APHIS Animal Care Stakeholder Announcement

As part of its mission, the Animal Care (AC) program of the Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is charged with providing leadership in determining standards of humane care and treatment of animals.  We are pleased to announce we are conducting a workshop with the USDA, Agricultural Research Service, National Agricultural Library (NAL), Animal Welfare Information Center (AWIC) on September 23-24, 2009, at the USDA Beacon Building:  6501 Beacon Drive Kansas City, Missouri  64133.   

This course is based on the highly-successful AWIC workshops that have been held at the NAL headquarters in Beltsville, Maryland.  In addition, attendees will hear real-life examples of various ways the 3Rs have been incorporated into research protocols, and will be given the USDA regulatory perspective on this topic. 

There is no cost to attend this workshop.  It has been designed to help Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) members, principal investigators, attending veterinarians, research administrators, and members of the general public better understand the Animal Welfare Act requirement to "consider alternatives".  At the end of the workshop participants should: 
Be familiar with the "3Rs" of alternatives (reduction, refinement, replacement) 
Know the basics of database searching for alternatives 
Understand how alternatives are implemented in  research protocols 
Understand the role of the IACUC in evaluating the consideration of alternatives and be aware of available resources 

All participants must register at: http://awic.nal.usda.gov/workshops.  There is a space limit, and registration will be on a first-come/first-served basis. 

All participants are responsible for making their own travel arrangements.  A block of rooms ($107.00/night) has been reserved at the: 

Hyatt Regency Crown Center 
2345 McGee Street, Kansas City, MO  -  (816) 421-1234 
        http://crowncenter.hyatt.com/groupbooking/mkcrkusda2009 

There will be a shuttle available to/from the training location. 

For further information on the agenda of the workshop contact Dr. Jodie Kulpa-Eddy, Staff Veterinarian, Animal Care, 4700 River Road Unit 84, Riverdale, MD 20737-1234; (301) 734-7833.  Please note that this workshop is being held as an educational opportunity to provide and disseminate information on the "consideration of alternatives" requirement under the Animal Welfare Act.  There will be no opportunity at this workshop to submit formal comments on proposed rules or other regulatory initiatives. 
For the cats,

Carole Baskin, CEO of Big Cat Rescue
an Educational Sanctuary home
to more than 100 big cats
12802 Easy Street Tampa, FL  33625
813.493.4564 fax 885.4457

http://www.BigCatRescue.org

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