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Behavior and Ethology Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Behavior and Ethology

Rescued Goats At A Sanctuary Display Positive Mood After Former Neglect, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott Sep 2016

Rescued Goats At A Sanctuary Display Positive Mood After Former Neglect, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott

Elodie Briefer, PhD

Moods influence cognitive processes in that people in positive moods expect more positive events to occur and less negative ones (“optimistic bias”), whereas the opposite happens for people in negative moods (“pessimistic bias”). The evidence for an effect of mood on cognitive bias is also increasing in animals, suggesting that measures of optimism and pessimism could provide useful indicators of animal welfare. For obvious ethical reasons, serious poor treatments cannot be easily replicated in large mammals in order to study their long-term effects on moods. In this study, we tested the long-term effects (>2 years) of prior poor welfare …


What Do We Owe Animals As Persons?, Judith Benz-Schwarzburg Aug 2016

What Do We Owe Animals As Persons?, Judith Benz-Schwarzburg

Animal Sentience

Rowlands (2016) concentrates strictly on the metaphysical concept of person, but his notion of animal personhood bears a moral dimension (Monsó, 2016). His definition of pre-reflective self-awareness has a focus on sentience and on the lived body of a person as well as on her implicit awareness of her own goals. Interestingly, these also play a key role in animal welfare science, as well as in animal rights theories that value the interests of animals. Thus, Rowlands’s concept shows connectivity with both major fields of animal ethics. His metaphysical arguments might indeed contain a strong answer to the question of …


On-Farm Qualitative Behaviour Assessment Of Dairy Goats In Different Housing Conditions, Lilia Grosso, Monica Battini, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Sara Barbieri, Michela Minero, Emanuela Dalla Costa, Silvana Mattiello Jul 2016

On-Farm Qualitative Behaviour Assessment Of Dairy Goats In Different Housing Conditions, Lilia Grosso, Monica Battini, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Sara Barbieri, Michela Minero, Emanuela Dalla Costa, Silvana Mattiello

Sentience Collection

This study reports the results of the first investigation on the use of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) in dairy goats, using a fixed-list of descriptors specifically developed for this species. It aimed to verify whether QBA can be reliably used by observers with different backgrounds to differentiate between the emotional states of goats kept under different environmental conditions. Two trained observers simultaneously assessed 16 dairy goat farms (8 “Housed” (H) farms, where animals were observed in free stall pens, and 8 “Pasture” (P) farms, where animals were observed in open ranges), using a list of 16 QBA descriptors that were …


On-Farm Qualitative Behaviour Assessment Of Dairy Goats In Different Housing Conditions, Lilia Grosso, Monica Battini, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Sara Barbieri, Michela Minero, Emanuela Dalla Costa, Silvana Mattiello Jun 2016

On-Farm Qualitative Behaviour Assessment Of Dairy Goats In Different Housing Conditions, Lilia Grosso, Monica Battini, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Sara Barbieri, Michela Minero, Emanuela Dalla Costa, Silvana Mattiello

Françoise Wemelsfelder, PhD

This study reports the results of the first investigation on the use of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) in dairy goats, using a fixed-list of descriptors specifically developed for this species. It aimed to verify whether QBA can be reliably used by observers with different backgrounds to differentiate between the emotional states of goats kept under different environmental conditions. Two trained observers simultaneously assessed 16 dairy goat farms (8 “Housed” (H) farms, where animals were observed in free stall pens, and 8 “Pasture” (P) farms, where animals were observed in open ranges), using a list of 16 QBA descriptors that were …


How Animals Communicate Quality Of Life: The Qualitative Assessment Of Behaviour, F. Wemelsfelder Jun 2016

How Animals Communicate Quality Of Life: The Qualitative Assessment Of Behaviour, F. Wemelsfelder

Françoise Wemelsfelder, PhD

The notion ‘quality of life’ (QoL) suggests that welfare in animals encompasses more than just an absence of suffering; it concerns the quality of an animal’s entire relationship with its environment, of how it lives its life. Judgements of such quality are based on the integration of perceived details of how animals behave over time in different contexts. The scientific status of such judgements has long been ambiguous, but in recent decades has begun to be addressed by animal scientists. This paper starts with a brief review of qualitative approaches to the study of animal behaviour, which tend to address …


What’S The Common Sense Of Just Some Improvement Of Some Welfare For Some Animals?, Liv Baker Jan 2016

What’S The Common Sense Of Just Some Improvement Of Some Welfare For Some Animals?, Liv Baker

Animal Sentience

The goal of Animal Welfare Science to reduce animal suffering is commendable but too modest: Suffering animals need and deserve far more.


Animal Welfare And Animal Rights, M.E. Rolle Jan 2016

Animal Welfare And Animal Rights, M.E. Rolle

Animal Sentience

This overview of Broom’s book, Sentience and Animal Welfare (2014), considers the role the book could play in the animal rights debate. In a thoroughly researched and objectively presented text, Broom lays out information that could place doubt in the minds of decision-makers. By highlighting not just the ways animals resemble humans, but also the ways humans resemble animals, Broom shines a light on a solidly grey area in the animal rights debate.