Seminars

From January 28th to January 31st the International Society for Applied Ethology Nordic branch Winter meeting was held at the Estonian University of Life Sciences in Tartu, Estonia. The aim of the meeting was to present and discuss work on a wide range of animal welfare topics, including farm, companion, laboratory and zoo and wild animals. Participants, in addition to Estonia, were from Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Norway and Finland. In total 30 participants. The topic of the first day was zoo animal welfare with invited speakers Dr Geoff Hosey from the University of Bolton and Lea Tummeleht from the Estonian University of Life Sciences. The first part of the second day was dedicated to laboratory animals with Adrian Smith from Norecopa. He talked about to the planning of the design for animal studies. The second part of second day was dedicated to farm animal welfare with Harry Blokhuis. Kadri Kaugerand from Ministry of Rural Affairs and Hele-Mai Sammel from the Veterinary and Food Board, who talked about animal welfare legislation and its enforcement in Estonia. The topic of the last day was companion animal welfare, in particular dog behaviour and welfare and how this should be protected during animal assisted interventions. Invited speakers in this session were Profs. Lena Lidfors and Björn Forkman. The proceedings of the meeting can be found here. 

On March 12^th 2019 seminar about antibiotics use took place in Tartu, Estonia. Target groups are veterinarians and veterinary students.

Antibiotic Stewardship (ASP) is a tool in daily clinical work to decrease the use of antibiotics and thereby countering antibiotic resistance. In veterinary medicine ASP is a new field with great possibilities for interested clinicians to be a part of the joined battle against antibiotic resistance. Working with farm animals other approaches on both herd and individual level need to be considered. Sweden has great experience in working with animal health and welfare, preventing disease and lower the use of antibiotics, in what is called “The Swedish model”. Speakers are Stine Hoelgaard, DVM, Evidensia Specialist Animal Hospital in Helsingborg, Ditte Ljungquist, DVM, Evidensia Specialist Animal Hospital in Helsingborg and Ylva Persson, DVM, PhD, National Veterinary Institute and Växa Sweden. 

On September 13^th 2018 the Baltic Animal Welfare Network together with the Ministry of Agriculture in Riga hosted a seminar about farm animal welfare and fitness for transportation and slaughter, carried out with financial support from the Swedish Institute. 105 participants from seven countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark) took part in the seminar. The State Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture opened the seminar and welcomed the participants. Representatives from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania talked about welfare problems around transport and slaughter in their home countries. The Seminar continued with presentations from Swedish and Norwegian speaker about assessment of fitness for transport and slaughter, handling of animals not fit for transport or slaughter, humane slaughter at farm level, legislation and food safety during on farm slaughter. There was also a presentation about DISA, free educational material on the web about humane slaughter and killing of animals http://disa.slu.se/E_index_Disa.shtml

Click here for presentations (PDF):

Evaluation of the fitness of animals for tranport

Slaughterhouses and veterinarians

Food safety during on farm slaughter

Animal welfare during slaughter or killing of cattle at farm level