AVC Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre

Hayleigh Bursey (right) and Emma Nauss (left) were elected as the President and Vice President of the AVC Animal Welfare Club, respectively.

Over the last year, they have hosted lunch lectures on marine mammal welfare, rural area veterinary services, animal enforcement and investigations in PEI. They also collaborated with the AVC Bovine Club for a lecture about the welfare of animals at slaughter and conducted a tour of the Atlantic Beef Products abattoir. In addition, the club has hosted a donation drive and helped launch an exotics foster program with the PEI Humane Society, and raised funds with the AVC Enrichment and Behaviour club to purchase enrichment for the cows used for teaching at AVC.

If you’re interested in joining the Animal Welfare Club, reach out to Hayleigh, Emma, or Dr. Katy Proudfoot!

Three students have been awarded a SJDAWC Travel Award to assist them with the travel for an external rotation related to animal welfare during their fourth year.

Annika Lindstrom was awarded shortly before she participated in an external rotation at the Humane World for Animals Rural Area Veterinary Services in Belcourt and Fort Totten, North Dakota. Stay tuned for photos once our Travel Award recipients return from their rotations!

Three students have been awarded a SJDAWC Travel Award to assist them with the travel for an external rotation related to animal welfare during their fourth year.

Minhye Lee will participate in an external rotation at the Wilder Institute and Calgary Zoo in Calgary, Alberta, as well as an additional external rotation at Zoos Victoria Healesville Sanctuary in Victoria, Australia.

Three students have been awarded a SJDAWC Travel Award to assist them with the travel for an external rotation related to animal welfare during their fourth year.

Sinéad Riordon will participate in an external rotation where she will travel with veterinarians to cow-calf operations during calving season in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.

Yasmin Scott received a SJDAWC travel award this year, which assisted with housing and travel costs to the ASPCA veterinary forensics centre in Gainesville, Florida. This was a two week rotation with a focus on the laws surrounding animal maltreatment, and how Veterinarians can recognize maltreatment. During this rotation, Yasmin worked with four veterinarians with specialized training in Veterinary forensics through completion of the masters in veterinary forensics via the University of Florida.

Note for transparency: Photo is from an adjacent rotation Yasmin did in Florida as her work at the ASPCA did not lend itself to photos.

Carissa Groves recently participated in the Smallholder Dairy Health Management rotation in Meru County, Kenya with the assistance of a SJDAWC Travel Rotation Award. She shares that it was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity with a lot of learning and growth for her and the farmers. A large component of this experience is holding seminars to teach dairy groups important aspects of dairy farming.

With the assistance from a SJDAWC Travel Rotation Award, Emily Czerwinski was able to participate in a three-week external rotation in Meru, Kenya, where donkey welfare was the central focus of all activities. A majority of Emily’s time was dedicated specifically to learning about and promoting donkey welfare through community education seminars, walk-in health clinics and harness workshops.

Martha Mellish and Anya Floyd presenting on donkey anatomy to a 5th grade class in Miugune, Meru County, Kenya.

Last summer, Gabie Doiron received a SJDAWC travel rotation award, which allowed them to travel to the Granby Zoo in Granby, Québec, to complete a 4-week externship in their veterinary hospital. During this rotation, Gabie worked alongside the two zoo veterinarians whose work involves both the treatment of ill animals and preventative care for all species found at the zoo.

Over the past few weeks, researchers from the Atlantic Veterinary College - AVC at the University of Prince Edward Island, Katie Koralesky, Shawn McKenna, and Caroline Ritter, along with dairy industry collaborators Jennifer Dillman and Natasha McKillop, partnered with local dairy farmers and veterinarians to host three meetings focused on strategies for successfully adopting pair or group housing for milk-fed dairy calves.
Meetings in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Truro, Nova Scotia, and Petitcodiac, New Brunswick had over 60 farmers and veterinarians join. Each meeting included:

• A fireside chat where farmers already using social housing shared photos, experiences, and lessons learned on adopting social housing;
• Insights from local veterinarians on specific calf health questions;
• Small-group discussions where attendees exchanged ideas on plans to adopt pair or group housing on their farm

This research would not have been possible without the support of farmers, veterinarians, and others including Brooke McNeil helping with recruitment, and Tunmise Faith Ehigbor and Katy Proudfoot for helping during the forums in PEI and NS!

Stay tuned for research results, plus a summary of the strategies and lessons learned, and "Frequently Asked Questions and Answers" from the meetings.

Thank you to the Sir James Dunn Animal Welfare Centre for funding this research!