Thanks very much, Antony. And thanks to everyone who's, registered and tuned in this evening. Really appreciate, the opportunity that Anthony gives us at the BVA to, to run these policy webinars.

And also really grateful for those kind comments and introduction. Very happy to have for the sun dunes and the Sefton coast in my head, as we go into this with all of it's wonderful, fantastic wildlife, that I've been. Very lucky to have been able to go and see, over the years.

So we're going to have a series of the so-called policy webinars where, over the course of the series will be providing updates on pressing topics of relevance to the profession, including bovine TB, antimicrobial resistance, really important, of course, pedigree dog health and welfare, and the support that we're developing for recent graduates, and feminization of the professions, they're all to come. And I'd also really like to thank at this stageuron and everyone who's been involved in the development of tonight's topic, which is the animals. So I'll come on to say, it's been a really consultative process to get to where we now are, and people have Chipped in, enormous amounts of time and thoughts, as part of the consultation.

So to save me remembering all the right times to go through, it was a big thank you from the outset. So I think, the first slide was another one just to try and get, a bit of a sense of who's, kindly, come on to the webinar. Are we able to run this one, Anthony, just now to, there we go.

Right, yeah, I think I just, put the first one on, so let's run that. And, are you, so basically, are you a student, a vet nurse or vet surgeon student? Are you a veterinary surgeon, are you a veterinary nurse, are you practise manager, or are you something else?

And, perhaps if you are other, you could perhaps just tap into the question box to let us know what you are. So, just leave that for another couple of seconds and I will spill the beans. So I think everybody is probably had a chance to vote now, so I will close the poll.

Not sure if you're seeing that now, Sean, but it, it basically 6% of students, 78% are veterinary surgeons, 9% are veterinary nurses, and 7% are other. So the majority, nearly 80%, are veterinary surgeons. OK, that's really interesting, great to know.

Thanks very much. . OK.

So that speaking up for welfare, that's the, the title that's been given to BBA's new animal welfare strategy, which, I had the, pleasure to be able to launch on the 3rd of February. So it's been published, for just over a month. And that was at BVA's annual, London dinner, which is, an opportunity that we take and make each year to, provide updates to.

On this occasion, the Minister, George Eustace, the chief veterinary officer, other invited parliamentarians and peers, and the influential, and stakeholders. So we had a great audience there of people who we were keen to. Convey our commitment as BVA and as the veterinary profession to playing a full and active role in promoting, animal welfare.

And it provides, we hope a structured plan for, for us as BVA to advocate good animal welfare and to support our members, importantly, to maximise their animal advocacy potential and achieve good welfare outcomes for animals. So over the course of this webinar, I wanted to, start with a bit of context. Why, why did we decide it was the right time?

What prompted us to think about developing this, which has been, in development for over 18 months up until the 3rd of February last month. Then I'll just give some sense of, of how we put it together, in terms of the consultation and the engagement that we had from, both members and more broadly, from out with the profession. Give you a sense of what it, actually includes, for what we say, and what's in there.

I should say the actual document itself is available, for free download on the BBA website. There's a link in my final slide. So you can come, you can access the, the specifics for yourself, at a later time.

And also just can give you a sense of next steps. So we have had, as I say, about 6 weeks since it's been published and we're already, our minds are clearly focused on how we start delivering it, which, as with any strategy is, is the most important part. So to kick off with that, that context, and it's pretty big, we go pretty broad and then focus back down into, into us as vets and vet nurses and others.

I think it's just to make the points that Man has been using animals obviously for very many years and importantly thinking about how we ought to use animals for very many years. So these ethical questions, the considerations of what are the right ways in which we ought to use animals are not at all new. And they go back to at least ancient Greece, Pythagoras, who's picture there, best known for his contributions to, mathematics, but also wrote interesting thoughtful pieces, on.

How we ought to use animals. And of course, those, those questions are as live and as important, as, as they ever have been probably today, and globally as we'll come on to see. A significant moment in that ongoing history, of consideration for, for animal use was the publication of this book, Animal Machines, by Ruth Harrison, as recently really as 1964, just over 50 years ago.

And for those that don't know, she became aware, she was a, a British author, became aware, in the post-war period of how the ability to So, say, intensively manage animals, had really developed a pace and that some of these, now quite controversial, husbandry systems have been developed. So things like the, the barren battery cage there on the left and veal crates for cars on the right. She was concerned about this.

She went about researching and trying to better understand. How and why and what was going on, in animal agriculture. And then published this book, which revealed, some of these practises to the public for the first time.

Predictably, I, I expect you'd say there was some public reaction and public outcry, and the government of the day, in response, established the so-called Bramble Committee under the chairmanship of Professor Bramble, and they went on to produce the, the report. This was its name, the report of the technical committee to inquire into the welfare of animals kept under intensive livestock husbandry systems. And there were a variety of disciplines represented on his committee.

But they examined these types of systems and felt that In sympathy to the public response, all was perhaps not well certainly from the animal's perspectives. And they conveyed these in their conclusions, so-called rambles five freedoms. They considered that when thinking about these types of extreme confinement, then it perhaps ought to be the case that all animals should be allowed to at least turn around, get up, lie down, stretch their limbs, and groom themselves.

So then that, as a concept, began to gain traction and more latterly, the Farm Animal Welfare Council now committee, the Independent advisory, Committee to the UK government, gave some further thought to what these 5 things might helpfully be because they thought, well, these are certainly going to be important, but they're very physically based and they don't perhaps capture all of the elements that are important to determining animals' overall quality of life. And so they were then refined to the five freedoms that I'm sure everyone on the webinar just now will be familiar with, which were these. And, these move from just physical, parameters, not only physical possibility, but other physical things like injury and disease, but also importantly brought in, mental well-being and psychological well-being.

So things like freedom from fear and distress. And freedom from discomfort, pain, and so on. So they originated here in the UK.

They're originally applied to considerations of farm animals, but they are now well recognised and applied globally, and not just for farm animals. But things have also evolved, beyond the five freedoms. So I think, a very exciting development, certainly in my lifetime was now 10 years ago, and that was the Modification of the five freedoms and the enshrining in the UK Animal Welfare Acts.

So I've shown that the animal welfare there applicable in England and Wales, but the equivalent legislation in, Scotland and Northern Ireland. And you can see that the five freedoms were slightly, reworded and now referred to. As the so-called 5 welfare needs.

And for any of us dealing with animals, and regularly seeing animal keepers and owners, we, we recognise that each of them, each of them now has a legal responsibility to be meeting these five welfare needs. The challenge, of course, which I'm sure we all recognise, is that not, not all animals are having those five welfare needs met and not all indeed, keepers and owners understand that legal duty, and that's part of our, our ongoing challenge and indeed what we're committing to through the strategy. So that was, that was great.

We, the animal machines prompted us to, to think what's important to an animal, what's important to an animal's quality of life. It was the evolution of five freedoms and then that it's translation into animal protection legislation across the world. But what it also did, influentially in this long history of animal welfare consideration was prompt some comments from, that Bramble committee.

