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400 Australian Veterinary Journal Volume 83, No 7, July 2005

The 8th annual National Pet DentalHealth Month awareness campaignwill be conducted throughout

August 2005. As part of this nationwide public

awareness effort, veterinarians aroundAustralia are being asked to participate inthis important pet health promotion.

Dental health is seen as a vital part ofthe overall wellbeing of our pets and hisyear’s theme is “Healthy teeth, healthypet”. Many pet owners have historicallyfound looking after their pets’ teethdifficult, however with changing nutritionand a growing awareness of pet dentalhealth, this is improving.

Tony Caiafa convenor of PDHM 2005,said the campaign is designed to furthereducate on the link between dental diseaseand other systemic illnesses in cats anddogs.

“In human dentistry, there is anincreasing amount of evidence linkingperiodontal disease to atherosclerosis,stroke, endocarditis, diabetes mellitus andlow birth weight babies”, Dr Caiafa said.

“The evidence in animals is less clear,but considering that periodontitis in ourpets is very similar to that in humans, onemust consider the possibility of there beinga link between a chronic infectioninvolving the mouth, namely periodontitis,and other systemic diseases.”

2005 represents the eighth consecutiveyear of the “Pets Need Dental Care Too”campaign. Once again the AVA, AVDS andASAVA are proud to be a part of thisimportant promotion.

Program sponsors Hill’s Pet Nutritionand Pfizer Animal Health continue toensure the event’s successand veterinariansentering the Hill’s dental month displaycompetition can win some great prizes!

To obtain a PDHM kit or some helpfulhints for making PDHM a successfulpromotion for your practice, please phoneHill’s Pet Nutrition on FREECALL 1800 800 733.

Visit www.petdental.com orwww.petdental.com.au to download logosand other information for use in yournewsletters.

Get your teeth into it!

Japan has failed in its bid to break the20 year old moratorium oncommercial whaling at the 57th

annual meeting of the InternationalWhaling Commission (IWC) held inUlsan, Korea.

During the week long event (June 16-23), Japan failed to rally the threequarters majority vote from the 57member countries necessary to reverse theban. However it has amassed significantsupport from Korea and other smallAfrican and Pacific nations in its quest toresume commercial whaling.

Viewing whaling as a cultural right,the Japanese currently catch around 400minke whales each year for ‘scientificresearch’ and made it clear they wouldlike to double this quota at the beginningof the IWC Conference. This request waslater refused by the IWC along with aproposal for limited hunting rights for

Japanese coastal communities to catch150 minke whales a year off theirnorthern Pacific coast.

In recent years three countries- Japan,Norway and Iceland have activelycampaigned for a resumption ofcommercial whaling. All had beengranted permission to hunt whales underseveral conditions and Japan has regularlyindicated it would like to includeendangered humpback and sperm whalesinto its quotas.

Norway has long ignored the

commercial whaling moratorium, thegovernment allowing its whalers to kill upto 800 minke whales each year whileIceland resumed whaling in 2003 for‘scientific research’ purposes.

Taking whales in the name of sciencehas been hotly disputed by many antiwhaling countries and conservationgroups as a ‘guise for hunting’. All thewhales taken by Japan for ‘studying’ havebeen killed -the whale meat en-sold to themeat processing industry for the Japanesemarket where it is regarded as a delicacyfetching up to 150 Euro a kilo.

Despite the IWC ruling, Japan hasopenly stated it will resume commercialwhaling and member countries areseeking advice to take individual andbilateral actions against Japan’s aggressivecommercial whaling stance in foreignwaters.

Whales win for nowBy Mark Thornley

Photo: Mark Thornley