On Thursday 27 October the Welfare Quality Network held its annual seminar on animal welfare indicators. This year the meeting was jointly organized by the three EURCAWs and held in Wageningen, The Netherlands.   The target audience consisted of scientific institutes who act as support bodies to their governments on animal welfare issues. In addition, the meeting was attended by representatives from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the Dutch Competent Authority (NVWA), and industry aiming to improve welfare assessment through quality schemes. Around 40 people were physically present and 30 attended on-line.   Twelve speakers addressed the most recent developments in practical application of animal-based measures. The day started with presentations about animal welfare in the Netherlands and trademarks developed to assess animal welfare in Europe. The second half of the morning presentations were given about manual Welfare Quality assessments. The afternoon focused on research into the use of sensors for Welfare Quality assessments. For example, the use of camera’s, RFID, and other non-invasive sensor technologies.   Alexandra Contreras-Jodar had the opportunity to present the Centre's work on Relevant indicators of consciousness in broiler chicken after waterbath stunning.    Abstracts are available here.  Photo: local organizers Dionne Ruijter and Jamie Kater (EURCAW-Pigs) receive thanks for their work from Dr. Toni Dalmau (IRTA), who is the new Chair of WQN

Organized by EURCAW-Poultry-SFA. The webinar was held via Teams. Target audience: Official inspectors from the Competent Authorities of the EU MSs Attendance through invitation only.   The PDF of the presentation is available here. The webinar recording is available here.    Description: Council Regulation (EC) No 1099/2009 of 24 September 2009 on the protection of animals at the time of killing requires assessing the state of consciousness of the animals in order to identify if the stunning and killing have been effectively done, but it is not an easy assessment. During this webinar, EURCAW-Poultry-SFA reviewed the most valid, reliable, and feasible indicators to assess the state of consciousness after waterbath stunning (WBS) of turkeys, before and after bleeding, giving the opportunity for discussion and doubts resolution.   The aim of the webinar was to: Review the most valid indicators of consciousness after WBS. Discuss the main results of the EURCAW-Poultry-SFA study on test inter-observer repeatability and feasibility of the indicators of consciousness evaluated in commercial slaughterhouses. Discuss the impact of electrical key parameters on stunning efficiency. Recommend ABIs and their methods of assessment (where and how to do the assessment, during how much time, how to do the sampling), and best practices,  providing video examples.   The webinar was attended by 70 people (86 registered), from 13 EU Member States: Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden.   Schedule: 10:00-10:10: General presentation of the Centre - V. Michel 10:10-10:20: Indicators of consciousness - A. Velarde 10:20-10:30: Technical study - A. Contreras 10:30-10:45: Methods and recommendations - A. Varvaró and V. Michel 10:45-12:00: Discussion   This webinar has been organized within the sub-activity 4.3: Develop course material for specific topics, of the working program 2021-2022.  

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The three EURCAWs (EURCAW Ruminants & Equines, EURCAW Pigs, and EURCAW Poultry-SFA) hosted the second workshop with National Reference Centres for Animal Welfare and the Competent Authorities’ Supporting Bodies on 13 September 2022. In total 89 participants from 22 Member States participated, including 24 members from the three EURCAWs, and three delegates from DG SANTE of the European Commission.   The aims of the meeting were to increase collaboration, facilitate knowledge exchange, and to get input to the next work programmes for the three EURCAWs.   The report is available here.  The slides from this meeting are available here. 

The EURL Team is pleased to announce the 14th session of Rabies Workshop.   Following the success of the previous session which took place both online and in real life, this session is planned to be organised in an hybrid fashion as well. The 2023 meeting will held In Ljubljana , Slovenia on 21  and 22 June. Presentations and discussions will be dedicated to the current situation of rabies control and surveillance in EU, as well as progress on laboratory techniques and feedback on previous ILT sessions. 

All the AlimOmic and PhytoCuisson team was in Barcelona on October 10th and 11th to participate to the international congress organized by Damia Barcelo. We were able to present our work on the general organization of AlimOmic, the work done on chemical coverage, the optimization of acquisition modes, and the first results of thermal treatments on authorized or banned pesticides (Chlordecone).

The EURL for Bee Health held its 12th annual workshop on 4th & 5th October 2022 by video conference. This workshop was a success with up to 56 connections at the same time. Dr. Franco Mutinelli, Head of the Italian NRL, presented a state of play of the occurrence and surveillance of SHB in Southern Italy. The participants had also the pleasure to listen to two presentations of NRLs’ activities and the current honey bee health status in Denmark by Dr. Per Kryger (head of the Danish NRL) and in Hungary by (Dr. Attila Timar, head of the Hungarian NRL). This year, we also had a presentation from Dr. Eric Dubois, virologist in the EURL and Dr. Agnès Ménage, veterinarian, on V. destructor detection in a French island free of varroa, the measures taken and the virus prevalence. The NRL network also discussed the article 9(2) of the (EU) 2020/689 Regulation and what is entailed for AFB diagnosis. The workshop ended by the presentation of the EURL activities during the last period and the work perspectives.   We warmly thank all the speakers for their interesting presentations and all the contributors for the fruitful discussions. Documents and presentations of the workshop can be found here for the NRL network.  

Grand moment d'échanges aux journées scientifiques d'ASLAE et de l'AECLDPA à Grignan auitour de la HRMS et des travaux d'AlimOmic. Merci encore Félix de ton accueil et de ce bon moment partagé.

Félicitation à Florian DUBOCQ et à toute l'équipe associée à ce travail (DEPR, CNRS/UNIV. Créteil) pour ce premier papier dans Food Chem. portant sur l'impact des traitements thermiques sur la stabilité des pesticides et la production de sous-produits potentiellement toxiques. Retrouvez l'article içi

Julien PARINET et Florian DUBOCQ étaient à Nantes pour présenter les derniers travaux de l'ANR AlimOmic et de la CRD PhytoCuisson. Bon moment d'échange sur l'emploi de la HRMS pour améliorer la surveillance sanitaire et identifier des sous-produits de pesticides du fait de traitements thermiques .