Does China Need an Animal Protection Law?

On September 18,a number of Chinese law experts announced that they had drafted an animal protection act. China currently lacks a comprehensive basic law on animal protection. The underdeveloped legal system is thus unable to put all animals under effective protection. Thus,scholars suggested drafting China’s first law on the protection

Research progress of plant antimicrobial peptides

Plant antimicrobial peptides are a very large family of antimicrobial peptides,which have strong resistance to various pathogenic microorganisms,especially fungi.With the increasing use of antibiotics,the problems caused by antibiotics,including antibiotic residues and pathogen resistance,are becoming more and more prominent.The research on antimicrobial peptides as new antibiotic substitutes is also a hot spot.This article introduces the action sites and antibacterial mechanisms of several plant antimicrobial peptides,as well as the application of plant antimicrobial peptides in the fields of medicine,agriculture,and food preservation.

The Welfare Assessment of Calves in Terms of the European Union Legislation

After entering to the Europe Union, Slovak Republic has implemented the EU legislation into the legislation of the Slovak Republic. The previous legislation of this country was effective in practice. So we were interested in, whether actual legislation is effective in practice too as previous or it will be necessary to make some changes in the legislation. This led us to carry out the assessment of welfare by farmed animal, specifically by calves. Our assessment was based on the Bristol Welfare Assurance Programme protocol developed at the University of Bristol. Very good results were achieved by assessment, and it shows about good level of legislation in the area of protection of animals, it has conditions and requirements, which will not require big changes and the breeder can ensure without bigger problems so to ensure to animals their five freedoms originally established by the Brambell Committee in 1965： （1） Freedom from hunger and thirst; （2） Freedom from discomfort; （3） Freedom fi＇om pain, injury or disease; （4） Freedom to express normal behaviour; （5） Freedom from fear and distress.

Effect of epidemic diseases on wild animal conservation

Under the background of global species extinction,the impact of epidemic diseases on wild animal protection is increasingly prominent.Here,we review and synthesize the literature on this topic,and discuss the relationship between diseases and biodiversity.Diseases usually reduce species diversity by decreasing or extinction of species populations,but also accelerate species evolution and promote species diversity.At the same time,species diversity can regulate disease outbreaks through dilution or amplification effects.The synergistic effect of human activities and global change is emphasized,which further aggravates the complex relationship between biodiversity and diseases.Finally,we emphasize the importance of active surveillance of wild animal diseases,which can protect wild animals from potential diseases,maintain population size and genetic variation,and reduce the damage of diseases to the balance of the whole ecosystem and human health.Therefore,we suggest that a background survey of wild animal populations and their pathogens should be carried out to assess the impact of potential outbreaks on the population or species level.The mechanism of dilution and amplification effect between species diversity and diseases of wild animals should be further studied to provide a theoretical basis and technical support for human intervention measures to change biodiversity.Most importantly,we should closely combine the protection of wild animals with the establishment of an active surveillance,prevention,and control system for wild animal epidemics,in an effort to achieve a win-win situation between wild animal protection and disease control.

Women Protecting Endangered Animals

ON the Yongding River, 40 kilometers south of Beijing lies the Beijing Center for Breeding Endangered Animals.Built more than 10 years ago it is the only rare and endangered animal base in China, incorporating such functions as Scientific research, raising, breeding and medical treatment. There are more than 30 national and international rare species, with a total of more than 1,000 animals. Among them, the snub-nosed golden monkey, Chinese monal pheasant and eared pheasant account for the largest number of man-bred species in the world.