New vet in town

Sunday 09 October 2016

He only took on the job of States Vet this Summer but Theo Knight-Jones hasn't spent much time behind his desk.

Mr Knight-Jones has moved to the Island from Zambia where he was working on smallholder animal health and food safety and says he's been spending a lot of time out in the field.

He started his career as a vet working with a whole host of animals from gerbils to race horses, then specialised as a farm vet in South Wales before becoming a veterinary epidemiologist, working to keep diseases away from populations.

Since then he has been advising governments on animal health and public health policy, working on strategies to stop the spread of diseases like foot-and-mouth and those that can spread from animals to people, like certain strains of bird flu.

He's now been tasked with promoting animal welfare here and making sure that animals are moving in and out of the Island legally without any diseases getting in with them.

Mr Knight-Jones said: "It’s important to have legislation that is up-to-date. Attitudes to animals 50 years ago were very different to what are today, so animal health laws and animal welfare laws have to reflect that.  Our animal welfare law was last updated in 2004, I think over 12 years certain things have changed.

 “It's not like other jobs elsewhere, I'm not just stuck in the office giving policy advice so it's fairly unique to the Island. There's a lot of variety to the job, we see the whole range of animals, we go into the field, cats and dogs, livestock in distress, visiting people involved in keeping livestock.

"I had only been to Jersey before for my interview. I was living in Zambia, I wanted to move back closer to the UK but didn’t have a definite plan so it seemed like a unique opportunity, I’ve got young children, it seemed like a wonderful place to raise a family.”