Branch Meeting Wrap Up

Spring Meeting 2010 Recap

This year's Spring MHB AALAS meeting was a success! The meeting was held on May 21st in the Long Peak Lodge of the YMCA Estes Park resort. The views were gorgeous, the speakers were both fun and educational, and the buffet lunch received rave reviews! The theme of the meeting was animal enrichment, with special guest and keynote speaker Dr. Joe Garner. Dr. Garner is an associate professor of animal sciences at Purdue University and an expert on mouse behavior and enrichment. His entertaining presentation was full of interesting facts on specific mouse behaviors and ways that the cage environment can be enhanced to benefit mouse welfare.

The first speaker of the day was CSU University Veterinarian, Dr. James Owiny, who started the event with an informative talk on item writing for exams. Other talks from the full day included one on research dog socialization to increase adoption rates, given by current CSU comparative medicine resident, Dr. Winona Burgess. Dr. Burgess in collaboration with Dr. Lon Kendall (also of CSU) has instituted a program to assess the success of dog socialization projects. The program involves an initial behavior assessment when dogs first arrive and begin a research project. Then the veterinarians recruit veterinary students to provide a series of social interactions with the research dogs. Behavior assessments are performed following the completion of the social interactions with the goal of producing a more adoptable research dog. Kelly Anderson, a CSU animal technician, followed with a talk on enrichment options for research deer in captivity.

Dr. Joe Garner	Dr. James Owiny
Dr. Winona Burgess and Denise Ostmeyer	Kelly Anderson

Tim Lester and Jan Collins from the University of Colorado presented an animal enrichment program used by Disney^® and the North Carolina zoo, called SPIDER. This acronym stands for Setting goals, Plan, Implement, Document, Evaluate, and Re-evaluate. The goal is to have a documented plan of action for implementing and assessing various enrichment options. The enrichment message is one that all institutions housing animals - be it zoo or research - can use to enhance their animal welfare programs.

Tim Lester and Jan Collins	Dr. Jori Leszcynski presenting Stepahnie Tierney with Member of th Year Award

The exciting meeting concluded with an awards ceremony and raffle. Stephanie Tierney won the Member of the Year award, presented by MHB past president Dr. Jori Leszczynski. The Purina Technician of the Year award went to Elisa French, and the MHB current president, Denise Ostmeyer, won the Jon C Fulfs award. Congratulations to all of the award winners! Thank you to all our meeting attendees and vendors - you all helped to make this year's MHB Spring meeting a success!