MEASURING ANIMAL WELFARE
Measuring Animal Welfare is a critical component of ethical animal management, encompassing both input measures (resources provided to animals) and output measures (the welfare outcomes derived from the animal’s response to the environment). Quantification of these measures enables consistent evaluations, supports regulatory compliance, and facilitates improvements in animal care practices.
Before evaluating animal welfare, we must first understand what animal welfare means – Animal welfare relates to how an animal is experiencing its own life and encompasses physical and mental states. In the past, evaluations focused on physical health with reference to physical measures, such as body condition and physical health, which are relatively easy to quantify. However, modern frameworks of animal welfare emphasize the requisite inclusion of an animal’s affective states, or emotions and feelings, as critical elements to conducting welfare evaluations.
Can We Really Assess How An Animal Is Feeling?
Measuring how an animal feels isn’t easy since we can’t ask how they are feeling. Therefore, we use evaluation methodologies that account for affective states which provides a robust welfare assessment; these techniques are validated by an ever-growing body of research. We also reference studies that measure human emotions, and we apply intuitive inference – to consider that certain behaviors correlate with certain affective states (emotions and feelings) – to further our understanding and interpretation of animals’ feelings. Additionally, a deep understanding the species’ behavioral biology, natural history and the associated physical and psychological needs, coupled with understanding an individual’s nuances and preferences, create the foundation for thorough welfare assessments. How animals act and react within their environments is always meaningful. These reactions are important indicators of an animal’s welfare state; through the lens of their behavior, we can interpret how an animal communicates its feelings.
Measuring Animal Welfare: Inputs and Outputs
Input Measures
Input measures refer to the resources, conditions, and management practices provided to animals. These measures should be proactive and focus on the factors expected to promote well-being.
Inputs fall into broad categories including: Housing and Environment (e.g., space per animal, complexity of space, substrates, enrichment), Nutrition and Hydration (e.g., quality, appropriateness, variety, and presentation of foods, accessibility to hydration sources), Health care (e.g., veterinary access, frequency, and type of checks, preventative care, geriatric care, and specialized training), and Management practices (staff to animal ratio, husbandry care practice, staff/animal relationship, safety protocols). Inputs are measured by direct observation, observational auditing, and review of records to determine the frequency and quality of the provision of these parameters. The onus of verification falls directly to the person conducting the welfare evaluation – determining the actual provision is essential to a quality output evaluation.
Input measures are essential to an animal’s welfare as they indicate the presence (or absence) of foundational practices crucial to animal welfare. Inputs provide information about the environment and condition of the animal, but what they cannot do is offer insight into what animal is feeling, which is why we also must evaluate how the animal is responding to its environment as a whole.
Output Measures
Output measures are the observable indicators of an animal’s welfare state. These measures assess the behavioral and physiological response or outcome to the inputs provided. It is through assessing outputs that we begin to evaluate an animal’s emotional or affective state associated with wellbeing.
Outputs reflect both physical and emotional/affective conditions, and similar to inputs, can be categorized by: Health and Physical condition (e.g. body condition score, presence/absence of disease and injury, and associated frequencies and percentage of animals with these conditions), Behavioral indicator (e.g., activity budget, presence of a range of natural behaviors or behavioral diversity, presence of abnormal behaviors), Physiological indicators (e.g., stress biomarkers, heart rate variability (HRV) as an indicator of stress resilience), and reproductive performance (e.g., fertility, offspring survival rates).
Assessing outputs requires direct observations of animals to determine their behavioral health, interactions with caregivers and staff, interactions with provided inputs and the resultant opportunities and behaviors. Direct behavioral observations require knowledge of the species’ behavioral biology and can take some time to gather an appropriate amount of data. Automated monitoring, such as accelerometers to track movement patterns or video recordings to monitor nocturnal species, can add valuable information to the output assessment picture. Physiological measure obtained by sample collection (e.g., blood sampling, hormone monitoring, heart and respiration rates) can provide further insight adding data and validity to welfare evaluations.
Welfare Measures Can Be Challenging to Quantify
While quantifying input and output measures may pose challenges, it is essential for assessing and improving animal welfare. Challenges include:
- Subjectivity in assessments: Behavioral and physical condition scoring often relies on observer judgement, leading to potential bias and inconsistencies.
- Resource constraints: Comprehensive monitoring of both inputs and outputs may require significant time and financial investment, especially when teams are assimilated from a broad geographic range.
- Species-specific variability: Welfare indicators and their thresholds differ across species and individuals; species-specific familiarity helps tailor approaches.
- Integration of measures: Balancing input and output measures to provide a holistic view of welfare can be complex. Specialized training in the processes is essential.
Input measures provide the foundation for good practices, while output measures reveal their effectiveness. A balanced, scientifically grounded approach to both types of measures ensures that animal welfare is objectively evaluated and continually improved. Such effective evaluation is best performed by comparative evaluation against a norm or a standard.
The Wild Welfare US Approach to Animal Welfare Evaluations
Welfare Standards
A welfare standard improves animal welfare by providing a structured framework to assess, monitor, and ensure the well-being of animals under human care. These standards typically address various aspects of animal care, environment, and management, and they are designed to protect animals from harm and promote positive physical and psychological states.
In line with this approach, Wild Welfare developed a third party, external audit process based upon an internationally-applicable Core Standard of Welfare Practice for Captive Animals. This provides a robust, evidence-based procedure for the systematic and forensic auditing of the welfare of animals in captivity, and thus encourages facility engagement in improving practices and promotes further development towards best practices.
The Wild Welfare Core Standard serves as a benchmark for assessing and improving animal welfare in captive animal facilities. It is derived from current and prevailing trends and peer-reviewed published literature pertaining to animal welfare requirements in zoos, aquariums, sanctuaries, rescue centers and rehabilitation centers, and it reflects the following principles:
- The Five Domains Model is a science-based framework which we use to organize and plan our approach to assessing an animal’s welfare. The model considers five domains of an animal’s physical, behavioral, and psychological experiences and how they culminate into the welfare state.
- Globally recognized and aligns with professional animal care requirements.
- Focuses on the need for continuous improvements by encouraging facilities to move beyond minimum requirements and achieve best practice for animal welfare.
For information on the Wild Welfare process click here. We also offer a webinar further describing the process, what’s the auditee can expect during and following the visit. See our webinars page.
