Welcome to the June issue – we have a good mix of papers with some being invited from speakers at the World Poultry Congress held in Beijing and the last WPSJ New Zealand branch meeting in 2016. Otherwise we have reviews concerning novel feed ingredients, diseases (including those which are going to be more of a problem with the anticipated limitations on antibiotic use in feed in certain regions soon), and two papers on odour. Increasingly we are receiving papers covering disease control, and we are having to be very specific regarding the content of such reviews. Any authors wishing to write about the consequences of antibiotic removal and alternatives for in-feed use need to be aware that, due to this increased submission rate, their papers must be very focussed on single areas of this topic. It’s a good idea to check back in previous issues to see what has been published before and then concentrate on other areas.

Sadly, we have also had a case of plagiarism, and have now taken extra steps in using the latest detection software to help remedy this. We are very concerned about blatant plagiarism, and any authors found doing so will have their paper revoked and will not be allowed to publish in the WPSJ again. The copyright form is a legal document, and the declarations it contains must be taken seriously by authors.

On a lighter note, there are several good WPSA meetings coming up this year, including the popular meat and egg conference in Scotland in September, which is back to back with the World Poultry Veterinary conference in the same location, which will hopefully swell delegate numbers. At the time of writing I am preparing to attend the board meeting held at the ESPN conference in Spain in May, and hope to catch up with many members there, especially our reviewers and translators who are such an asset for the Journal. Their assistance is very much appreciated.

I have been assessing our print versus online readership, and we are now down to under 2000 print copies being sent out, which is a great saving not only in costs but also environmental considerations. For any members who wish to only receive the online version of the journal, please go onto the main WPSA website for information on how to do this. The online version has features which can cut down time spent looking for certain papers – members can put in keywords which will automatically send out an email as and when such keywords appear. The online papers should be accessible well in advance of the print copy.

Dr Lucy Waldron

Editor