Happy July everyone!  Our guest today is Dr. Heather Bacon, Dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Central Lancashire in the United Kingdom.  Heather has worked internationally on veterinary education and animal welfare projects for over 15 years.  Her experience with and interest in animal welfare issues is so extensive it was difficult to decide on which topic to cover with her today.  In the end, we decided to focus mainly on issues of the health and well-being of captive wildlife, specifically those in zoos and aquaria.  

 Heather will talk about the five domains of animal welfare and how they underpin several frameworks around the world for treatment of zoo and aquarium animals.  You may recall I did an episode on that subject almost a year ago.  That episode is called Feeling Groovy – the Five Domains of Animal Welfare.  If you haven’t already done so you may want to check it out.

Heather also makes some compelling comments about importance of human interaction with animals, particularly for animals in zoos and aquaria.  Enjoy!

Links:

https://www.uclan.ac.uk/schools/veterinary-medicine

Recommendations of books, publications:  

https://www.routledge.com/One-Welfare-in-Practice-The-Role-of-the-Veterinarian/Stephens/p/book/9780367904067

https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/book/10.1079/9781789247237.0000

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/8/7/103

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10888705.2021.2012784

Social Media links: 

@UCLanvets (twitter), 

@AW_Vet (personal twitter), 

@UCLan Veterinary Medicine (facebook)