animal welfare topics for research paper

51 Animal Welfare Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best animal welfare topic ideas & essay examples, 📝 most interesting animal welfare topics to write about, 👍 good research topics about animal welfare.

• Animal Welfare vs. Rights: Compare and Contrast One can state that the term animal rights refers to the privileges that animals should enjoy. While comparing animal rights and welfare, one also has to consider the fact that animals cannot have the same […]
• The Animal Rights and Welfare Debates The traditional attitude towards animals was based on the assertion that animals have no rights, and therefore it is not the subject of moral concerns. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Animal Sentience: Impact on Animal Welfare Movement The difficulty is that it is unknown how sentience arises from the brain cells, how to study it and what to look for. Fear of anthropomorphism is a second reason why it is difficult to […]
• Biotechnology and Animal Welfare: How Genetically Modified Chicken Serves the Demand in Fast Food Chains Beef was the most often used meat for the restaurants due to its containing in burgers, however, in 2020, the tendency started to move in the direction of chicken consumption.
• Holistic View Over Animal Welfare in the Health System It is paramount to note that the management of the health systems needs to focus on an integrated approach to the management of these animals to have healthy and useful animals.
• Consumer Attitudes Towards Animal Welfare Emerging challenges experiencing in different parts of the world have managed to transform people’s attitudes and perceptions about domesticated animals and the use of the products they give.
• Canadian Animal Welfare and Role in the Charity Canada’s government and the justice system must oversee the welfare of pets, livestock, and performance animals equally to ensure an ethical approach to animal rights protection.
• Animal Experimentation: The Animal Welfare Act
• Activists and Animal Welfare: Quality Verifications in the Canadian Pork Sector
• Animal Rights and Animal Welfare Comparative Analysis
• Overview of Animal Welfare Assurance Programs
• Animals and the Environment: Animal Welfare
• Assessing Consumer and Producer Preferences for Animal Welfare
• Animal Testing and Changing the Animal Welfare Act
• Behavioral Enrichment and Monitoring for Animal Welfare
• Animal Welfare and Conservation: An Essential Connection
• Brand Information Mitigating Negative Shocks on Animal Welfare
• Animal Welfare and Economic Aspects of Using Nurse Sows in Swedish Pig Production
• Citizens, Consumers, and Farm Animal Welfare: A Meta-Analysis of Willingness-To-Pay Studies
• Animal Welfare and Economic Optimisation of Farrowing Systems
• Consumer Attitudes Toward Farm-Animal Welfare: The Case of Laying Hens
• Animal Welfare and Human Ethics: A Personality Study
• Consumer Preference for Eggs From Enhanced Animal Welfare Production System
• Animal Welfare and Eggs – Cheap Talk or Money on the Counter
• Consumer Preferences for Animal Welfare Attributes: Case of Gestation Crates
• Animal Welfare and Livestock Supply Chain Sustainability Under the COVID-19 Outbreak
• Demand for Farm Animal Welfare and Producer Implications
• Animal Welfare and Social Decisions: Is It Time to Take Bentham Seriously
• Economic and Social Impacts of COVID-19 on Animal Welfare and Dairy Husbandry
• Animal Welfare and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
• Economic, Environmental, and Animal Welfare Performance on Livestock Farms
• Animal Welfare: Banning Wild Animals From Circuses
• Improving Animal Welfare Through Genetic Selection
• Animal Welfare Campaign Should Be Banned
• The Science and Practice of Captive Animal Welfare
• Animal Welfare Payments and Veterinary and Insemination Costs for Dairy Cows
• European Agricultural Policy and Farm Animal Welfare
• Farm Animal Welfare: Crisis or Opportunity for Agriculture
• “Animal Welfare” Practices Along the Food Chain
• Evaluating Animal Welfare With Choice Experiments: Application to Swedish Pig Production
• Factors Affecting Broiler Livability: Implications for Animal Welfare and Food Policy
• Farm Animal Welfare, Consumer Willingness to Pay, and Trust
• High Animal Welfare Standards in the EU and International Trade
• Industrial Farm Animal Welfare in the United States
• Into the Void: International Law and the Protection of Animal Welfare
• Market and Policy-Oriented Incentives to Provide Animal Welfare
• Consumer Benefits of Improving Farm Animal Welfare to Inform Welfare Labelling
• Monocropping and Animal Welfare in Sustainable Agriculture
• Organic- And Animal Welfare-Labelled Eggs: Competing for the Same Consumers
• Public Policy for Animal Welfare in India
• Reconsidering the Political Economy of Farm Animal Welfare
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

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Social Science Research Topics for Animal Welfare

Table of contents.

