The International Animal Welfare Standards Project, based out of the Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics at UQ Gatton, recently held the first of its annual workshops in Beijing, China.
The workshops form part of the establishment of the first Sino-Australian Animal Welfare Centre and will focus on training a new generation of Chinese scientists to lead the way in improving animal welfare standards for livestock in China.
Led by Professor Clive Phillips, the workshop held on 25-29 August aimed to provide students and staff attending with a deeper understanding of how to conduct animal welfare science and animal ethics reasoning. It included presentations on the main methods of welfare assessment, running experiments, different people’s perspectives in animal welfare and more detailed knowledge of the major welfare issues for the most commonly farmed animal species.
China is responsible for 39 percent of farmed animals worldwide – it’s the biggest livestock producing country in the world and has the biggest consumer market. The Animal Welfare Standards Project focuses on the development of local Chinese animal welfare to address animal welfare concerns in locally meaningful and domestically led ways.