2012 Animal welfare & ethics
The RSPCA Australia Scientific Seminar is a key national event for the RSPCA. The Seminar brings together leading experts in animal industries to explore the latest developments in animal welfare research, knowledge and practices.
The Seminars are designed to cover a broad spectrum of opinion, encourage audience participation, and have a reputation for provoking lively and constructive debate.
Animal welfare & ethics: from principles to practice
Tuesday 28 February 2012, Bradman Theatrette, National Convention Centre, Canberra
The 2012 Scientific Seminar explored the ethical perspectives of our use of and behaviour towards animals in a range of topical areas, including farm animals, animals in research, recreational and subsistence hunting, funding of animal welfare research, companion animal breeding, ethics in education, and humane killing. The Seminar provided an opportunity to get people thinking about the ethical dilemmas we face in our daily lives and the ethical decisions we make, sometimes without even realising it.
The Chair of the 2012 Scientific Seminar was Dr Simon Longstaff, Executive Director at the St James Ethics Centre in Sydney.As is the tradition with this Seminar Series, the program aimed to cross conventional topic boundaries, challenge current thinking, and stimulate further discussion.
Program: download (PDF doc)
Proceedings: download (PDF doc)
Previous Scientific Seminars
- 2011 Modifying the behaviour of animals
- 2010 Wildlife management and conservation
- 2009 Animals and human health.
- 2008 Animals in transit: The journey ahead.
- 2007 How much space does an elephant need? The impact of confinement on animal welfare.
- 2006 The Five Freedoms and beyond: improving welfare of production animals.
- 2005 Cruelty to animals: a human problem.
- 2004 Welfare underwater - issues with aquatic animals.
- 2003 Solutions for achieving humane vertebrate pest control.
- 2002 Equine welfare: balancing tradition and science.
- 2001 Pets or pests? The future of companion animal ownership.
- 2000 Animal welfare in the new millennium: towards a national approach.
- 1999 Scientific evidence and improvements in animal welfare: are we ignoring the obvious?
Public lecture - Peter Sandøe
The keynote speaker at this year’s RSPCA Australia Scientific Seminar was Peter Sandøe, Professor of Bioethics at the University of Copenhagen.
To take advantage of his visit, RSPCA Australia, in collaboration with the University of Queensland, Melbourne University and Murdoch University hosted a series of free public lectures in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth at which Peter Sandøe further elaborated on the topic of animal welfare and ethics. A recording of the Melbourne lecture is available here.
This project is supported by the Commonwealth Government through
a grant-in-aid administered by the Department of Finance and Deregulation