The proceedings volume containing the edited texts of the papers etc presented at the 5th symposium of the FELASA meeting held in Brighton (UK) in June 1993 has been published A further 69 printed papers based on the posters displayed during the meeting are printed in this substantial book. The material is grouped under several headings - a number of which have obvious animal welfare interest, eg: Expression and relief of pain (5 papers) Planning better experiments (3 papers)

In 1989 the then New Zealand (NZ) Minister of Agriculture set up an Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (AWAC) to advise him on animal welfare matters. The Committee has continued in existence and now consists of members from the following backgrounds: the farming community, animal welfare groups, the veterinary profession, behavioural science and the NZ Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It also includes the Chairman of the NZ National Animal Ethics Advisory Committee, an independent chairman and, up to February 1991, a philosopher. Much of the Committee's work has been directed towards a series of Codes of Recommendations and Minimum Standards for the Welfare of Animals.

The rearing of pheasants for release and the subsequent shooting of them for sport has been much criticized by animal welfarists. Many of the arguments, however, have been made without the non-specialist critics knowing much about the practicalities of the operation. A short booklet published by the Farm Animal Welfare Network (FAWN) - an organization originally set up as Chickens’ Lib - will largely fill this information gap. The publication briefly covers such matters as the number of birds reared to be shot; the method of rearing; the use of ‘bits’ and ‘spectacles’ to control aggression; the health of the birds, and their legal protection. It will be argued by some that the material in this FAWN document is presented in a somewhat one-sided manner but, at least, the booklet does bring many of the practicalities of rearing pheasants for shooting out into the open.

A series of video programmes each of which is accompanied by a set of teacher's notes has been prepared by The Television Centre of the University of Portsmouth as an aid to the teaching of ‘A’ level biology. The programmes examine the fundamental anatomy of the dogfish, frog, pigeon and rat and make use of high quality photographs, graphic overlays and 3-dimensional computer animations and diagrams. The material is clear and well presented and has an obvious use in biological courses. Whether the videos should replace entirely the use of fresh material or act as complementary teaching aids must remain the decision of the course supervisors and teachers. The series has been produced with support from the European Commission and has been endorsed by the Institute of Biology.

The Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) - the independent advisory body to the UK Agriculture Ministers - has, over the years, issued a number of important reports on the welfare of farm animals. The latest in the series, the Report on the Welfare of Sheep, was published in April 1994 and is based upon a two year investigation carried out by the seven members of the FAWC Sheep Advisory Group. Particular attention was paid to the extensive husbandry component of the sheep industry although all types of systems - extensive, intensive, and mixed (intensive parts of the year, extensive at others) - were examined. Sixty-nine recommendations to improve the welfare of sheep are made. Some of these recommendations will require alterations to the legislation; others might be addressed by changes in the Codes of Recommendation for the Welfare of Sheep made under the Agriculture (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1968; others are more advisory and may influence the sheep industry to modify some of its husbandry practices.

Campaigning animal welfare societies tend to produce promotional material which varies from the cheap and sensational to the authoritative and substantial. The new teaching resource pack put out for use in National Curriculum Stages 3 and 4, ie for age range 11 to 16-year-olds, by Compassion in World Farming (CIWF) lies clearly in the latter category. It is made up of some 40 colour slides and a fairly substantial accompanying booklet written by John Callaghan of the CIWF Trust. The colour transparencies, all of which are of high quality, illustrate some aspects of intensive farming, of slaughterhouses, of extensively-kept animals and scenes from CIWF campaigns. The booklet is laid out in parallel order to the slide sequence with an explanatory paragraph for each of the slides. The whole is well produced. It is, of course, educational/promotional/campaigning material and largely presents extreme examples of the good and bad, but it is to a great extent accurate in its facts and realistic in its approach to the problem of man's use and misuse of farmed livestock.

This summer's issue of the Johns Hopkins CAAT newsletter is, in effect, a 20-page guide to information resources on alternatives and animal welfare. It comprises an introductory 5-page paper by Ken Boschert on ‘International networking and computer resources’; an inventory of ‘Electronic mailing lists of interest to laboratory animal specialists’; an annotated roll of ‘Institutional resources - North America’; lists of ‘Institutional resources - overseas’ and ‘Other sources of information’; an annotated directory of ‘Technology resources’ (largely commercial organizations etc in the United States which supply off-the-shelf alternative tests or material for use in alternative test systems); a short list by F Barbara Orlans and Amelia Tarzi of the ‘Top ten sources of funding for alternatives (US)’, and a 7-page article by Krys Ungar and David C Anderson entitled ‘An inventory of databases and other sources of information on alternatives to the use of animals in science and education’.

A new booklet, ‘How to Win Debates with Vivisectors’, which is based upon Vernon Coleman's 1991 book Why Animal Experiments Must Stop (see Books received), is ‘…designed to help all anti-vivisectionists understand exactly HOW to argue when faced with the false arguments put forward (often with apparent scientific logic) by the Vivisectors and those who defend vivisection’. The booklet is laid out as a series of paired statements and rebuttals - two or three to a page - each starting ‘The Vivisectors say:…’ and followed by ‘The truth is:…’.

The New Zealand Animal Welfare Advisory Committee (AWAC), which was established in September 1988, has recently published its third report.