That whilst their conclusions made intuitive sense, they weren't able to draw on, anything of a, of a well-developed evidence base to support their conclusions. And so that's Went on to spark the now thriving field, of animal welfare science of seeking to, understand what's important to animals from their perspectives. To better understand their pleasures and pains and to understand how they perceive the world.

And that was animal welfare science. And certainly it has been incredibly influential. Elucidating as it has things like the strong motivation and preference for laying hens to access a perch at night to lay their eggs in an enclosed space to to scratch, similar strong preference for sows to separate from their herds to have their piglets and their strong motivation to build a nest at that time.

And with that type of evidence being extremely influential and therefore leading to EU wide bans on both the barren battery cage and gestation crates, for pigs. Similarly, it's prompted us to gain a much better understanding of both acute and chronic pain in animals, including that that's incurred through some common husbandry procedures that we're well familiar with, such as tail docking, dehorning, castration, and so on. Other approaches like So-called cognitive bias, so the pessimistic biases that we see in animals, when they've been living in, in barren living environments compared to, the specifics that have been in a more enriched environment and and the way that those cognitive biases are analogous to similar responses seen in humans reporting depression, and indeed suffering from depression.

So there's been a range of novel and interesting scientific approaches applied to these important questions of how animals faring on human stewardship and management, and that has certainly brought an objectivity and credibility to the field of animal welfare that simply wasn't there before that. That area branch of science developed with, also again being familiar with some of the accusations of anthropomorphism, . That were prevalent before we were able to gain a scientific insight to the conclusions that we're drawing.

So now you can go anywhere on the internet to find examples like this. This one happens to be from, Desmond Tsu, who says, I've spent my life fighting discrimination and injustice, whether the victims are blacks, women, or gays and lesbians. But there are other issues of justice, not only for human beings, but also for the world's other sentient creatures.

And the matter of the abuse and cruelty we inflict on other animals has to fight for our attention in what seems sometimes seems an already over full moral gender. It's vital, however, that these instances of injustice not be overlooked. And so what we've seen, I think, as I say, on the back of the science, or most likely not exclusively, is animal welfare as a rapidly evolving social concern.

Which is following on from moral progress towards, women, minority groups, children, and others. So that being the case at the very broad level, our minds can then turn to thinking about who in the world, who of all the people who could do something have opportunity and responsibility to act on that on that new ethic. And if this is a bit of a schematic that might include or represent.

Individuals like lawyers, economists, animal welfare scientists, politicians, industry, NGOs, consumers, and so on. Clearly, whenever we think about this question, there emerges. The presence of a practical, scientifically trained, trusted member of society who has often has direct daily access to animal keepers and owners, and they of course are vets and vet nurses.

I've given a very traditional depiction there of our roles as companion animal vets, farming vets, vets, but of course, acting in many, many other parts of society where that's it, . Government work, public health, conservation, and, and, and so on, agriculture, the, bees, we've, we've got such, a, a wide variety of roles, of course, and that same opportunity and responsibility. At least where we're we're dealing with sentient creatures, as in the majority of cases.

So we have our opportunity to advocate for animals may be the greatest of all, and we have clear social, professional, and legal responsibilities to do so. And Ruth Harrison captured that herself in Animal machines when she includes this line, What do veterinary surgeons think of all this, all this that she was reporting and clearly conveying there a sense that we ought to think something about it. She had that expectation, I should say wasn't, a veterinary surgeon herself, although there was a preface written by the BVA president of the, at the time.

And now we've really seen that, that sense of responsibility and expectation, clearly articulated in some recently published, Professional statements and I've included a flavour of those here. So we have this one in 2011 when the Federation of Vets of Europe and the American Veterinary Medical Association published their joint statement on the roles of vets in ensuring good animal welfare, and they said vets are must continually strive to be the leading advocates for the good welfare of animals in a continually evolving society. Similarly then a year later, this from the World organisation for Animal Health, veterinarians should be the leading advocates for the welfare of all animals and provide leadership to society on ethical considerations involved in the use and care of animals by humans.

Then animal welfare was selected as the theme of World Veterinary Day in 2014 and associated materials and said the societal expectation from the veterinary profession regarding animal welfare now expands well beyond simply individual veterinary daily practises. And similarly, the, the world's small association, targeted global improvements on welfare as it's one of its key priorities in 2014. This year, by way of updates, next month, the International Veterinary Students Association have also selected animal welfare, as the, as the theme of their conference to be held in new track, and kindly given us BBA a slot to go and speak to them.

So it's not at all, abating, and rightly so, and there's very many, associations and individuals with their, their attentions turned out to how we bring this to, or continue to bring this to reality, but also expand our activities. And of course, all of those, professional statements are set against the context, and a backdrop of global veterinary oaths, including ours here in the UK, the, the RCVS declaration, Which, not needing to remind you, and the emphasis on above all being there's not mine, saying that our constant endeavour will be to ensure the health and welfare of animals committed to my care. And then in terms, most recently, that's really focused on is that in our most recent member research surveys, whenever we asked members what their top lobbying priority priorities were, animal welfare has consistently been up at the top.

And then similarly, in the in the Futures project, which BBA has been leading with the Royal College, to prepare for and shape the future of the veterinary profession with a 2030 horizon in mind. You'll hopefully be aware that that too has been a very consultative project with the profession. And of its 6 stated ambitions, which are now in the in the Vet Futures report and the the 6 clear work streams for the Vet Futures Action Group.

One of them is leadership in animal health and welfare, and it was absolutely clear, you know, anyone that we spoke to, we went to lots of regional roadshows and did surveys and questionnaires and so on. And it's clear that . This, this leadership is an integral part of our professional identity.

It's what vets and nurses think we're all about and they want us to continue to be seem to be all about. So that's, a clear mandate we felt, to, to develop a project like this. We've got a membership, a profession saying vets want to be leaders in welfare.

We want to be recognised as leaders in animal welfare. And we thought, well, how do we sort of break that down into a first step? How are we going to, bring it to life, where, in what way?

Is it the same for all groups of people? Do we all think the same when we, when we make that call? And so we decided, really for For convenience and practicality to start thinking about it through these different, these three separate levels.

So we thought, what does it mean to individual vets operating at the individual level in their direct face to face interactions with animal keepers and owners. So I suppose particularly thinking about, practising vein surgeons, but not exclusively. They could be, named vets and research establishments.

OVs working in abattoirs and elsewhere, but at that individual level, what does it mean to them? Then at the practise level, having opportunity and influence in local communities, how do they see themselves as credible hubs of animal welfare expertise and advocacy within within communities. And then at the association level, so the likes of BVA20 specialist divisions, and others, what does it mean for us at the, the national, the political, the societal level?

How can we best meet that aspiration that's been so clearly expressed? And I suppose to make the point, importantly, that these don't operate distinctly from one another. So because we're a member association, We are absolutely there to represent and reflect the interests of our members.

So the, the arrow there is all about engagement. We absolutely rely on the really valuable inputs that our members continue to give us. And clearly we would always encourage more.

