Holistic Approaches to Optimal Wellbeing of Ageing Wild Animals
Promoting good wellbeing in ageing animals benefits from a holistic approach considering a wide spectrum of physical and psychological aspects, through the lens of 24/7 across lifespan. A particular focus on the hours care staff is not usually at a facility is key, and professional zoos endeavour to provide animals with choice and control to […]
Quality-of-Life Assessments in Zoo Animals: Not Just for the Aged and Charismatic
Zoos should aim to provide all of their animals with a good quality of life (QoL) throughout all life stages. In parallel with the evolution of QoL assessment questionnaires and tools in human and domestic animal settings, in recent times, some individual zoos and zoo industry associations have incorporated such instruments into their animal management […]
Fish Welfare in Public Aquariums and Zoological Collections
A wide variety of fish species have been displayed in public aquariums and zoological collections for over 150 years. Though the issue of pain perception in fish is still being debated, there is no disagreement that negative impacts on their welfare can significantly affect their health and wellbeing. A general description of the basic biological […]
An Animal Welfare Risk Assessment Process for Zoos
Simple Summary To retain social license to operate, achieving and maintaining high standards of animal welfare need to be institutional priorities for zoos. In order to be confident in the delivery of high standards of animal welfare, a holistic evidence-based approach to welfare assessment is required. This should include a combination of institutional-level assessments, individual […]
Farm Manager Involvement in an Equine on-farm Welfare Assessment: Opportunities for Education and Improvement
Previous work surveying equine professionals has suggested ignorance to be a primary cause of poor welfare within the industry, highlighting the importance of improving educational opportunities for industry stakeholders. This may be achieved through on-farm assessments designed to evaluate facilities and share resources with farm owners. While used extensively for evaluating production animal facilities, equine […]
Application of a welfare assessment tool (Shelter Quality Protocol) in 64 Italian long-term dogs’ shelters: welfare hazard analysis
The confined environment of the dog shelter, particularly over extensive time-periods can impact severely on welfare. Surveillance and assessment are therefore essential components of the welfare protocol. The aim of this study was to generate a descriptive analysis of a sample of Italian long-term shelters and identify potential hazards regarding the welfare of shelter dogs. […]
The Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised: Independent Validation in Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders
A key feature of autism is restricted repetitive behavior (RRB). Despite the significance of RRBs, little is known about their phenomenology, assessment, and treatment. The Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R) is a recently-developed questionnaire that captures the breadth of RRB in autism. To validate the RBS-R in an independent sample, we conducted a survey within the […]
Welfare monitoring schemes: Using research to safeguard welfare of animals on the farm
There are a number of nonhuman animal welfare monitoring schemes for animals on the farm in Australia and in other countries. Although the majority of such schemes are voluntary rather than legislated, some are nevertheless enforced through a number of customer requirements that industries must meet to gain access to markets. Animal welfare monitoring schemes […]
Can farm animal welfare be understood without taking into account the issues of emotion and cognition?
Although the concept of welfare makes reference to feelings of individual animals, the exact nature of these feelings and their relationship to emotions and cognitive abilities of the animals under consideration are never detailed. Based on the concepts of stress and coping, an extensive list of indicators of physical health, production, behavior, and physiology has […]
A user’s guide to animal welfare science
Here, I provide a guide for those new to the burgeoning field of animal welfare science as to what this comprehensive, relatively young discipline is all about. Drawing on all branches of biology, including behavioural ecology and neuroscience, the science of animal welfare asks three big questions: Are animals conscious? How can we assess good […]