UCD School of Veterinary Medicine Partner in the European Union Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (EURCAW) Ruminants & Equines
Professor Alison Hanlon of the UCD School of Veterinary Medicine is one of the partners in The European Union Reference Centre for Animal Welfare (EURCAW) Ruminants & Equines. It was established in May 2021 and is the third Reference Centre for Animal Welfare designated by the European Commission. Its remit is to support the Competent Authorities in EU member states with the implementation of current regulations on animal welfare. The Centre provides scientific and technical expertise on the development and application of animal welfare indicators and methods of assessment of animal welfare to competent authorities and policy workers in animal welfare. The work of EURCAW Ruminants & Equines focuses on ruminants and equines kept for farming and other purposes. The other 5 organisations that are partnered with UCD to carry out the Centre’s work are the Swedish University for Agricultural Sciences (SLU), BOKU (Austria), INRAE (France), ELGO-DIMITRA Veterinary Research Institute (Greece), and IZSAM (Italy).
The Centre’s website launched in October 2022, and factsheets dealing with the inspection of individual housing for calves have recently been added. Scientific reviews on enrichment and a factsheet on calf feeding are due to go on the website shortly. In addition, the Centre offers a Questions to EURCAW (Q2E) service which is open to Competent Authorities and government policy workers of EU Member States. Three completed Q2Es are to be published on the website soon. Among the items planned in its 2023-2024 work programme are factsheets dealing with fitness for transport, painful and stressful procedures, and confinement/restriction of movement and social contact in horses, as well as scientific reviews covering working animals, pasture/grazing restriction, and stockpersonship.
For further information see: (opens in a new window)https://www.eurcaw-ruminants-equines.eu/ or follow us on twitter (opens in a new window)@eurcaw_re