So we want what you what you say, whether it's practical resource or policy, and so on. But we broke it down into those three levels. So then just before I go on to the next step, which was to actually start asking members and others what good look like in their view at these three levels.

We also started in this context, just thinking about some of the opportunities and challenges that that might lie ahead. So First, we recognised, some, again, some fairly broad themes like this one that in the late 19th century. Ethical treatment of animals was considered to be placing them under veterinary care.

So we protected animals from lay intervention, and that was deemed to be ethical treatment, which of course, is still very much the case, but it's not simply enough to be under veterinary care. There's now a recognition that we as vets ought to be at least abreast of the scientific assessment of animal welfare. And, we should have well developed moral reasoning skills because we're going to need them to communicate effectively with our clients and with, society at large as part of public debate, gut feeling alone is, is probably not going to be sufficient.

And then we need to be able to respond to society as it, continues to. Prompt debate, and, and think about how animals ought to be used, whether that's in the wake of the Grand National or Croft or any of the other times, when there is public conversation, an interest in animal welfare. So that was one broad theme that that we had in mind.

Another was that there has been a similar shift, in a way from purely thinking about Questions of animal ethics in terms of preventing suffering, of course, essential though that continues to be, to expanding it more into considerations of animal well-being. So it's not just about preventing suffering, it's about promoting a good quality of life. That, as we've already said, can be captured by the five welfare needs indeed the legislation.

Introduced that positive legal duty. It was a duty of care, which was additional to the existing legal obligation to not cause an unnecessary suffering. So it's not just avoiding the bad now, it's promoting the good, and also promoting good welfare.

So we don't just want to avoid some of the harms of different animal uses. We want animals to. Enjoy life wherever that's possible.

And in a similar vein, certainly some comments, by way of preamble and, initial conversations, and indeed published literature, peer reviewed published literature. Made this highlighted this issue that whereas perhaps we as the veterinary professions have traditionally very much focused on physical health. We've sought to prevent and treat pain and injury and disease.

We too now are absolutely obliged to embrace all of the five welfare needs and for physical health to be, of course, you know, a cornerstone, absolutely fundamental to an animal's quality of life, but really just one of 5, we do need to be thinking about equally important determinants, of well-being, such as behavioural opportunities and appropriate social contact. And then some thoughts about how we think about animal welfare and currently advocate for animals. So some of these Comments that came into us were potentially quite challenging.

This gives it is a thought that we have historically considered animal welfare in terms of the proximate, the here and now, the status quo. So we do what we do because this is the way that animals are used, rather than then necessarily going on to consider some of the ultimate causes, of, of poor welfare. Whilst others increasingly are thinking, well, how do we actually move from A to B?

What you're saying now is justified within the ways that we currently use animals, but how do we actually move things on so that, life's better for them, overall. And to try and bring that to life, and give something of an example, the issue of, of selective breeding in, pedigree dogs. So the idea here would be that, when a dog is brought in requiring a caesarean section because it's unable because of selective breeding to give birth naturally.

Then of course, it's absolutely in that, dog's welfare interests and best interests, to, to do that operation. But that might be seen as a bit of an approximate solution to the problem because, of course, the ultimate, situation there is that dogs are being selectively bred in a way that we know is going to replicate that problem in a high percentage of the population. And so the ultimate response there would be for us to take steps, and be proactive to try and prevent the problem at its root cause, whether that's, reporting some of these, procedures to the Kennel Club, as we are, strongly encouraged to do and which BBA strongly, encourages our members to do and provide guidance on that.

Instantly, our junior vice president, Gurin Roberts, did an excellent blog post on that very topic, just a few days ago. Or some of the, the other initiatives that were involved with working with the Kennel Club, and others to try and bring more lasting solutions to be rather than if you're like picking up the pieces. Similarly with the, the confirmation altering surgery, we know how unpleasant some of the diseases can be, because it's caused by, excessively wrinkled skin.

But what do we do to actually stop the problem and that's this issue of pedigree dogs just gives one example of that proximate ultimate divide. Another thing that came in is that, well, once we've recognised that, it can be challenging concept to sort of accept that there's, that sort of systemic problem in our, in our sector or our field of work. And some said, well, recognising that, we sometimes do view it as a threat, especially if some of the proposed solutions are going to be, problematic for us.

They might alienate animal owning clients. And suggestions that we see so-called shifting spotlight type arguments where we say, no, no, well, yes, we do recognise that, but clearly this problem isn't as big as, as this one overseas or this one in, in animal use sector X on the road. .

And we kind of pass the, the book a little bit rather than saying, yeah, let's go for it. Let's do whatever we can here. So we were encouraged to guard, to recognise and guard against that.

And then similarly, which I think does tie in again nicely to the the pedigree dog example. A suggestion that sometimes as a profession, we've only found the confidence to start speaking out about some of the ultimate problems when a critical mass of favourable public opinion has been reached. So we're less willing to go out on the front foot to actually provoke, those, that sort of debate from the outset.

But once others have, and in the case of, pedigree dogs, you'll remember the document, the BBC documentary Pedigree Dogs exposed. Then it was suggested we came in on the, on the shirt tails of others, which, you know, you will judge the validity of that for yourself. Certainly the Animal Welfare Foundation had debated some of the health problems affecting pedigree dogs prior to pedigree dogs exposed, but there's absolutely no doubt that that was an important catalyst.

For Initiatives and reports and so on that are, are still being, there's still a pressing need to act on their recommendations today. But we absolutely, didn't want it either to be, an an unduly or unnecessarily negative agenda. So we were also encouraged to recognise that there's a real Flip side and positive side to this growing consumer and societal interest.

And there's a real opportunity there for us. We can, we can come in with a strong welfare voice as a profession on soft ground, if you like, the public are expecting us to talk about these things and want us to help them understand these things. And that can translate into a very positive animal welfare agenda and indeed market opportunity.

So we see things like the announcement by McDonald's in, 2013 to source, to, to commit for all of its pork served in UK restaurants to be RSPCA assured, Freedom Food at the time. Things like this, the annual business benchmark on farm animal welfare, it's an annual report looking at the, commitments of very many, food businesses, big companies like, Subway and KFC and others, and the premise of this particular initiative is that That, investors are increasingly conscious of how animal welfare risks are being managed in supply chains, and they want a reassurance and assurance that, the good animal welfare focused policies are in place before they invest. So that's good.

Very much in in that theme. Just in 2014, we saw these brands, Nestle, Heinz, Unilever, all publishing new animal welfare commitments. And then initiatives like this from Compassion World Farming and their food business team who have their scheme of good farm animal welfare awards and look to make those awards to companies that have gone the extra mile or have introduced new commitments.

So I think that's very helpful because it's not just a negative punitive, . The accusatory agenda is saying that there is, there are good things happening. There's good opportunities to happen and we'll recognise them when they do.

And absolutely, that's, essential for BVA to be doing as well. We do want to help members in the profession to, be key players in this arena, but we are, of course, doing fabulous, work to promote animal health and welfare every single day, up and down the country, and indeed globally. And, and a very important part of our job is to, identify examples of that happening and promote it to the public, the media, and decision makers.

