Discipline: Ethology

Quality-of-Life Assessments in Zoo Animals: Not Just for the Aged and Charismatic

Michelle Campbell-Ward

Published in 2023

Scientific review exploring the concept of quality of life as it applies to animals, assessment indicators and methods appropriate in a zoo setting, and the importance of taking quality of life into account at all stages of life, whatever the species.

Document Types: Scientific review

Animal categories:Wildlife

Keywords:Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Adaptation of the environment to the animal, Societal issues, Enrichment, Welfare indicators, Housing, Living environment, Human-animal relationships

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Editorial: Holistic prevention strategies for tail biting in pigs; from farm to slaughterhouse

Richard B. D'Eath, Keelin O'Driscoll, Emma Fàbrega

Published in 2023

Editorial summarizing the articles in a dossier on the prevention of tail biting in pigs. Topics include the identification of different types of tail biting, reducing  particular risk factors, the  settings that encourage biting, and the use of precision tools to spot the onset of biting episodes.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Porcines

Keywords:Aggression, Aggressivity, Pain, Precision farming, Enrichment, Welfare indicators, Housing, Societal issues, Stress

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Dromedary camel's welfare: literature from 1980 to 2023 with a text mining and topic analysis approach

Naod T. Masebo, Martina Zappaterra, Martina Felici, Beatrice Benedetti, Barbara Padalino

Published in 2023

Scientific review of the main research topics related to dromedary welfare and how these have changed over time. The most frequently encountered topics are "Management of young animals and milk production", "Dromedary health and management systems", "Female and male reproduction", "Dromedary behaviors and feeding" and "Dromedary welfare". The review exposes major research gaps.

Document Types: Scientific review

Animal categories:Camelidae

Keywords:Welfare indicators, Lactation

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The Well-Being of Companion Animal Caregivers and Their Companion Animals during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review

Samantha K. Brooks, Neil Greenberg

Published in 2023

Review seeking to understand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on animal carers and their pets. Pet companionship had advantages, but also disadvantages, for both humans and animals. The authors end by asserting the importance of taking pets into account in emergency preparedness plans.

Document Types: Scientific review

Animal categories: Canines, Felines

Keywords:Anxiety, Welfare indicators, One Welfare, Human-animal relationships, Stress

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On-pasture and On-farm Welfare Measurement Protocol for Horses

Federica Raspa, Emanuela Valle,Alessandro Necci, Laura Ozealla, Lorenzo Bertocchi, Nicoletta d'Avino, Marta Panicciaà, Pasquale de Palo, Domenico Bergero, Martina Tarantola, Clara Borin, Claudio Forte

Published in 2023

Article on the development and testing of a specific protocol for measuring the welfare of horses known to be reared in either extensive or confined systems, and assessing whether the  welfare indicators selected for it were influenced by the type of system (extensive or confined).

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Equines

Keywords:Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Animal-based measurements, Societal issues, Welfare indicators, Housing, Living environment, Livestock farming system

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Volitional activation of remote place representations with a hippocampal brain-machine interface

Chongxi Lai, Shinsuke Tanaka, Timothy D. Harris, Albert K. Lee

Published in 2023

Scientific article on the development of a brain-machine interface to study rats' abilities to voluntarily navigate and direct objects in a virtual reality arena, solely by activating and sustaining appropriate hippocampal representations of remote locations.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Rodents

Keywords:Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Animal-based measurements, Learning, training, Consciousness, Brain integration, Living environment, Modelling

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A review of horse welfare literature from 1980 to 2023 with a text mining and topic analysis approach

Beatrice Benedetti, Martina Felici, Leonardo Nanni Costa, Barbara Padalino

Published in 2023

Scientific review describing the changes in  the literature on equine welfare over the past 40 years. The number of publications has increased exponentially over the period. The most common topics dealt with are stress assessment, pain assessment, equine social behavior and human-horse interaction. Positive welfare and the assessment of welfare at slaughter are under-represented.

Document Types: Scientific review

Animal categories: Equines

Keywords: Human-animal Relationships,Pain, Welfare Indicators, Stress

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Feline Faces: Unraveling the Social Function of Domestic Cat Facial Signals

Lauren Scott, Brittany N. Florkiewicz

Published in 2023

Scientific article documenting the various facial signals produced by cats during affiliative and non-affiliative intraspecific interactions. It demonstrates that cats produce a great number of expressions by combining a set of facial muscle movements in different ways. Affiliative and non-affiliative signals are notably different, and it is possible for humans to distinguish between some of them. 

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Felines

Keywords:Animal-based measurements, Human-animal relationships, Stress

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Measuring dairy cow welfare with real-time sensor-based data and farm records: a concept study

A.H. Stygar, L. Frondelius, G.V. Berteselli, Y. Gómez, E. Canali, J.K. Niemi, P. Llonch, M. Pastel

Published in 2023

Scientific article presenting an algorithm designed to assess the welfare of dairy cows based on sensor data (accelerometer and/or lactometer) and farm records. It concludes that the algorithm alone cannot not provide a sufficiently sensitive and specific assessment of cow welfare, but that there is merit in combining it with farm-based welfare measurement visits.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Animal categories: Bovines

Keywords: Animal-based measurements, Precision farming, Welfare indicators

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Animal board invited review: Quantification of resilience in farm animals

M. Taghipoor, M. Pastell, O. Martin, H. Nguyen Ba, J. van Milgen, A. Doeschl-Wilson, C. Loncke, N.C. Friggens, L. Puillet, R. Muñoz-Tamayo

Published in 2023

Scientific article on the detection and quantification of the responses of farm animals to changes in their environment as a means to classify them individually according to their level of resilience. To this purpose, the authors analyze the use of different modeling approaches to data generation from high-throughput recordings.

Document Types: Scientific paper

Category of animals: Bovines, Caprines, Ovines, Porcines

Keywords:Animal-based measurements, Precision farming, Welfare indicators, Modelling, Resilience, Stress

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