Born Free Foundation - Keep Wildlife in the Wild

The Born Free Foundation and our colleagues at WildCRU (the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford) will be hosting an international academic Symposium on animal welfare in conservation practice at the start of September.

Compassionate Conservation – Animal Welfare in Conservation Practice will bring together scientists and practitioners from a range of disciplines to debate animal welfare issues in conservation, examine potential synergies, look for practical outcomes and promote a dialogue between these two disciplines that are often perceived as mutually exclusive.

The Symposium will be organized around the following themes:

• Animal welfare in field conservation 
• Captive animal welfare and conservation 
• Conservation consequences of wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and release
• International trade in live wild animals

The Symposium will be of interest to academics and graduates in conservation biology, animal welfare and animal ethics, as well as conservation and animal welfare organisations and practitioners.

We already have secured the participation of many of the world leading authorities in these important topics, including:

Robert Atkinson (RSPCA, UK)
Marc Bekoff (University of Colorado, USA)
Kate Evans (Elephants for Africa, Botswana)
David Fraser (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Stuart Harrop (University of Kent, UK)
Bidda Jones (RSPCA, Australia)
Ron Kagan (Detroit Zoological Society, USA)
James Kirkwood (UFAW, UK)
David Macdonald (University of Oxford, UK)
Georgia Mason (University of Guelph, Canada)
Fiona Matthews (University of Exeter, UK)
Will Travers (Born Free Foundation, UK).

For further information, please go to the Symposium website - www.compassionateconservation.org.

It looks set to be a fascinating and thought provoking event.