This is a list of social science research topics related to animal welfare, developed by researchers on the Open Phil farm animal welfare (FAW) team. 

Additional context:

• In the interest of brevity, we have not provided much context for each topic. But if you are a graduate student or academic, we may be able to provide you with more detail on our motivation and our interpretation of the current literature. Please email Martin Gould with your questions, or any other feedback on this list.
• The topics covered in this document are the ones we find most interesting; for other lists of research topics, see here . We do not attempt to cover animal welfare science in our list, and the topics are listed in no particular order (we don’t place a higher priority on those listed first).
• In some areas, we are not fully up to date on the existing literature, so some of our questions may have been answered by research already conducted.
• We think it is generally valuable to use back-of-the-envelope calculations to explore ideas and findings.
• If you complete research on these topics, please feel free to share your work with us and the broader animal advocacy movement (one option is to post here ) . We’re happy to see published findings, working papers, and even detailed notes that you don’t intend to formally publish

Corporate commitments

• How does this differ by the type of reform? (For example, cage-free vs. Better Chicken Commitment ?)
• How does this differ by country or geographical region (For example, the EU vs. Brazil?) 
• What are the production costs associated with specific animal welfare reforms? Here is an example of such an analysis for the European Chicken Commitment .

Policy reform

• Which jurisdictions are most amenable to FAW policy reform over the next 5-10 years? Which specific reform(s) are most tractable, and why?
• To what extent is animal welfare a politically polarizing issue (i.e., clearly associated with a particular political affiliation)? Is this a barrier to reform? If so, how might political polarization of animal welfare be reduced?
• What conclusions should be drawn about the optimal timing of policy reform campaigns? 
• What would be the cost-effectiveness of a global animal welfare benchmarking project? (That is, comparing FAW by country and by company, as a basis to drive competition. Similar models have been used in human rights and global development.)
• Does this vary by geographical region (for example, Asia vs. Latin America)?

Alt protein

• Is the displacement rate different across PBMA products? More specifically, does it differ between “next-generation” products like Beyond and Impossible vs. other PBMA products?
• What other foods are PBMA products displacing? (For example, what fraction of PBMA units/meals are replacing tofu rather than chicken?)
• What are the product qualities that are most important in driving this?
• What share of the global meat market will PBMA and/or cultured meat products account for in 10, 30, or 50 years?
• What is the impact on sales of labeling laws that restrict the terms that can be used to describe/advertise PBMAs and other plant-based products?
• Are there clear ways in which non-PBMA plant-based products could be improved to increase uptake and displace meat consumption? 
• What government alt protein R&D is most impactful and tractable to advocate for?
• How can alt protein be supported most effectively by government policy (outside of government R&D)?

Dietary/mindset change

• What are the rates of vegetarianism and veganism (collectively “veg*nism”) in populous countries (e.g., the US , China, India, EU countries)? How have these changed, if at all, over recent decades?
• What percentage of people will be veg*n in 20, 50, or 100 years?
• Which settings are most conducive to running rigorous experiments on dietary change interventions, and how can these settings be accessed/used? (For example, college cafeterias often allow researchers to use data on purchases, which means they don’t have to rely on self-reports.)
• What about the cost-effectiveness of documentaries or other forms of mass media?
• How impactful are meat advertising bans such as this one ?
• Has the success of animal advocacy efforts on social media changed over time (based on standard social media metrics and possibly other metrics)? If so, why might this be the case?
• How impactful would it be to get more animal welfare content into TV shows and/or movies? If this seems promising, what are the best ways to achieve it?
• How impactful would it be to get already sympathetic celebrities to speak up more about animal welfare? If this seems promising, what are the best ways to achieve it?

Movement building

• How strong is the relationship between country-level per capita income/wealth and FAW reform tractability?
• How does an increase in the number of advocates in a given geography increase (or otherwise impact) the likelihood of finding cost-effective interventions there?