And I love this example. The first time that our, that the suggestion for our strategy was made, at, at council. In 2014 and there was a bit of discussion around How we, how we want to go as the next step.

I thought it was fabulous that the, our representatives from the Fish Veterinary Society, proudly cited that, the very large number of Atlantic salmon that are farmed, in the UK, apparently around 63 million, every couple of years. 94% of those are, being reared to RSPCA, standards. And that was a, I think there was a real sense of pride, actually, in the way that that was conveyed and that veterinary involvement is making sure, that those, that those fish are being reared to high welfare standards.

Within a, a high welfare scheme. So I think the more of that we can achieve, we will start to see this positive and sort of virtuous. Type approach to, to the problems I had.

And we also really want to embrace the idea of collaboration. So something that came through strongly, again, in sort of initial, conversations and, informal research before the actual main questionnaire. Was that a suggestion that we'd somehow we vets, and the profession somehow lost ground, and that there was a moral high ground now being occupied in this area by others who weren't necessarily vets.

But I think there's a feeling that it's not really, it shouldn't be either or. So I don't think we want to displace others who are doing in often times a brilliant job, but we just want to make sure that we're up there with them, that we are leading from the front. We're providing unique expertise when we can, but we're now Over the last few years, certainly at BVA, we certainly have embraced, partnership working and some of the logos that I'll flash up in a second.

I should say we don't necessarily agree with all of the policy positions all of the time. But that absolutely importantly doesn't stop us from, Collaborating where we, where we do agree. I think there are good practical reasons for that.

There are many, animal welfare problems. I think we would all agree there are, there are many things that we would like to see improved, and we're a small profession. We're certainly, a relatively small as professional association.

So it's, I think a case of all hands to the pump, in that respect. And we all, I think, want the same thing. So we all have a voice into, to the public and decision makers.

So the more that we can really focus our, our shared agendas and our shared comments, the stronger we will be. So we have worked with, these associates, these, NGOs and associations amongst others, whether that be on the welfare of non-traditional companion animals, or exotic pets, on lobbying for compulsory microchipping, and, and so on. And I guess it's really important to say as well, or just to highlight that the vast majority of these organisations, do employ vets.

So there are clearly vets working, with these, and, and, as Anthony said at the start, I'm, one of them working for PDSA. So, we wanted to develop this strategy whose purpose was to provide a clear, coherent and consistent approach for BBA to advocate for animals and to support our members to maximise their animal advocacy potential and achieve good welfare outcomes for animals. We wanted it.

To ensure the BVIR members were contributing to solutions for real world animal welfare problems. That's really important. That absolutely is the endgame that we want to, to help solve problems that are facing, animals.

Accepting that meaningful progress will take time, and, but we want to make sure we're, That we're helping move things forward at all times. And as I said, ensure that positive examples, of veterinary contributions are identified and conveyed to the public media and decision makers. So we did undertake an extensive stakeholder questionnaire.

And the way we structured it was around the three levels as I mentioned, the individual, the practise stroke community and the association stroke national. Each of the levels, we asked, what do you think the profession is currently doing well at each of those levels? What in your opinion, might we be doing differently or better at each those three levels?

And then specifically on BVA, what do you think we could be doing to support individuals and practises and for us as an association to be doing our, everything that in your view, we should be. And there were 47 completed questionnaires. If you go to the strategy itself, if you do download it, you'll see that full list.

And I've said that there are about 27 that you might call, this is a little bit arbitrary, but you might call primarily veterinary organisations, for example, BBI Specialist associations, chief veterinary officers, and so on. And then the other half of thereabouts that you might arbitrarily say were primarily non-veterinary. So they'd be the likes of farming associations that kindly took time to reply, local authority representatives, and some of the, the NGOs all say they would typically have vets on their staff.

And it was humbling really to get they were, they were . Open questions, so there's a lot of free text. They were completed typically by quite senior people, where officers of our specialist associations, chief executives, and so on.

And there was a, a great deal of thought, put into the into the answers that were given. There was a real richness of thought and response, which Gives as anyone who has undertaken this sort of questionnaire survey research before knows takes a bit of analysing. But, analyse that we did, and I've pulled out just here some of the comments.

I have a few of these next slides are quite text-based, but I thought you might find it interesting to just get the base and really what some people were saying to us around some different themes. So by way, just in terms of, I suppose, initial reactions, not on the specifics. These sorts of comments there's a great need for increased public and, political awareness and experts was informed advice on all welfare issues, keep up the good work for the past couple of years.

It seems from an outsider's perspective that the management of the professional is starting to become more proactive in its animal welfare activities rather than adopting a more static representation stance. So they were generally welcoming. Then, some suggestions of challenges.

We've already talked about some of them, but here they were articulated, a huge range of individuals within the profession with varied attitudes to animal welfare. Welfare and the promotion of good welfare will be hard to standardise for each vet even within a sector. And somehow finding a way to communicate to hardliners in this person's view, e.g., some vets consider a veterinary degree slash MRCVS makes them a welfare expert by default.

I think we're absolutely keen that, we want to recognise, I suppose, that animal welfare, science, ethics and law is, a veterinary specialism. So it has its own European college, where there are our CVS recognised in that topic. But we certainly didn't want it.

That being the case, certainly didn't want it, to be any sort of perceived to be any sort of ivory tower type, discipline. This is something that is for everyone, . But that as we've already said, I'm of science, ethics and so on are important areas of of expertise.

And here's some, some more challenges, a challenging area. Many vets are dealing with private clients and if they do not address a welfare issue in the right way, they may lose the clients. Be very careful not to erode that trust, and we've lost any influence we ever had.

I'm very worried about this based on conversations I've had with friends, concerned that that has only suggested something to make money. This is becoming more and more common. So then to, the, the results of the questions as I, mentioned, and I, clearly I won't be able to, Present everything that came through, but these were a flavour of the sort of most frequently given answers, the top answers if you like.

And this is on that first one. What do individuals practises and associations do well to promote on welfare at those, at those different levels. So individuals, top answers included that were trusted and respected to treat and prevent pain, injury, disease 24/7.

That we treat unowned animals and injured wildlife free of charge. We perform appropriate euthanasia. That was widely cited as being one of our most effective, animal welfare focus interventions.

Then practises, what they do well? Well, all kinds of things, of course, we run meetings and events like open days, open farm days. We get to cubs and brownies, rotary, WI, puppy socialisation classes, breed societies.

We disseminate loads of helpful information and advice through our practise websites and social media channels. Down at the bottom there jumping ahead to the practise newsletter and local media. We go to agricultural and pet shows, with school visits, we subsidise local charity work, and we promote animal welfare campaigns and events.

They, they were all celebrated activities of any practises. And then what do we do well as associations? Well, we formulate animal welfare focused, policy positions have influence through our relationship with sector bodies, so some of the sector councils and so on that we sit on.

And give a strong veterinary voice and we campaign. And there were a set of comments about campaigning. So including these two, in the past, in this person's view, they've been very weak on this, not wanting to alien alienate clients or seem too political.

