Paul Evans received the Alcon Award for the best video presentation at the United Kingdom and Ireland Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgeons Conference held in Chester on 17 September 2002 when he presented a paper entitled Prophylactic Phocoemulsification for a Canine following Blackthorn Penetration of the Lens.

The paper was accompanied by a video presentation of the operation and was watched by the 200 medical ophthalmologists and himelf, being the only veterinary ophthalmologist present at the meeting.

Afterwards he received the Alcon award for the best presentation during the conference.

The video showed the successful removal of a 7mm long blackthorn from a dog's eye and injection of an IOL, saving the animal's sight in that eye.

This tawny owl was taken in after a road accident by the Vale Wildlife Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre (www.vwc.org.uk) near Gloucester. To start with he or she would not eat and appeared to be blind although they could see no actual broken bones or anything wrong in the eyes.

Over a period of three weeks she started to eat again and seemed to see OK. As she would not eat or fly in an outside aviary she was brought to the Eye Veterinary Clinic to have her eyes checked. The following pictures were taken and show no damage from her accident. That means that she will soon be released back into the wild.

The pleated black object is the pecten - it is full of blood vessels so probably for nutrition also puts a shadow onto the retina behind so maybe partly to do with vision but we don't really understand its function. It is frequently damaged especially in road traffic accidents to birds. If the injured bird is presented at the rescue centre with a red eye - full of blood - the chances of recovery of vision are very poor. At least with this bird we could say that the pectens were normal in each eye.