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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Evaluation Of Animal-Based Indicators To Be Used In A Welfare Assessment Protocol For Sheep, Susan E. Richmond, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Ina Beltran De Heredia, Roberto Ruiz, Elisabetta Canali, Cathy M. Dwyer Oct 2019

Evaluation Of Animal-Based Indicators To Be Used In A Welfare Assessment Protocol For Sheep, Susan E. Richmond, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Ina Beltran De Heredia, Roberto Ruiz, Elisabetta Canali, Cathy M. Dwyer

Françoise Wemelsfelder, PhD

Sheep are managed under a variety of different environments (continually outdoors, partially outdoors with seasonal or diurnal variation, continuously indoors) and for different purposes, which makes assessing welfare challenging. This diversity means that resource-based indicators are not particularly useful and, thus, a welfare assessment scheme for sheep, focusing on animal-based indicators, was developed. We focus specifically on ewes, as the most numerous group of sheep present on farm, although many of the indicators may also have relevance to adult male sheep. Using the Welfare Quality® framework of four Principles and 12 Criteria, we considered the validity, reliability, and feasibility of …


The Question Of Animal Awareness, Francoise Wemelsfelder Oct 2019

The Question Of Animal Awareness, Francoise Wemelsfelder

Françoise Wemelsfelder, PhD

The problem of animal awareness lies at the interface of science and philosophy. As a starting point for the study of phenomena such as awareness, mind, consciousness, etc., we hardly have any reference other than our own human experience and in the context of a nondualistic ontology this can be justified. In philosophy and psychology it appears to be very difficult to give direct operational definitions of terms such as consciousness, etc. So we might expect this to be even more difficult in the study of animals. A detailed knowledge of animals and their behaviour is necessary in order to …