Animal Welfare 100 Hours Certificate Course

There are 9 lessons in this course:

1 Scope and Nature of Animal Welfare

• Introduction
• History
• Nature of animal welfare
• Scope of animal welfare
• Widely accepted animal ethics theories
• Animal rights
• Animal welfare
• Animal welfare today

2 Psychology and Sentience

• The science and philosophy of psychology and sentience
• Sentience
• Sapience
• Anthropomorphism and Transference
• Compassionate conservation
• Sense and Perception
• Cognition
• Animal emotion
• Animal psychopathology
• Behavioural disorders
• How an understanding of sentience can influence animal welfare

3 Managing Animal Welfare

• Introduction
• Managing Animal welfare

4 Animal Protection Services

• Introduction
• Understanding and inspecting health issues
• Inspecting the health of animals
• Signs of ill health
• Differential diagnosis

5 Animal Rescue Services

• Introduction
• Health and welfare
• Animal First Aid
• Bone and joint problems
• Poisoning
• Restraining animals during First Aid
• First Aid for wildlife

6 Animal Health Services

• Introduction
• Animal health services
• Routine health treatments
• Complementary animal health services
• Employment

7 Animal Welfare for Pets, Work Animals and Animals in Sport

• Introduction
• Welfare for companion animals
• Welfare for work animals
• Welfare for animals in sport

8 Animal Welfare for Farm Animals

• Introduction
• Welfare for farm animals
• Factory farming
• Organic farming
• Other aspects of animal welfare
• Welfare issues for farm animals bred for alternative products

9 Animal Welfare for Wildlife: Free and Captive

• Introduction
• Welfare for captive wild animals
• Welfare for free wild animals
• Protection of Wildlife
• Legislation
• Codes of practice
• Animal behaviour
• Environmental law enforcement: case studies

Since 1997, Karin Saks has been involved in the fostering and rehabilitation of orphan baboons, the caring of injured monkeys who have been returned to the wild and has worked towards a harmonious co-existence between these primates and humans. She has monitored wild baboon troops who raid human homes to research ways of baboon management and has observed wild troops in her area with a view to finding out damage done to troop structures and numbers because of human intervention. Due to legislation that allows for the persecution of vervet monkeys and baboons in South Africa, hundreds of orphaned primates currently reside in rehabilitation centres without much chance of being released back into the wild. The primate pet trade is also on the increase due to the amount of infants orphaned when mothers are killed. Educating the public on how to live harmoniously with these primates and appealing for new protective legislation - that is actively enforced - are crucial aspects to finding solutions.

The Darwin Primate Group – registered NPO 059-587: Like many who take on the task of rescuing these persecuted animals, Karin self funded her work until 2008 when she founded the Darwin Primate Group and registered it as a non-profit organization.

Research into endangered samango monkey (Cercopithecus mitis labiatus) populations: In 2014, Karin moved to Kwazulu Natal where she is researching the endangered samango monkey (Cercopithecus mitis labiatus) populations in the Midlands. (She is no longer working directly with rescued baboons or vervet monkeys.) As the samango monkey is restricted to forest habitat and is a seed dispersing species, it is listed as Vulnerable in the Red Data Book of the Mammals of South Africa (2004) with samango subspecies - C. m. labiatus - occurring on the IUCN (2007) Endangered list making research into populations necessary to identify if management and further protection is needed.

You are welcome to watch Karin's online video: Co-existing Peacefully With Baboons/Monkeys and read her Blogspot on the Samango Monkey Project. If you want to support Karin in her work financially or practically, please contact us and we will happily pass your details on.