I feel there's been a change, particularly within BVA and they're starting to get more involved. For example, a stunning pre-slaughter petition. This is a very welcome change.

And then thinking about some of the important advantages to us as well as animals, I think the public will respect us more as a profession if we speak out on welfare issues. So I think there's a benefit to the profession as well as to animals. And on our there was mention there of the nonstone slaughter campaign on that in particular.

A third of respondents, unprompted, so simply answering in the free text way, welcomed what PVA had been doing on this topic. So a recent campaigns such as non-stun slaughter have highlighted what we can do if we work together, we're getting the issue debated and hitting the mainstream press. We should speak up on issues such as religious laws.

We have the expertise, but I've been afraid, too afraid to speak out in the past. Don't be afraid to speak out in the political sense, giving an example as BVA have nonstone sources debate, be strong, the nonstone slaughter debate has been excellent. And who knows?

I mean, we certainly got the impression that that was being clearly welcomed by our membership, but we might not have assumed that there weren't other members who thought this wasn't appropriate, for a professional association like ours. And I think it was absolutely confirmed that that's, that's not the case. They seem to Very much want to see acting in this way.

And then there were some questions, just on the, the BBA section put to us. Are we a strong voice for vets as we claim to be, or a strong voice for animal welfare. Not stand too much with vested interests, all parts of BVA, clearly we would absolutely strive to be both, I think that's a theme running through this presentation.

But it's not without, these sorts of issues highlighted. So someone saying gain technical and scientific expertise from the specialist divisions, but ethical positions from across the membership, and often better outside the divisions, EG by more democratic processes. And aside from this project, BVA, as many of you will know, has been, Taking part in a governance review conducting and .

Executing a governance review in recent times. And some of our colleagues and specialist divisions have have acknowledged as part of these discussions that the more specialist we become, sometimes that the our perspective can narrow, and I think these were comments to that point. And here, don't misuse the now fragile respect for vets' welfare credentials to defend positions that appear based on perfectly understandable and thus often transparent biases or even self-interest.

So again, some challeng points that, that were important for us to take on board. So what all of that I think essentially amounted to is that whilst the ultimate aim, as I've said several times, is to address priority problems, animal welfare problems. That first of all, we might helpfully think about, if you like, getting everyone on the same page, as best we can.

So there are, as in society at large, differences, between BVA members in our interpretation and attitudes towards animal welfare, and they can vary, due to various factors, including the area, the, the part of the profession that we work in, our area of work, the number of years since graduation because things are ever changing. And our job with all of those sorts of comments in mind as BVI is going to be to build consensus wherever and whenever we can based on effective consultation and democratic decision making. But taking as a starting point, a shared definition of animal welfare, which I think is one that is built around the five welfare needs that all encompassing that more holistic contemporary, view of animal welfare and widespread recognition of the profession as animal welfare focus, and I'll come back to that in just a second.

So in practical terms, we were able from all of those sorts of comments to pull out the so-called priority areas, and there are 6 of them. And I'm just going to give a flavour of each and clearly we've got 34 recommendations in the strategy, and I'm not going to be going through all 34, I'll just give a touch on some of those as well. So on animal welfare assessment, the aim here is for BBA to assist in developing a profession-wide consensus, as I've just mentioned, on what we mean by animal welfare, to recognising that it's not just about physical health, essentially that is, and to assist with the dissemination of findings of animal welfare science to members of the public and policy makers, and to ensure that our policies are informed by that science.

And to give you an example of one of the actions, coming out of that priority area. For us to promote and apply animal welfare assessment frameworks and tools, including the five welfare needs and things like practice-based quality of life tools and pain assessment tools. Ethics was around helping members with advice, guidance and support and moral reasoning and ethical decision making, which as it says that can prove both the quality and consistency of our decisions, but it also links into the, the well-being agenda, which is, of course, really, really important, veterinary well-being, because, ethical conflicts can be stressful, and by having these sorts of frameworks and structured approaches.

There's good evidence that can help, reconcile decisions in our own minds. And this was a question of our animal welfare profession that we asked through an all-member email, and we got a great response to this, which is saying that vets, we have duties to our animals, to our clients, and to the businesses that we work for, and they can sometimes conflict. But what, what should our principal motivator be?

What should our overriding, what, what should our overriding motivator be? And it was clear that that ought to remain, as animal welfare, and it almost seems a bit simplistic to say it, but there was some interesting, discussion and debate. But if you, it's, of course, essential that we remain financially viable, so we must, our activities must be compatible with staying in business.

We have, of course, must work with our clients, to educate and inform and help them, through a trusted relationship. But those two are, means to achieve our end of improving animal welfare, and we, we clarified that and reached agreement on it. Legislation was a sense that, some members would appreciate support and guidance on welfare legislation and its enforcement, and we said we'll consult with local authorities and government vets on areas where, guidance and refresher courses would be useful.Building on great things like the Animal Welfare Foundation's, current guide, it's approach, the better approach to the tail, tail doc puppy.

So more things like that and hopefully continue to work with AWF. And then advocacy. So this is about advocating in the clinics, advocating for good welfare outcomes, which would include effective communication strategies to clients, and then at the policy level, working closely with our specialist divisions, members and committees to identify specific problems and to proactively campaign on them.

So after non stun slaughter, if you like, and some of the other things that we've been acting on what's next, and down there again gathering positive case studies. Also under advocacy, an appetite for us to, develop templates to assist members and engaging with politicians on some of our campaigns. And also to help, develop, school packs and resources that can be used to help go into schools.

And that would be working within, the, the, the spirit and the practical approach, the existing animal welfare Education Alliance, which AWF is a member of, and this is a photograph one of my colleagues at PDSA, helping some young people understand the five welfare needs in school. And then through on education to explore how all cells currently delivered as a day one competency and then the PDP and that's already been picked up through the Vet Futures project encouragingly, and it's been looked at, with the help of the vet schools council. And then finally, the final one was this international area which is in recognition of the fact that animal welfare is Important, extremely important for us as vets and vet nurses, but not globally all important.

You'll recognise here the graph of human population on its current exponential rise. We're anticipating a further 2 billion people by 2050. And over there, we need no reminding that that's happening on, a a planet with finite resources, and that we're increasingly, we as humans increasingly dominating, that landscape, which is having impacts both on populations of animals and also on the quality of life of individual animals.

And I mean, that for me was brought into her sharpest focus most recently at a conference called, our Food Future run by the Food Standards Agency, and it was off the back of this very recently published report. It's acknowledging that challenge and saying how do we move to a food system that's going to be provided with food that's safe, affordable, healthy and meets these objectives of environmental protection, wildlife stewardship, good social conditions for for farmers and other. And of course, good well-being for farmed animals.

And it's not a given currently that that is a prominent consideration. So this was, another report a few years ago, which recognised the environmental impacts on agriculture, but made no reference to animal welfare and how we might move forward. So where do we fit in that?

One of our commitments is to develop a position on humane sustainable animal agriculture. So we start thinking and thinking about that problem and engaging with it as BBA. A good example of the proximus and ultimate, we do lots of things now, but where do we want to be?

