WA2S.org Director Tom McPhee Named Delegate to 1st Intl Conference on Dog Population Management

Aug. 24, 2012 - PRLog -- American Strays Canine Census & Film Study to be presented at the 1st International Conference on Dog Population Management by World Animal Awareness Society Executive Director, Tom McPhee.

American Strays is an unprecedented canine census & film study, it was developed by the World Animal Awareness Society - WA2S.org to be a template to provide an accurate count of the dog population in the city of Detroit while developing a set of data collection tools built in a user-friendly template to be given away to animal NGO's and Stakeholders the world over.

Visit: http://www.wa2s.org/american-strays-research.html for more detailed information about American Strays and view a series of related videos.

There are around 600 million dogs in the world, a significant proportion of which are regarded as stray or feral.  While dogs play an important role as companion and work animals in society, these stray dogs are often responsible for attacks on people, livestock and wildlife and can be a source of disease such as rabies. For example, almost all of the tens of thousands of human deaths from rabies each year are caused by dog bites.

(To see an example of how varied informed public opinion can be about just how many stay dogs are on the streets of Detroit view this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1vEgdpWMGQ)



The risks posed by these stray dogs have been an issue that governments and societies have dealt with in a variety of ways, many of them regarded as inhumane. Most of the population control methods used are aimed at achieving immediate results, rather than long-term, publicly-acceptable solutions.

The inaugural international conference, hosted by The Food and Environment Research Agency (Fera) from 4th to 8th September 2012, will bring together policy makers, ecologists, economists and specialists in animal welfare, animal health and education to discuss humane and sustainable dog population management, a challenge increasingly being faced in many countries around the world.

The conference is co-organized by: Fera; the World Health Organization; the World Organization for Animal Health; the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; the World Society for the Protection of Animals; the International Fund for Animal Welfare; and the Humane Society International.

The conference will take place at Fera’s main site near York in the UK and will facilitate discussion and information sharing on topics such as dog ecology and population dynamics, dog welfare, options for effective dog population management, and public and professional education.

American Strays is a PBS ready feature documentary and the focal point of an outreach campaign from the World Animal Awareness Society to present tangible stray dog data compiled from the streets of Detroit to the world..

The Canine census will help define the abundance & distribution of species, show trends in species population over time, and provide insight into relationships between animal populations and human activities within the region.

The resulting data will be given to government and non-governmental organizations, using it to conduct more accurate & cost effective activities that address REAL problems/needs. The initial WA2S census/survey intends to reveal the dynamics surrounding the population of free-roaming canines within the geographic boundaries of the City of Detroit.

The World Animal Awareness Society - WA2S.org, is a media non profit and window into the world of human-animal intersections as seen through an unbiased, journalistic lens.

Human-animal intersections are places, times and events in which animals and humans have conflicting or conjoined needs, where the bones of survival and our own human evolution are evident – if we look.

The WA2S.org was created specifically to focus a lens on ourselves, to help humans see beyond what we look toward and hone in on where we look from.  Let us embark upon a journey of discovery as we explore the ways humans and non-human animals interact the world over, together.