A BTSF training workshop on animal welfare at slaughter jointly organised by the European Commission and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) takes place in Calgary on 23-25 November. Over 80 participants are expected to attend the event from EU Member States and candidate countries, as well as countries throughout the Americas. Most of them will be national-level official staff involved in designing animal welfare legislation or verifying its application at EU, national or regional levels.

The training aims to increase participants' knowledge of European and international animal welfare norms and standards. This will better enable them to ensure that such standards are respected, particularly at the time of slaughter.

Animal welfare has been part of BTSF since its launch in 2006 and extensive training has been organised on this subject in Europe covering welfare issues both at slaughter and during transport. This however is the first BTSF animal welfare workshop outside of Europe. Moreover, it is the first time that an event within the initiative has been organised jointly with the authorities of a developed third country such as Canada.

The first and second days of the training consist of scientific presentations and panel discussions. Speakers are to include policy makers from the EU and the World Organisation for Animal Health, national and international-level animal welfare experts, CFIA technical experts and industry representatives. The third day will be devoted to site visits and practical training in slaughterhouses.

The main subjects to be tackled include issues related to humane slaughter of animals, European guidelines, standards and monitoring programmes and best practices for welfare at slaughter applied in Canada. The workshop should foster development of a network of experts in animal welfare at slaughter and allow comparison of national and provincial standards with EU rules. Furthermore, latest research results on animal welfare and animal welfare monitoring programmes will be provided.