FBA in Europe are looking at this as well. And we are well aware that To farm in more sympathetic ways to animals and the environment will involve being a bit more financial support for the products of those systems. So we've looked at that.

We might want to Engage with the prevailing narrative that says people want cheap food and all we have to do is increase production. Whereas we are increasingly think about the value that we place on food, and we beA recently responded to a government consultation on farmgate prices. There's always been this recognition that the market will need to support, higher welfare products, and we consumers.

So we've got actions in the strategy around labelling and, appropriate signposting certain schemes, we'll be developing that. And this is an interesting one that we've debated most recently at BA Congress, which again is not without controversy, but that's the front page from the Times in 2009 about recognising the impacts of animal agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. And then just at the tail end of last year, 9 years later.

6 years later, sorry, this Chatham House report on again, thinking about the issues of meat consumption. The BMA have a position on meat consumption, which is around human health, human health focused position, but it sits on the climate change page of their website. And it's for us to explore.

There's not an action that says, that makes any sort of commitment to what we might say about this, but it commits us to thinking about it. It was a very, prominent theme within the, our Food Future conference. Is it a case that we, would be sympathetic to a less and better?

Approach. And that is all to be debated and discussed, with all of us. So next steps to close, already these actions have been filtering into our committees for them to consider how they might start delivering them.

We've had meetings with relevant bodies, and we've worked with the NGO World on protection on some short videos about animal sentience, which we'll be disseminating soon. And for each priority problem that we might turn our mind to, we're going to be asking what does the veteran profession think about this? What are we doing about this, and who are we working with to address this.

So here's some of our flagship activity at the moment. We're concerned about welfare of slaughter, puppy breeding and importation, rabbit welfare. Animals and forming wild animals and circuses, importation of wild animals for the pet trade, and primates as pets.

What's next? And that's where we are. We might turn to some credible sources like, PDSA's well-being report on companion animal issues, which keeps providing an animal evidence base in conjunction with You goov on the likes of Petta B, rabbit husbandry again.

We might look to good peer reviewed assessments of animal welfare problems and journals like the record. We can look to the outputs of independent credible advisory bodies like the Farm Animal Welfare Committee. And of course, that's going to be, continue to be very important because there are about 900 million farmed animals in the UK.

And the last one, which I should have said before I show this slide is absolutely all of you listening. We just want to keep hearing your ideas, on where you want us to go next. If it's possible, Anthony, if you're still there, we would love to just ask this question if there's still time on how Listeners would feed their owns and concerns into BVA.

That's great Sean. I am still here. You'll be pleased to hear.

I haven't gone off anywhere, otherwise I would get into trouble. So I have stayed, but it's been very, very good. So the, the question is how would you feed your animal ideas and concerns into BVA?

What, what do you think is the best way to do that? Is it, through your BVA specialist division, BVA community, which obviously the, the, the forum on the website. BVA regional representative, email to BVA officer or generally into the staff or other.

So we'll just let people vote on that and then after that, we'll just run a vote on where you're listening in from, if you're listening in from the UK, Europe, or outside of, Europe. And then I think, although we're just over 9, are you free to stay for a few questions or have you got to dash offshore? Yeah, no, no, absolutely, I realised, but yeah, anyone who would like to ask a question.

It's always nice to have a few questions as well, I think so we'll comments, so we'll, we'll go through that, just. 14% have said they would go to the BVA specialist division. 15% speaking on the forum, 15% to their regional representative, 53% to go direct, and 3% another way.

So obviously the majority seem to want to go and just go direct to BBA either by knowing an officer or or with the staff. Yeah, OK. Well, I mean, we'll be keen to develop all of these channels, but, you know, to, to have that direct contact at the minute is very, very welcome.

I think if we can just run the other survey on, but you know, one of my bugbis is, you know, I go to, BSAVA each year and I stay at a hotel in Birmingham and I go down for breakfast and I say, are your eggs free range? And they say, well, They come in big boxes, so not the door, and then you kind of check them out and, you know, they're not, they're often not free range. And and I think these are very basic things that, you know, we should be doing.

I know that, provenance of food is very important, you know, with, with yourself and with the BBA, but, I, I think, you know, when we start talking about it in the general public like that. It then sounds as if we are interested in, in, animal welfare as well. And it's just these little acts like, you know, is your meat food, freedom food, cause often again, you could be, you know, eating in one of the restaurants, eating, you know, Bacon or or sausage.

Yeah, you know, and it's, I mean, sausage obviously probably will be, . Stunned, but, you know, for, for the, for some of the other meats and things and, and bacon, you know, we want to know that we're getting meat that's at a certain level or, you know, as I often now do is eat vegetarian when I am out at a restaurant if I'm not sure of the problem of the meat, and I know. You're very passionate about that as well, aren't you?

Yeah, and again, I mean, it came through clearly in the, in the questionnaire responses. So the associated action, which I'll just read out verbatim from the strategy is assist BVA members to understand different farm animal assurance schemes and to signpost the public in a professional and ethically justifiable way towards those that promote higher animal welfare. So we're not setting out to disparage any existing schemes, and, but we want It to be clear, what we think, would represent a higher animal welfare commitment and then to identify which, both assurance schemes and retailers and others, are giving those assurances and I know when we've talked about this previously, there's been Interest for that sort of information to be potentially made available through small animal practises.

There's no reason why that couldn't be made into a leaflet and so on. So I think we can, once we've gone through a process of agreeing what good looks like, then start being much more proactive about taking that to the public, as you say. Yeah, we've got 81% listening in from the UK, so nearly just 19% listening in from Europe and the world.

So a mixture of . Listening so hopefully some people. No, no, it's very well, it's very, very good.

Let's just see what questions have have appeared on that. I, I, I also find it fascinating, and I suppose it's, you know, we have a very, An audience that's obviously very committed to animal welfare, but, you know, in the scheme of things, a reasonably small audience, just over 160. It it's getting the message out to, to all vets, isn't it, that this is an important issue, and, you know, we very much stand up and make our profession at the beginning of our career that animal welfare is something that is important to us and that we stay connected with it.

Yeah, well, when we asked, when we sent out the old member email, asking are we an animal welfare focused profession, there was a really strong response rate and really great to hear what you just said, you know, expressed very clearly from lots of members. When I wrapped up at the London dinner and launching that, my closing line was sort of one again of just picking this up from the strategy. We say here that, meaningful progress on our wealth problems will be attained gradually.

But this strategy will show BBA proceeds in line with our members and society's expectations. It sends a clear signal that the profession will be a considerable force for good for animals and for an increasingly compassionate society in the years ahead. So I think it's a sort of, it's a flag in the ground.

I think you're right, Antony, and hopefully it's, it is a clear signal to the profession that there's been loads of interest in this both through our member research BVA and the vet Futures project. And we all need to sort of rally around to make sure we're Acting as fully as we can and importantly being recognised for it as well. And I'd like to just say, Sean, you know, I think you've been a great advocate obviously from very early days there, but I've been thrilled that BVA has has looked to make a young whipper snapper like you at such a young age, just out of short short trousers.

