2015 Animal Ethics Seminar

An Animal Ethics Seminar was held by the Animal Research Review Panel and Animal Welfare Unit, NSW Department of Primary Industries, on 29 September.

The seminar was for members of Animal Ethics Committees and people involved in the care and use of animals for research and teaching. The quality of the programme and the presenters attracted almost 160 participants.

The presentations were varied, engaging and informative. Topics covered ranged from anaesthesia and analgesia in rabbits, rodents and fish; the basics of assessing research design (in language accessible to the non-statistician!); and roles and challenges faced by animal care staff.

The inclusion of a segment of “interpretive dance” in the final presentation guaranteed the attention of the audience until the end (this involved the demonstration of how to “talk” to laboratory rabbits with hand signals, and the benefits to the animals of this form of communication).

As for previous seminars, the North Sydney venue was provided free of charge by the Australian Catholic University. Since the last seminar the lecture theatre had been extensively renovated and provided an elegant and comfortable setting that facilitated both the delivery of presentations and interaction with audience members.

Most of the speakers kindly agreed to their presentations being published and these are available from the links below.