Congralations to Dr. Tina Widowski on being chosen the first-ever research chair in laying-hen welfare – a total of $770,000 over seven years from Egg Farmers of Canada. Widowski has earned a reputation as an outstanding welfare researcher and is director of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare at the University of Guelph.

The contentious question of how comfortable Canada’s egg-laying hens should be has rattled the industry and now hatched its own university chair. Consumers have become increasingly concerned over farm conditions, and some retailers have responded by releasing welfare rankings that are forcing suppliers to clean up or disclose their practices.

Getting caught is a drag. Just ask Kirt Espenson, whose employees at E6 Cattle Company in Southwest Texas were videotaped bashing cows’ heads in with pickaxes and hammers and performing other acts of unspeakably sickening cruelty. Yet if some state legislators have their way, horrific but valuable videos like that one will never be made.

Commenting on the announcement by Defra that a new Animal Health and Welfare Board for England will be set up in response to a report by the Responsibility and Cost Sharing Advisory Group, Harvey Locke, President of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), said: