Cat Welfare Society at the Singapore Animal Welfare Symposium

Last month, I attended the Singapore Animal Welfare Symposium and reported from the venue LIVE via twitter. Today, friends at Cat Welfare Society got me to write a short 150-word report on the event for the CWS newsletter. Not the final draft as the editor will do some addition but thought I'll share it with everyone. If you're interested in reports of the proceedings, you can find them on twitter. Alas, the search tag that we have been using for SAWS has been removed. I will eventually get around to archiving them on the blog. Apologies for my tardiness.

Singapore Animal Welfare Symposium 2009
First Draft By November Tan

Co-organized and hosted by NUS Student’s Animal Welfare Group and ACRES, the second Singapore Animal Welfare Symposium was held on 16th May 2009 at NUS. The symposium was open to public and had 2 lively panel discussions on Wild Animals in Entertainment and Domestic Animal Welfare.

Cat Welfare Society (CWS) President Ang Li Tin was panelist on the Domestic Animal Welfare session along with Dr Leow Su Hua from Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), Letitia Chang (Action for Singapore Dogs) and Deirdre Moss (SPCA) with N. Sivasothi as moderator. CWS also took the opportunity to share our Trap-Neuter-Return-Manage (TNRM) program through a surprise presentation by Veron Lau. Despite calls to “make the cat auntie’s dream come true”, AVA plead helplessness. However they reveal that funds for TNRM are readily available as long as town councils are willing to participate. On the subject of cats in HDB flats, there was unfortunately a lack of representation by HDB at the symposium. The organizers promise that HDB will be invited for dialogue at next year’s symposium.