24 Jun 2024
Christianne Glossop, former chief vet in Wales, urges Animal Welfare Foundation discussion forum delegates to more actively promote successes instead of reacting to more negative stories.
Allister Webb
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Image: © Tony Baggett / Adobe Stock
Animal welfare organisations can capitalise on divisions between devolved administrations to help advance their causes, a former senior government vet has claimed.
Christianne Glossop urged Animal Welfare Foundation (AWF) discussion forum delegates to be more active in promoting their successes instead of merely reacting to more negative stories.
The event also heard calls for more to be done to help retired racing greyhounds adapt to life once their careers in the contentious discipline are over.
Prof Glossop, who served as the CVO of Wales for 17 years until stepping down in 2022, told the event in London last month that veterinary professionals have a key role in shaping welfare debates both at conferences and in practice.
Speaking on the subject of how to shape welfare priorities, she said government officials had to be mindful of many factors including the balance between the ease with which an issue can be addressed and the harms created by different activities.
She also suggested that what she described as an “iconic” piece of legislation to ban the use of wild animals in circuses had only helped to protect a relatively small number of animals from potential harms.
But she also urged organisations to collaborate as far as possible and argued separate approaches to welfare in different nations of the UK offers opportunities for progress, adding: “You can exploit devolution.”
One topic of division between the devolved administrations is greyhound racing, following calls from several leading charities for the sport to be phased out on welfare grounds.
Recent consultations in Scotland and Wales have both sought public views on its future, even though Defra has so far resisted calls for a ban in England, while the discipline is also likely to be high on the agenda when the BVA begins its long-awaited policy review on the use of animals in sport.
Clinical animal behaviourist Rebecca Somerville told the forum that retired racing greyhounds can experience behavioural challenges from several issues, including a new environment, being left on their own at home, their chasing tendencies, body handling and loud noises.
She also warned that, with thousands of dogs being rehomed from the sport every year, their challenges were likely to continue regardless of any decision taken on a future ban, adding: “We need to help them adapt.”
However, vet Madeleine Campbell, who is a board director of the Greyhound Board of Great Britain, which runs the sport, said substantial work was already being undertaken within the organisation on the issue.
Meanwhile, Prof Glossop, who is now an independent consultant, urged organisations including the AWF to maintain priority lists of welfare issues that they want to address and called for the sector as a whole to do more to promote the areas where progress has been achieved, adding: “Let’s not sit and wait for the bad news to react to.”
She also warned groups should be vigilant against the risk of public figures potentially undermining important welfare causes through their actions, even though many celebrities are committed long-term supporters of specific welfare causes.
