The 11th World Rabbit Congress (WRC) was held in Qingdao (Shandong Province, China) from 15th to 18th June 2016 together with the general assembly of the World Rabbit Science Association (WRSA), which is held every four years during the WRC.
In the 40-year history of the WRC, this was the first time the WRC was organized in Asia, namely the largest rabbit producer country China. The main purpose of the congress was to share recent scientific results and increase collective knowledge on rabbit biology, genetics, ethology, health, nutrition and management. The event effectively transmitted advanced knowledge to young scientists and students and offered good opportunity for feed and equipment producers, drug industries, breeders and market associations to show new products and services to a world audience.
The WRC was attended by 474 registered participants from 33 countries (188 foreign and local, from that 81 young scientists and students). More than 200 peer reviewed papers were accepted out of 225 submitted contributions for oral (73) or poster (142) presentation with 8 invited papers, which were published in the proceedings/CD and on the website of WRSA. The large number of attending countries indicates the global importance of rabbit as food and skin provider and the great effort of WRSA to organize and increase the number of national associations of rabbit scientists that reached 23 national WRSA branches with the join of Ivory Coast and Nepal during this congress.
Hungary actively took part in the organization of the congress (member of the Scientific Committee: Dr Zsolt Matics; Session Referee and Chair: Dr Zsolt Szendrő). Based on the number of registered participants (9 persons) Hungary had the fifth place in the rank of attending countries after China (314 persons), Spain (41 persons), France (27 persons) and Italy (17 persons). Hungarian scientists presented one invited oral lecture (session ethology and welfare) and had a total of 16 contributions at the congress, as follows:
| Sessions | Number of communications - Hungarian | Number of communications - Total |
| Breeding and Genetics | 3 | 31 |
| Reproduction | 2 | 21 |
| Nutrition and Digestive Physiology | 2 | 20 |
| Feed and Feeding | - | 31 |
| Pathology and Hygiene | - | 32 |
| Ethology and Welfare | 6 | 22 |
| Quality of Products | 2 | 16 |
| Fur and Wool | - | 18 |
| Management and Economics | 1 | 24 |
| Total | 16 | 215 |
László Kacsala got a congress award for their paper and his oral presentation (Kacsala L, Szendrő Zs, Gerencsér Zs, Radnai I, Kasza R, Odermatt M, Matics Zs: Additional solid feed for suckling kits - effect of thyme supplementation).
Representing the Centre for Farm Animal Gene Conservation (HáGK), Dr Csilla Eiben contributed to the congress with one scientific work accepted for oral presentation (Eiben Cs, Sándor M, Sándor F, Kustos K: Effect of photostimulation, light source and season on reproductive performance of rabbit does). She participated in the opening presentation of round table of reproduction and took part in the WRSA meeting as the Secretary of the Hungarian branch.
At the General Assembly the past four years of WRSA activities were summarized (financial report, website, situation and support of branches, diffusion of the journal World Rabbit Science, favour rabbit production in developing countries, funding the project “Himalayan Rabbit Farm” after the earthquake in Nepal, grants for young scientists to attend the 11th WRC). It was announced, that at present the journal World Rabbit Science has an impact factor of 0.82 and it is ranked 26/57 in the Agricultural, Dairy and Animal Science list.
The new board of the WRSA was elected. Between 2017 and 2020 the President: T Gidenne (France), the three Vice-presidents: Y Qin (China), G González-Mariscal (Mexico) and G Xiccato (Italy), the Treasurer: L Maertens (Belgium), the General Secretary: J J Pascual (Spain), the Secretary for Less Developed Countries: S Oseni (Nigeria).
The organizer of the next, 12th World Rabbit Congress will be the French WRSA branch (ASFC) and the congress will be held in 2020 in Nantes (West France).
For more info visit the official website of the congress:
