edits the AWSELVA Journal of Animal Welfare Science, Ethics and Law, and has published on topics such as veterinary decision-making, euthanasia, animal welfare values, companion animal welfare, stem cells and medical authority, including a forthcoming book on Achieving Animal Welfare in Veterinary Practice (Wiley-Blackwell)

www.ed.ac.uk/jmicawe

Providing surgical training and animal welfare education in Sarajevo

With recent research producing a count of around 11,000 stray dogs on the streets of Sarajevo, there is a need for humane and effective measures for controlling the dog population. Therefore on the 3^rd February 2013,  our vet nurse Hayley Walters will be flying out to Sarajevo in Bosnia to assist UK charity the Dogs Trust with a surgical training course to Bosnian vets.

The course will run for a week and dogs from the streets of Sarajevo will be caught, neutered, vaccinated, ear tagged and then released back onto the streets once they have fully recovered.

The Dogs Trust is keen to up skill the vets currently working in Bosnia and to promote neutering as a means of humane population control. Local authority training, education in schools, public education and subsidised neutering for pet owners are also part of their multi-pronged approach to good pet ownership.

Having been involved in several overseas neutering projects already, Hayley was very pleased to be asked by the Dogs Trust to help out. “Research has shown that mass culls of street dog populations are not only inhumane but also don’t work. New dogs just move into the newly vacated area and the problem starts all over again. Mass neutering and vaccinating campaigns result in a healthier and more manageable sized dog population so to do this, AND up skill local vets to carry on the good work at the same time, is a win-win situation for everyone”.

Hayley will use her previous experiences to ensure that each dog’s welfare comes first in the training of the vets and hopes that JMICAWE and the Dogs Trust will collaborate again on future projects.

Animal welfare is high on the agenda for JMICAWE partners, at KVASU

Animal Welfare is high on the agenda for JMICAWE partners, Kerala veterinary and animal science University

Animal welfare has become a hot topic for vets, following the successful second of three British council funded animal welfare workshops for the veterinary faculty staff at the KVASU and run by the JMICAWE.

To demonstrate their commitment to and engagement with, further training and awareness in animal welfare, the KVASU has launched an animal welfare section to their University website. The plan is to develop this as an important resource to help staff and students have easy access up to date information about animal welfare issues, teaching resources and up to date research. http://kvasu.ac.in/animal-welfare-news .

Animal welfare is increasingly being internationally recognised as an essential component of the veterinary curriculum – and Indian veterinary schools are required to deliver animal welfare and ethics training as part of their teaching. With this new development, KVASU hope to lead the way in demonstrating how animal welfare science can be effectively embedded using a problem based approach for delivering relevant content.