But you know, I think, I think, I, I'm being slightly impertinent, but I get away with it because you can't because I'm hundreds of miles away. You know, it, it is so important that you, you know, somebody like yourself, I, I, I remember saying to, to one of the team at BBA, I think you should get Sean, and they couldn't say anything because you'd, you know, already been, proposed as, as being president, but I think it's great to see somebody like you who is so passionate about it, you know, so involved in provenance and food and all of those other issues, obviously working for the PDSA as well. You know, you know, I, I really appreciate that you've taken the time to take this big role up because I know what a a time commitment it is to be BVA president, and it's great to.

You know, see you doing such a great, such great work. Well, I really appreciate that. I mean, you've, you've always been a massive supporter and really grateful for that, but I mean, clearly we build on the shoulders of giants and all of the good work that I've spoken about, my predecessors and everyone that's within the BBA folder all massively, you know, architects of all of that good work.

So we just have to keep it going. I just think when you, I just think every time we see these professional statements, the FAA and welfare working group, there's just so much going on. I think it's just nice to bring it all into one place and say, look, this is really important to us as a professional and we're doing some really good things and some very happy looking pigs there.

In in in the final picture, Julie has made a little comment. I'll, I'll give you the good and the bad. Julie says the first image currently on view, which I think was, Grace holding the pig.

Julie feels that that pig wasn't being held in an appropriate manner, so there we go, that's from Julie, . So Jose is saying, what about legislation against making breeds that are characterised by serious anatomical anomalies. We, we did actually, Jose, do a webinar.

It's probably 18 months, 2 years ago now about sort of pedigree dogs and so on. So worth having a look at that. But I think we are looking at that issue again in this year of webinars, aren't we, so we spend too much time.

Yeah, I think she is. So, Jose, a good reason. For you to come back for that one because I think that's such a, a big area.

It's very hard for, for Sean to probably give a quick, a quick answer to. Julie saying, I choose vegetarian unless I have confirmation, as you highlight. Karen said, thanks for a great talk.

Good to be tackling welfare more and more. Just a comment from Hannah to say, I think this is long overdue from the BVA and I'm very pleased to see it. I'm a farm vet and I think that a lot of the public do not perceive farm vets to promote farm animal welfare.

It'd be great if the BVA can help with this. Brilliant, yeah, yeah, that's sorry, go on, we've had really, really fabulous, engagement and dialogue with the NFU as well. And we've got a, a, a good relationship with them anyway, but even, as we've been, they responded to our questionnaire, we've got great, contacts there, particularly Cat McLaughlin, who is the chief advisor for animal health and welfare.

So I think, you know, that that's a real, focus on dialogue and just joint working, it will, it will reap rewards for sure. Yeah, no, absolutely. Karen is saying she liked your idea of introducing the five freedoms to children.

You were showing your colleague from PDSA doing that at a, at a talk. Often go out to schools and we'll definitely be coming up with a way of adding this into our little talk and interaction. I must admit Ker and I do the same occasionally go out to schools, so I think that might be something that I should, combine as well, because, you know, obviously you go and tell people about how they can become vets, but, but actually just.

Teaching children to. Treat animals appropriately, I think is massively important as well, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

And as I say, we are looking now at developing some school packs. So, I know lots of us that have been out and go out to schools, we take this, that and the other, not least the big cuddly toy and stethoscope. But if, you know, we'll try and create something practical that just makes it a bit easier as well, for, for vets and nurses to go out with.

That was one of my, yeah, one of my, community and education veteran nurse colleagues from PDSA, and they nurses do brilliant work for, education, don't they maybe worth, you know, sharing some of that, more widely, maybe a talk, you know, about what they actually go through or even to put it on a webinar just so that we. Can look at it, but also useful for our pet webinars that we do as well. So maybe it's really interesting.

And Hannah is saying, what is your opinion on small, sorry, on animal rights welfare organisations, e.g. PETA, who spread information, misinformation to the general public on animal welfare.

I think it's obviously helpful, and important to distinguish between animal rights and animal welfare, and the two, do often get conflated, certainly in the minds of the public, obviously, One, would strongly prefer not to see animals used at all, which would tend to be the position of the animal rights organisations, whereas the other animal welfare, sees it as acceptable to use animals as long as they have a good life and a humane death. Personally, I mean, I think it's important that they are just different worldviews, different legitimate ethical perspectives. So it's clearly, fine and acceptable that people have those, these different views.

. I suppose if, if there's misinformation and a poor evidence base, then that's separate and not so helpful. Well, I think what often happens in practise, as I see it or have often seen it, is that a strong animal rights type, perspective has been given on something that's led to, Some public reaction. And then it, that space once it's been put on the agenda has been filled in terms of pragmatic next steps by animal welfarists.

So, personally, just from a few examples over the years, I think the two can sort of go hand in hand in that respect. But, in terms of collaborating, and our, and our partnership working, I think we, our, our natural bedfellows, when we identify them, do tend to be, you know, they would be from the animal welfare perspective. And that, that's, as I say, thinking about just how we can, use animals in ways that give them a good life and a human death.

It's evidence-based. I think that's really important as well, that is, that is evidence-based. And animal welfare science is helpful, isn't it?

Because I suppose that evidence makes sure as well that we're taking action that is meaningful from the animal's perspectives. It's not just action that makes us feel good. We're establishing that it's good from the animal's perspective as well.

And it's useful, you know, we've, we've actually, Denise is an international animal welfare MSC student, you know, we were saying that if people were not vets, Jenna, a behaviour and welfare lecturer, so it's good to see people who are coming in as scientists, very specialised in that area as well, who, you know, could be vets, but maybe sometimes it's good to have some non-vets kind of coming up with their perspective as well. Oh, well, I think it's absolutely invaluable. And I mean, that's certainly what we see on our own, our BVA's own ethics and welfare group, our standing committee, you know, we've got, both animal welfare scientists, vets and others, and it would, it just wouldn't do half as good a job if we didn't have that mix of disciplines.

Giving a sort of mixture to, you know, Comments on both sides positive and maybe slightly negative. Tally has said, good talk. Thank you.

I'm glad that BBA is considering this important part of its strategy. However, I'm not sure that I've always felt that the BVA is really representing its members terribly well when it comes to some of these welfare debates. The opinion forward it seems often to represent that of the individual or of the council sometimes to play to specific vested interests.

This was clearly demonstrated by the BVA public stance on TB. And the association seemed completely to ignore not only a great deal of evidence, the views of a huge proportion of the membership when making public statements to the media. So, that's another comment that.

Thanks. And I hope some of the comments that I've made have addressed that head on, so we're not shying away from those difficulties and being very, very clear that we recognise there are differences again of legitimate, legitimately held views, but they are different. And that was my point about we must go ahead, and this also links to the governance review I mentioned.

