Weekend Rounds - 11.07

The Future of Animals🐬

Weekend Rounds is a newsletter by Obi Veterinary Education. Each week, we'll round up what's new and noteworthy across veterinary medicine - both within the Obi community and veterinary industry at large - and deliver it right to your inbox.

We hope you enjoyed an extra hour of sleep this morning. If anyone deserved it, it's you.

New and Noteworthy

Expedia Takes a Stand

As

, Expedia has updated its travel welfare policies to stop selling vacations to destinations with captive dolphins. Veterinary medicine has always sat a crossroads between animal welfare, conservation, and care of captive creatures. There are certainly some accredited zoos which feature well cared for cetacean performers. While it's a nuanced issue, we think that Expedia's stance should be generally welcomed. Weeding out animal exploitation is important and travel companies have an obligation to sell ethically responsible experiences. Where do you stand? For or against dolphin shows?

Extinction and Evolution

Climate change is having a dramatic impact on our world. If there was any doubt in your mind, just have a look at these

. (Seriously - check them out. It's worth the click.)

This is something Obi has a definitive stand on. The time for measurable action is long overdue. The world needs major changes to how we use fossil fuels and how we think about our role in the changing environment.

While a sliver of hope remains that we can salvage humanity's future, the planet will likely support life long after we are gone. Such is the

this week. With background from a number of evolutionary biologists and palaeontologists, Mandy Nguyen imagines what life might look like a million years from now. The result? A flightless carnivorous pigeon, a fully aquatic whale-rat and gigantic mantis. If humanity does make it that far into the future, treating a cocker-spaniel sized mantis will definitely pose a whole new set of challenges for veterinary staff.

P.S. Our favourite is by far the whale-rat.

Celebrities Streaming Otters?

This week,

. While twitch streamers have had a long history of broadcasting their pets to the world, this official decision by the Amazon-owned company gives a new home for animal related content online. The category "Animals, Aquariums and Zoos" has some great initial content including the

at the Vancouver Aquarium. It's up to you to decide how streaming marine mammals compares with vacations with cetacean shows but one thing is undeniable... otters are cute AF.

New certificates available tomorrow: Foundations of Oncology

Let us know what you'd like to see in future editions of Weekend Rounds by replying to this email.