According to the 2015 edition of Attitudes of Europeans towards Animal Welfare, the vast majority of Europeans believe animals deserve better treatment and more comprehensive legal rights. For example, ninety-percent of those in the EU support the creation of an international standard on animal welfare. With that statistic in mind, this year’s International Animal Rights Conference might have standing-room only. First organized in May of 2011, this event focuses on sharing animal rights’ viewpoints across ethnic, regional, and linguistic lines. In addition to its main goal, the annual IARC educates the public on animal rights’ issues, provides networking opportunities for attending organizations, showcases a delicious vegan menu, and serves as a launching-point for many animal-friendly items. Taking place in centrally-located Luxembourg, this year’s conference is well-worth the drive and 45 Euro price tag.
Events include an animal rights’ concert, various expert lectures, open discussions, workshops, original films, and a wide-variety of presentations. In one weekend, you can learn about preganism with Lisa Kemmerer, gain greater knowledge about animal rights’ successes in Israel, and improve your organization’s outreach via a media workshop. The full program can be found here. Please view their registration page for more information on how to attend. You can listen to all 2015 presentations online.
Course on Animal Welfare, Science, Ethics, and Law (CAWSEL)
Whatever education, awareness or advocacy work an animal protection organization is concentrating on, a firmer science-based understanding is invaluable – and can make a huge difference on the success of animal-related initiatives. The annual Course on Animal Welfare, Science, Ethics, and Law (CAWSEL) works over the course of two weeks to provide attendees with a solid foundation in animal welfare. Held at St. Catharine’s College in the United Kingdom, the lectures are split into four parts: welfare concepts and assessments, law and companion animal and horse welfare, principles of ethics in relations to animal use, and animal welfare. For almost two decades, this program has worked to educate people around the world, in a wide variety of professions, about our relationship with those who share our planet.
Registration is still open for this year’s course; it will run from September 11th to September 23rd. Interested parties can register at this link. If you cannot attend, but want to hear about the latest happenings, you can follow them on Twitter at @Cawsel1.
First International Conference on Human Behavior Change for Animal Welfare
Believing that human behavior sits at the root of most animal suffering, this conference focuses on the importance of changing human habits to promote animal welfare. Its initiatives include promoting animal-friendly consumer habits and researching the best approach to promote change in human attitudes towards their fellow creatures. Held September 19th to September 21st in Dorking, UK, this event aims to educate on the core elements of Human Behavior Change (HBC) theory, facilitate the discussion of HBC-related information, and explore new methods for monitoring the success of HBC initiatives.
The conference lectures include investigations into why people walk their dogs, various discussions about our current treatment of horses, the problems of reptile ownership, and a presentation on how animal-centered design can change our behavior. Lecturers include experts from Humane Society International, Hart’s Horsemanship, and a professor from Northwestern University. To see a full event schedule, you just need to follow this link. If you want to be part of this introductory event, you may be out of luck; this year’s conference is completely sold out. However, you can keep up with their social media to find out about their plans for 2017. You can learn more about the event, and their sponsors, on their homepage.
10th World Rabies Day
While many people in the west think of rabies as an antiquated disease, it’s very much a modern issue. The virus kills roughly sixty thousand people a year and drives the annual culling of millions of animals. For the past decade, World Rabies Day has worked to make September 28th synonymous with rabies education, prevention, and cure. The goal is to completely eliminate human deaths caused by rabies by 2030. This Rabies Alliance World Rabies Day website gives event planners worldwide tools to create branded materials, register themselves as part of a larger global alliance, and offers annual awards to organizations at work in the field. Their resource pages offer logos, free online courses, fact sheets, and a variety of other tools to simplify planning for your own rabies-centric event. For this year’s World Rabies Day, over 111 events have been registered across the globe. You can view an interactive map of these events, over half of them located in Asia, here.