We must go ahead seeking as ever to build consensus based on effective consultation and democratic decision making. I mean, it's easy to say. It's, of course, we need to bring that into practise, but our council ultimately, does have to be that, that democratic decision making, for the, for the, for I think inevitably, you know, not everybody is going to agree with everything that, you know, you do, I do, anybody does a committee does.

And, you know, that is all part of democracy, isn't it, that there will be differences of opinion and we have to. Have consensus through committees and things to try and come up with something that you know, represents vets fairly and and that's very, very difficult to get it right all the time and that's right. And I think it's really important BVA put themselves forward, you know, you do such great work in.

In lobbying and so on and, and, you know. Everybody makes mistakes sometimes. Some people won't agree with an opinion, but it, you know, it may nevertheless still be the right opinion.

It's, it's a difficult one, isn't it? Yeah, and we do recognise as well, which I think it's important that we say that some things are especially divisive and it might be that in those rare instances we often't. Even try to convey a consensus.

I mean, I think the number of topics that that applies to is very low. But sometimes if it, if it's so divisive, then we won't claim to have reached consensus. But we, we, you know, we all have to weigh that carefully because if we Sort of judge every topic just to have too many, as you've just said, too many differently held views.

And then we'd end up You know, we be at risk of saying very little about anything. So it's, it's just, it is a constant weighing up and I suppose we're accountable to counsel and that respecting our members. So if you feel we're getting it wrong, then, you know, that will, that will come to light.

Yeah, and Grace has made a comment to just reassure Julie that the pig's body was fully supported. So Julie, don't worry about that. Grace is actually on the webinar.

Thanks for coming on, Grace. Yeah, it's funny actually. As I've given this talk over the over the period of the 18 months consultation, that some of the images have been the most contentious aspect.

Someone said the lamb wasn't being which it was actually a cartoon. I wasn't particularly well for friendly way either. So yeah, there's there's a job to be done.

You need to teach your cartoonist. Welfare. Simon is making a comment, vets play an incredibly important role in welfare of animals on study.

In the UK we have a tremendous heritage of the role of the named veterinary surgeon. Working under Aspen 1986. This is really important in setting, the height of the bar for the, 2010, 63 EU in terms of pan-European legislation for animals on study.

So, I think it's often well recognised that animal welfare differs across the EU, and I think we are perceived as having a very, you know, high level of animal welfare compared with, You know, maybe some countries. Yeah, I think that's right. And what's been brilliant working closely, increasingly with the specialist divisions you need talk to colleagues in the laboratory Animal Veterinary Association, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps colleagues spring to mind as well.

You know, that they're really very, very close to animal welfare and very, very proactive and, developing high standards in their respective parts of the profession. And we can, you know, learn a lot from them, I'm sure. Well, well, we are already.

Lovely comment from, Sasha who's saying, brilliant webinar. It gives confidence to me as a vet nurse that the BVA are behind my passion for animal welfare. So backup is available from this association.

Thank you for a great webinar. Oh, that's superb. Yeah, we, you know, we've got BVNA as associate members of .

Represented on council, and, you know, we've recently been fully supportive of the campaigns to legally protect the title of veterinary nurse, and not least because of how brilliant veterinary nurses are as animal welfare advocates, so. Hopefully I've referenced that nurses throughout, but because we, you know, we're not gonna achieve half of any of this. Yeah, no, it's so, so important.

And Kawa is coming, is making the comment, which I think is a very interesting one. How can BVA influence big supermarkets who influence farmers to produce more for less, thus compromising animal welfare. It's a really interesting point.

I don't know so I mentioned that we'd recently responded to a government consultation on farm gate prices. So that was sort of in thinking about that, because obviously the The economics, of space farm animal welfare in particular, are incredibly important. Also part of the work that we're doing to look at different elements of animal welfare that we've literally started this to, to think about this, but, the different elements of animal welfare assurance schemes, we can apply that equally to, to tell us commitments as well as the, and we'll be in touch with them about that in due course.

So, Yeah, I think that can be, I mean, we have engaged with retailers in the past actually. I think nonstone slaughter, so there'd be a precedent for, I was gonna say I remember when Bill did his webinar with us on non-stone slaughter. So, you know, please do go in, those of you listening BVA with the webinar.com/BVA webinars, because Bill did want.

I mean, I think we are revisiting it again this year, so, you know, watch out for the webinars as they come. But my memory was that pretty much all of the All of the meat in supermarkets was stunned. Unless they have a, you know, a a.

Of Shakita or a halal section that's specific, but even the halal menu was. Was done, so, that was my understanding at the time, whether that's incorrect, I don't know. That's good.

That business benchmark on farm animal welfare that I mentioned, the annual benchmarking work. We, that's part of that positive agenda talking about it's, it tends to generate good news stories that Company X has moved up a tier because they've implemented policy Y. But what we did notice this year was that the number of policies incorporating commitments to nonsense and slaughter had actually declined, so we put out a press release about that.

Obviously want to keep pressure up things can change. So, so, yeah, I mean that wouldn't necessarily be, UK retailers by any means, as I said there's a really wide spread of, food businesses that are, looked at as part of that project. So hopefully our our UK retailers are still strong, on those.

I think the problem is more, you know, you go to a restaurant or you go to a hotel, often that is seemingly, in my view, weaker than, you know, the, the big supermarkets like Sainsbury's and Tesco. I don't think they necessarily would want the bad publicity of Being connected with, you know, nonsense slaughter. Yeah, and I said, I think that was underpinning that that business benchmark as well that it's like increasing investor recognition of some of the risk that a company is not managing those sorts of issues.

Yeah, exactly, which is good. I think that means that they recognise that the public are bothered about those things and that's why it's a risk. Well, you know, I think it's, and it's just.

It's such an important issue and it is often it's just talking about it and going on about it and going on about it and You know, it raises the profile, and I think if we as vets are talking about it when we go to restaurants and, you know, I often will say, well, sorry, I need to know what this is because I'm a vet and, you know, I, I don't believe in battery cages or whatever. I think it gives people an idea to go away and think about as non-vets, doesn't it? Yeah, I think that's right.

I think, as I said again at the start, you know, we're trusted and credible, and sort of part of this agenda is to make sure we remain trust and credible and aren't seen as representing vested interests and so on. But that's all out on the table and I think we just have to keep doing the right thing in a professional way. I think we'll leave it with Bethany to finish.

I said, working as an OV, I found that lots of members of the general public have no idea where food comes from and struggle to understand the better role in the food industry. It's something I try to talk openly about, and I think it's great that the religious slaughter debate, non-stun slaughter debate has been discussed so openly. So do look out for those new ones that are coming through as well.

I think, . You know, we've, we've got some really nice selection of webinars this year from the BBA, and I think you've started it really well. You've, you've set the bar very high, Sean for everybody else to follow.

There will be some brilliant presentations after this one. Sean, thank you so much. Thanks everyone for listening.

A lot of people have stayed on. I know, a few people have left, but, they've got all the presentation and obviously that's the advantage with webinars. You can slink off and not get into trouble.

Nobody will know that you've left. So thanks, thanks again, Sean. Thank you really, really good, and looking forward to seeing you all soon at another webinar.