BIAZA Annual Wildlife Medicine Award Winners Announced Today

By Boshka Kaniewska

London, UK - Some of the world’s most threatened species are the ‘stars’ of this year’s annual BIAZA Awards announced today following a prestigious awards ceremony held at Knowsley Hall, Prescott, Merseyside The red carpet is being rolled out for contributions to wildlife conservation, animal welfare, zoo veterinary medicine and public understanding made by member zoos for species both in the UK and overseas.

The awards celebrate an extraordinary year of achievements and ingenious solutions made by zoos and aquariums across the UK and Ireland. As always, the winning projects have been selected against very strict criteria: the assessors included external experts as well as professionals from within the zoo community. Veterinary medicine has a vital part to play in progressing the important conservation work of zoos and aquariums, both with ex situ living collections and work in the field.

This year’s veterinary awards reflect some important advances. BIAZA can reveal that the prestigious Award for Significant Advances in Zoo and Wildlife Medicine has gone to ZSL London Zoo for Evaluation of the protein cardiac troponin I, using a commercially-available hand-held clinical analyser, to diagnose and treat cardiac disease in zoo species. ZSL vets state that ‘We have found subsequently cTnI to be a very useful tool in specific mammalian species for diagnosis, prognosis and monitoring of some cardiac diseases and for assessment of secondary cardiac damage due to other disease states, such as septicaemia or renal damage”.

Dr Miranda Stevenson, Director of BIAZA, comments:
“The award-winning programmes under the spotlight today demonstrate the huge investment of energy and resources made by our leading zoos to support habitat and species conservation whilst maintaining excellent standards in animal husbandry and welfare. Conservation within zoos and aquariums is a vital part of the work to protect threatened species and to help change public behaviour and ensure the future of Planet Earth. These wildlife medicine awards recognise and celebrate the vital contributions that veterinary science makes in the advancement of this important work.”

BIAZA, British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums
BIAZA is a conservation education and scientific wildlife charity, which acts as the principal professional zoo body representing the responsible zoo and aquarium community in the UK and Ireland. With 100 members, its role is to develop and spread best practice within the UK and international zoo community, combining lobbying and campaigning with the development of policy in collaboration with the government and scientific organisations. Over the last 12 months, BIAZA members have supported more than 600 projects by providing financial support in excess of £7 million and by supplying skills, staff and equipment for conservation programmes worldwide.
www.biaza.org.uk