Birkbeck Climate Festival 2025: Sustainable Pet Care: Rethinking Parasiticide Use for Animal Health and Environmental Impact
When:
—
Venue:
Online
One in two of us owns a pet, and their healthcare represents a significant and rising cost. Parasiticides are often given routinely to pets to prevent infestations, such as ticks and fleas, but their widespread use raises important environmental questions.
This workshop will explore the sustainable practice of parasiticide use in pets, particularly in relation to year-round treatments and their ecological impact. By bringing together veterinarians, social scientists, and environmental researchers, we invite the audience to engage with this critical topic.
Key questions addressed during the workshop include:
- What are the risks and benefits of parasiticide use for both pets and the environment?
- Why are these treatments used so extensively, and what drives this behavior?
- What practical steps can we take towards more sustainable pet healthcare?
This session features a distinguished panel of experts from the Parasiticides & Pollution (PREPP) Research Group at Imperial College London:
- Dr Wendy Hein - Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Birkbeck University of London
- Dr. Leon Barron – Chemist and Reader in Environmental & Analytical Sciences (Profile)
- Dr. Rosemary Perkins – Veterinary Surgeon and Researcher
- Dr. Andrew Prentis – Veterinary Surgeon and Grantham Institute Visiting Fellow
For further details on their work, please visit the PREPP group website: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/research/parasiticides-pollution/
This session is a collaboration between the Birkbeck Research Centre for Environment and Sustainability and the Environmental Education Team.
Contact name:
Stephen Willey