Annual General Meeting 2009
The fifth Annual General Meeting was held at Berkeley on November 4th 2009.
Welfare reasons for repeal of the Hunting Act
VAWM have just published an aide memoire giving 7 crucial welfare reasons for repeal of the Hunting Act.
The aide memoire (download here), based on A Veterinary Opinion on Hunting with Hounds (read it here), will be issued as a pocket sized laminated card and circulated widely amongst the hunting world.
The welfare reasons for repeal of the Hunting Act are set out below:
Wild Brains - Domesticated Minds: Opposites in Welfare?
Poster presented at: UFAW International Symposium on Darwinian selection, selective breeding and the welfare of animals, Bristol, June 22-23, 2009
You can download the summary on this link and a copy of the poster on this link.
For more information please visit our Animal Cognition and Awareness page on this link.
Rational determination on bovine TB from Wales - speculative vaccination from DEFRA
The recent announcement by the Welsh minister for rural affairs, Elin Jones, to set up an Intensive Action Pilot Area in Pembrokeshire is in stark contrast to the announcement by DEFRA that they plan to start vaccinating badgers next year with BCG.
Vets applaud Welsh badger cull
VAWM joins with the British Veterinary Association (BVA) in welcoming the recent announcement (January 13, 2010) by the Government of the Welsh Assembly of a pilot badger cull and stricter cattle measures, located mainly in north Pembrokeshire, in the bid to tackle the spread of bovine tuberculosis.
Hunting wildlife management and the moral issue
Latest joint publication with the All Party Parliamentary Middle Way Group:
Please use this link to download your copy of Hunting wildlife management and the moral issue
“We are pleased to collaborate again with the Middle Way Group to produce this latest document, the third in a series of joint publications, which we believe, together with our Veterinary Opinion on Hunting with Hounds published in 2002, represents an overwhelming welfare case for repeal of the Hunting Act (2004).”
Comment by Dr. L.H.Thomas MRCVS on DEFRA's England Wildlife Health Strategy
"Amongst the mindnumbing 37 pages of DEFRA speak (what an earth does "a variety of cross cutting initiatives" (para 7.10) mean?) and the plethora of acronyms - NEEG, SPIRE, HAIRS, UKZADI, to name but a few, there is the interesting proposal for a National Wildlife Disease Surveillance Partnership. Little information is given as to how it might be achieved and who the partners with the VLA might be but the aspiration seems worthy. And this largely sums up this latest strategy document from DEFRA. It is essentially an enabling report, a catalogue of worthy intentions.
DEFRA towards a Wildlife Management Strategy for England
Please use this link to read our response to a consultation by DEFRA towards a Wildlife Management Strategy for England, September 2008.
