Welcome to this week's session which is all about assessing animal welfare. And in this session, we'll be exploring the sorts of measurements that are used by international scientist to try to understand the world from an animal's point of view and how this information can be used in helping to make good decisions about animal welfare. Firstly, let's recap, we know that people's attitudes and beliefs, especially when firmly held, will drive human behavior, this is certainly the case with attitudes towards animals and their welfare. These have been shown to influence people's perceptions of businesses, products, and even cultures. Think of the most recent issues to affect the sale of meat, such as the horse meat scandal in Europe, leading to a marked reduction in the purchase of beef products. Such is the power of public opinion, that some businesses involved in buying meat for their supermarkets shelves or food outlets have been encouraged to implement policy changes so that the products they sell have the highest standards of animal welfare. Public opinion can also lead to changes in legislation governing the way animals are housed. Such as with the banning of the so-called battery cage housing systems for laying hens in Europe. However, people's opinions are not always based on facts and attitudes can often be challenged when good data is presented. It is for this reason that many animal welfare organizations will use both the emotional as well as robust arguments based on scientific evidence for lobbying businesses and governments for positive changes in animal welfare policy and practice. As we learned during last week, animal welfare is a complex subject and there are many, many different opinions about animal welfare as well as differences in understanding what it is. When asked, most people would be able to provide examples of what they consider to be poor animal welfare. And in many cases these will include cruel treatment of companion animals and with issues with the way production animals may be kept. However, it's interesting that finding examples of good or positive welfare seem far harder. Most people feel comfortable with suggesting that a dog wags its tail when it's happy to see you, but examples of happiness or pleasure in farm animals are less obvious. This is probably because we are more likely to have known or owned a dog or cat and therefore feel more familiar with their emotional expression. And it may also reflect a phenomenon that has been termed speciesism where we see different levels of consideration being given to animals as a consequence of their species rather than any evidence of a difference in their ability to feel positive or negative emotions. Using a scientific approach, we can take out some of the subjectiveness that occurs when we base decisions about animals and their welfare on our own beliefs and our own opinions. Using an evidence approach and shows that we make good use of measurements that have been developed to enable a much more objective assessment of an animal's response to the situation it finds itself in. Using the scientific method means that a hypothesis or explanation is formulated based on good observations. The measurements used to test this hypothesis will need to be robust and the results subjected to statistical analysis before a decision is made about whether there is good enough evidence for or against a possible explanation. The process of experiment makes me repeat it a number of times to check that the results are similar, at which point a conclusion can be drawn. Scientists believe that this process allows us to make more accurate judgements about how an animal is coping with its environment or its situation. And move us much closer to understanding the individual animal's experience, enabling us to make more animal-centric decisions. There are a number of methods that are used for measuring animal responses that are based upon the notion that the animal's emotional response to the situation it finds itself in is expressed through its physiology and behavior. For example, an animal experiencing fear will, depending upon its species, try to rapidly remove itself either through flight or hiding and may even be inclined to remove the thing that it is fearful of through behaving aggressively towards it. The flight or fight behavior response is associated with increased heart rate and blood pressure as well as rises in various brain and blood chemicals all of which can be measured. There are many examples of what are called animal welfare indicators. Scientists are now extremely good at measuring behavioral, physiological, and even immunological responses to negative experiences, such as pain, fear, or stress. These emotional experiences cause immediate responses, such as increased heart rate, as well as longer term responses like behavioral changes, such as the repetitive actions of a horse or a dog kept stabled or kenneled for long periods of time. And if the animal is kept in this negative state for long enough changes in the animal's ability to resist disease will lead to health and growth problems. However, more recently there has been an appreciation of the importance of discovering measures indicative of positive emotional states. Social behavior such as play and comfort behavior that occur during specific times such as the nest building scene in pregnant sows. This has led to a deeper understanding of the importance of different aspects of an animal's environment from birth or hatching through early developmental experiences, to the way an animal is grouped, housed, and transported in relation to its quality of life. Through measuring changes in behavior and physiology in a structured way, scientists are able to work out the relationships between different types of housing, different handling conditions, and transport. And look at the way animals normally experience this, and how their responses will allow them to adapt to cope with the challenges that this may impose upon them. By measuring animal welfare through these indicators, we're in a much better position to properly manage animal welfare needs. This helps us to work out what is positive or negative from the animal's point of view which can be applied in approving animal handling methods or environments and ensuring higher standards of welfare.
