What we do
The Progressive Veterinary Association seeks to place an overarching emphasis on the welfare of animals across all sectors of human-animal interaction, and aims to bring this focus back to the profession by challenging currently accepted norms. We see animals as individuals, rather than commodities used for profit, experimentation or entertainment, or as problems to be managed, so advocate on their behalf with that in mind.
Our list of key issues is wide ranging, and the PVA does not expect to address each and every concern at the outset. Rather, the PVA intends to set priorities, develop positions with the founding membership and cement partnerships with like-minded organisations to further this agenda. For each of our priorities we will mount campaigns and lobby Government, the profession and the public in order to effect change, as well as conducting educational outreach. Some outline examples of how PVA positions might be articulated are shown within the five sections, and we invite you to consider whether you might be able to contribute to our work in any of these sections going forward. Further details of the PVA work plan are available upon joining the organisation.
Animals for companionship
Breeding
The PVA is opposed to the breeding of companion animals for extreme conformations, and the imposing of any genetic factor that will adversely affect the welfare of the animal. The PVA supports the BVA Breathe not Breed campaign, but do not believe this takes action radical enough to resolve the huge welfare problems posed by the explosion in brachycephalic ownership. The PVA wishes to explore legislation to enforce the outbreeding of brachycephalic breeds and those affected by dwarfism or joint dysplasias.
Exotic pets
The PVA believes the regulation of trade in and keeping of exotic pets must be strengthened. We must consider how to establish which species may or may not be ‘suitable’ for private ownership on animal welfare, animal and human health and safety, and conservation grounds, and how to regulate the trade and keeping of exotic pets accordingly.
Surplus animals
Welfare and protection must trump both the profits derived from breeding as well as people’s attachment to inappropriate and unhealthy breed standards. It is nonsensical to continue breeding unhealthy animals whilst importing further puppies from overseas, at the same time as thousands of healthy animals lie unclaimed in rescue centres. The PVA would like to explore ways of legislating to improve this situation.
Mutilations
The PVA opposes the unnecessary mutilation of pets, such as ear and tail cropping of dogs and de-clawing of cats. The PVA supports the Veterinary Animal Welfare Coalition initiative on ear cropping, but believes further action is needed on mutilations.
Animals in agriculture
Production systems and inappropriate environments
The PVA recognises that there are many ways in which the ‘five freedoms’ laid out in the Animal Welfare Act 2006 are not met in UK farms; it is vital we challenge this as a profession. In creating systems to suit producers, retailers and consumers, rather than to suit the animal, poor welfare arises including health problems that would not be seen in a natural environment. For example, high yielding dairy cows experience metabolic disease, mastitis and lameness at alarming rates; current industrial dairy practice involves inappropriate early separation of dam and calf, zero-grazing and a surplus of male calves viewed as a ‘waste product’. Broiler chickens fracture limbs, and pigs display stress-response behaviours such as tail biting.
Routine mutilations
The PVA believes that the routine de-horning, dis-budding and castration of cattle, the routine tail-docking and castration of sheep and the routine tail-docking and teeth-clipping of pigs is a significant cause of unnecessary pain and suffering. The PVA is sceptical of the value and necessity of these procedures. The PVA believes that the science and economics of mutilations needs to be reviewed and that an objective of rapidly phasing out such procedures should be adopted.
Animals in research and education
Animal research and the veterinary profession
It is important at the outset to make a clear distinction between animal research in veterinary medicine and animal research in human medicine. It makes sense to study dog diseases in dogs. It makes much less sense to study human diseases in dogs. The PVA advocates the following three principles as an ethical guide to the use of animals in research and testing. 1. All research should be species-specific. We should focus our research on the species in question. 2. First do no harm (primum non nocere). We should not deliberately injure or induce disease in healthy animals. Instead, we should study already diseased animals and try to obtain as much information as possible. 3. All research should be evidence based.
The need for greater awareness of the science behind animal research
The PVA recognises that there is considerable evidence to suggest that animal models are not predictive of human outcome with respect to disease and drug development. The PVA believes that the veterinary profession has an important role to play in educating its members and the general public with respect to the availability and reliability of non-animal methodologies and the need to encourage greater transparency within industry and academia, including active participation of PVA representatives and members of the veterinary profession in animal ethics committees.
Animals in entertainment
Racing
The PVA believes that horses and greyhounds are subjected to harsh and inhumane treatment in the name of sport and entertainment; racing-induced injury due to excessively difficult jumps or inappropriate speeds and terrain are common and more often than not lead to euthanasia, and the use of whips and training techniques that cause prolonged stress are key issues. We hold the position that it is fundamentally unnecessary to exploit animals for entertainment in today’s society, when countless alternatives exist.
Blood sports
Each year tens of millions of ‘game’ birds are raised and killed for sport. The conditions in which these birds are raised and released raises serious welfare concerns, their inaccurate shooting can lead to a prolonged and painful death, and the management of these animals has a significant impact on wildlife and the surrounding environment. Despite the banning of hunting animals with hounds, recent hard evidence has documented that fox hunting continues under the guise of ‘trail hunting’. The PVA believes that hunting with hounds should be terminated through a combination of legal measures, increased punishments for offenders, and pressure from the veterinary profession so to do.
Fashion
The PVA views animals used in fashion as part of entertainment in that use is frivolous and many other alternatives are available. Farming of animals specifically for fur (rabbits, chinchillas, mink) or crocodilians for leather are key examples which the PVA opposes and methods of euthanasia are often extremely inhumane.
Animals in the wild
Licensed badger killing
The PVA opposes licensed badger killing on scientific and ethical grounds. We believe that the epidemic of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle can be managed and ultimately ended through cattle measures alone, by using a combination of more sensitive molecular tests, movement controls, risk based trading, and most importantly, a wholesale change in attitude to the husbandry of cattle. Only when we start to examine the role played by unnatural production-focused management, AI-induced genetic change, and the key role which cattle sentience, suffering and stress play in disease susceptibility and transmission, will there be any prospect of a resolution to the bTB epidemic in cattle.
Killing of ‘pest’ species
The PVA disagrees with the labelling of certain species as ‘pests’. While we recognise that certain species need to be managed in human-dominated landscapes, lethal methods are not necessarily warranted, and the welfare of both target and non-target animals must always be a primary consideration in the development and implementation of management methodologies. Certain common practices, including snaring, glue traps and other inhumane and indiscriminate forms of trapping, should be outlawed.
Zoos and conservation
The PVA is opposed to the keeping of animals in zoos unless their captivity is necessary to address an immediate and serious threat to the survival of the species. Many captive animals suffer from welfare problems associated with confinement, barren environments and an inability to meet behavioural needs. Where captive breeding has been identified as an urgent and necessary conservation action for a species, the PVA is supportive of alternative captive breeding facilities to zoos, such as well-designed and spacious, but temporary, facilities which are specifically designed to provide for the welfare needs of the individual animals, and to optimise the success of breeding and re-introduction. The PVA opposes ‘lethal sampling’ in any capacity in conservation projects, along with mutilations such as ‘toe-clipping’ (digit amputation) of amphibians and ear cropping of other species.