A perspective on ungulate management and welfare assessment across the traditional zoo to large landscape spectrum
Abstract Wild ungulates are managed in human care in a range of settings from traditional zoos to large ranches. These varied settings present different portfolios of risks for good or poor welfare, which leads some to question whether a particular setting is ?good for welfare? and have frustrated others interested in comparing the welfare of […]
Preference and Motivation Tests for Body Tactile Stimulation in Fish
We tested whether territorial fish (Nile tilapia) perceive body tactile stimulation as a positive or negative resource. Individual male fish were placed for eight days in an aquarium containing a rectangular PVC frame, which was filled with vertical plastic sticks sided with silicone bristles in the middle of the tank. Fish passing this device received […]
Asking Animals: An Introduction to Animal Behaviour Testing
Contemporary, thought-provoking yet utterly practical, this book provides an introductory text covering the use and misuse of behaviour tests applied to animals. By including illustrative examples from a variety of species, the book inspires the animal scientist to think about what a given behavioural test can be used for and how the results can be […]
Assessing the Psychological Priorities for Optimising Captive Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) Welfare
The welfare status of elephants under human care has been a contentious issue for two decades or more in numerous western countries. Much effort has gone into assessing the welfare of captive elephants at individual and population levels with little consensus having been achieved in relation to both the welfare requirements of captive elephants, or […]
What do animals want?
Motivation is a central concept for animal welfare; it has inspired methodological breakthroughs and generated a wealth of crucial empirical work. As the field develops beyond its original mandate to alleviate the suffering of animals in intensive farming systems, the assumptions behind the current models of motivation may warrant closer scrutiny. In this paper, I […]
Abnormal behavior and the self-regulation of motivational state
Although most abnormal behaviors, including all stereotypies, indicate poor welfare, some that occur in rare situations are functional and do not indicate a negative situation. There is a wide range of abnormal behaviors that occur in conditions where the animal’s needs are not met, and these can be valuable welfare indicators, but these should never […]
Preference and usage of pasture versus free-stall housing by lactating dairy cattle
The aim of the current study was to assess if cows preferred pasture or indoor housing, and how diurnal and environmental factors affected this preference. Lactating dairy cows (n = 5 groups, each containing 5 cows) were sequentially housed either in a free-stall barn on pasture, or given the choice between the 2 environments. Each […]
How should the psychological well-being of zoo elephants be objectively investigated?
Animal welfare (sometimes termed ‘‘well-being’’) is about feelings – states such as ‘‘suffering’’ or ‘‘contentment’’ that we can infer but cannot measure directly. Welfare indices have been developed from two main sources: studies of suffering humans, and of research animals deliberately subjected to challenges known to affect emotional state. We briefly review the resulting indices […]
Science-based assessment of animal welfare: farm animals
Animal welfare is to do with the feelings experienced by animals: the absence of strong negative feelings, usually called suffering, and (probably) the presence of positive feelings, usually called pleasure. In any assessment of welfare, it is these feelings that should be assessed. Because feelings are subjective, they cannot be investigated directly. However, there are […]
Middle-aged mice with enrichment-resistant stereotypic behaviour show reduced motivation for enrichment
For captive animals, living in barren conditions leads to stereotypic behaviour that is hard to alleviate using environmental enrichment. This resistance to enrichment is often explained via mechanisms that decouple abnormal behaviour from current welfare, such as ‘establishment’: a hypothetical process whereby repetition increases behaviour’s predictability and resistance to change. If such hypotheses are correct, […]