Journals

The AWSELVA Journal presents high quality and topical information from leading experts in the field of animal welfare science, ethics and law.

AWSELVA Journal Winter 2003

Chairman's Column

One of the most demanding tasks required of the Chairman of AWSELVA is to produce an article for each magazine according to the commands laid down by the editor, namely that said article should appear personal, contentious and immediately. Under such pressure, and in the light of the 2003 Farm Animal Welfare Council Report of the Welfare of Farm Animals at Killing and Slaughter: Part 1, Red Meat Animals, I thought that it would be suitably...
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AWSELVA Journal Summer 2003

Chairman's Column

The Veterinary Profession has got itself into a fine mess over the issue of kidney transplants for cats. The full spectrum of human emotions is exposed: cant, compassion, cowardice, greed, honour, pomposity (I list them in alphabetical order to avoid any suggestion of ranking). In this column I shall try to use the tools of practical ethics to unravel some of this disorder.   The first important point to make is that most (not all)...
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AWSELVA Journal Winter 2002

Chairman's Column

AWSELVA, by its very title, recognises that a professional concern for animal welfare must incorporate principles of both science and ethics, and these principles should govern present and future laws. We have become accustomed to hearing politicians within the European Community pronounce that any new animal welfare legislation must be based ‘on sound scientific principles’. This sounds all right, at first, since it implies that decisions will...
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AWSELVA Journal Summer 2002

Chairman's Column

Ethics is a good thing. We can all agree on that. However, for those of us who can afford the luxury of middle-class morality, it is also, usually, an easy thing. We can take the cable car to fashionable areas of moral high ground (third-world poverty, animal welfare) and make impeccable moral judgements without losing a bead of metaphorical sweat. It becomes much more difficult when one is living in the middle of a moral dilemma and faced by...
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AWSELVA Journal Winter 2001

Chairman's Column

I write this column just after a successful meeting held in Langford, Bristol on the welfare, ethical and legal aspects of the foot and mouth epidemic. It seems that the outbreak, at last, has been brought under control but at some cost to many of the stakeholders. Farmers have been upset at the loss of their herds and flocks, animals which they may have spent a lifetime breeding (and even their parents before them). The public are upset, even...
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AWSELVA Journal Summer 2001

Chairman's Column

Do we learn from history? Are the welfare problems of the foot and mouth epidemic different from those of 1967/68? I suspect not, but I do not recall the same outcry then as now, but why not? Has our moral conscience changed or is it simply that the recent publicity over our declining agricultural industry and the spectre of globalisation are having an impact that any straw will be grabbed and used to try to turn the tide? The methods used to...
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