Dr. Steve Mason was the recipient of the 2011 Award of Distinction for Innovation presented at the Alberta Farm Animal Care’s (AFAC) annual meeting last month. Dr. Mason, a strong advocate of animal care, has done extensive work for the dairy industry in Alberta. Alberta Milk has produced a guiding document on the transportation of livestock, a project in which Dr. Mason was intimately involved. As a research and extension associate with Alberta Milk, he has been a driving force behind the Alberta Johne’s Disease Initiative and he has provided leadership to the Alberta Dairy Hoof Health Project, an initiative that educates producers about the importance of hoof health in supporting both animal welfare and productivity.
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“To give credit where credit is due, much of my work in the area of dairy animal welfare has been initiated and/or supported by the province’s milk producers through Alberta Milk,” said Mason. “Future progress in improving farm animal care will depend upon such strong, continuing support from livestock producers.”
In addition to his work for Alberta Milk, he was editor of Dairyman’s Digest,has produced over 70 Alberta dairy management factsheets and approximately 700 summaries of dairy cattle research, developed nine web applications for producers and delivered numerous presentations to producer groups.