Other interventions

• The UN estimates that 17% of food is wasted. Are there any cost-effective ways to help animals by reducing animal product food waste?
• In the retail sector, how have the availability and sales of shrimp products changed over time? When retailers and food service companies drop shrimp products from their assortment, what are the most common reasons (e.g., environmental concerns)?
• Are there datasets which don’t exist (and could be funded by philanthropy or others) that would increase the effectiveness of the animal welfare movement?
• What are effective ways to influence the views of more thought leaders, policymakers, and other elites on animal welfare?
• Where is the use of broiler cages increasing, and how prevalent are they in those areas? Are there any tractable interventions that could undermine those trends?
• What are the most tractable and cost-effective interventions to improve wild animal welfare? 

Other questions

• The Welfare Footprint Project has four ‘categories of pain intensity’ , and it estimates the time spent in each category of pain given different farming systems ( example ). How might these categories be weighted to arrive at an overall welfare score?
• Funding for farm animal welfare advocacy organizations has increased in recent years (even excluding Open Philanthropy funding) – why?
• To make this more tractable, consider one species of animal in a single geography.

Footnotes [+] Footnotes [−]

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162 Best Animal Research Topics To Nail Your Paper In 2023

The world is filled with living things. There are some animals that we know about, some that we will discover, and there are many that we might never know about. All our knowledge about animals is mostly dependant on researchers. Well, we are rooting for you to be the next great researcher. Be it zoology, veterinary, or live wild stock, your study needs a research topic. If you’re looking for the best animal research topics to nail this year, we’re here with your help.

Table of Contents

Best Animal Research Topics

We have 162 Animal Research Topics that will help you get the best grades this year.

Physiology of Animals Research Topics

• Description of the knowledge required to work in animal physiology
• Study of animal species with different specialties in the sciences of nature and life
• Life sciences and socioeconomic impacts
• Neurulation appendages birds
• Exercises on gastrulation and neurulation
• Gastrulation amphibians birds
• Fertilization segmentation in the sea species
• Gametogenesis: A Detailed Introduction
• Study of Delimitation: bird appendages
• Particularities of the developmental biology of certain species
• Technical-commercial animal physiology
• Terrestrial and marine ecosystems
• Animal biology and forensic science: Is there a connection?
• Animal Biology Biotechnology and molecules of interest regarding food and industry
• The interest in biology in the diagnosis of animal and plant diseases
• Toxicology and environmental health concerns in animal physiology
• Animal and plant production
• Fundamentals of animal physiology research and analysis
• Behavior and evolution Genetics of behavior in animals
• Adaptation and evolution of behavior
• Comparative studies of general ecology, zoology, and animal physiology
• Study of animals about the conditions prevailing in their immediate environment
• Endocrine and neuroendocrine systems in animals
• Studying the nervous systems in birds
• Genitals and reproductive physiology of birds
• Understanding of the anatomical and functional particularities of invertebrates
• Biology and physiology of invertebrates
• Reconstruction of phylogenetic trees
• Morpho-anatomical arguments and the importance of fossils
• Argued classification of animals
• Study of the evolution of living organisms by making updates on recent advances in Animalia
• Phylogeny and animal evolution
• Principles of echolocation in the bats
• Possible evolution of the increase in complexity of the primitive nervous system
• The nervous system of the insect
• Circulation in animal physiology
• Animals without a differentiated circulatory system
• Water and mineral balance in animals
• Thermoregulation in animals
• Musculoskeletal system in animals
• Study of animal blood
• Biological rhythms of animals
• Skin and teguments of mammals
• Animal nutrition and metabolism
• Hormones and endocrine system of animals
• Emerging organic pollutants
• Mechanisms of toxicity in animals
• Animal physiology in animals from temperate regions
• Genetic correlations between animal species
• Animal communities, forest ecology, and forest birds
• Wildlife-habitat modeling

Looking for research topics in general? Read 402  General Research Paper Topics

Animal Research Topics For Student

• Impact of the agricultural raw materials crisis on the marketing of livestock feed
• Analysis of the competitiveness of poultry produced in the USA
• Animal cruelty in USA and European countries
• Seroprevalence of neosporosis in cattle herds
• The peri-urban dairy sector
• Effect of the liberalization of the veterinary profession on the vaccination coverage of livestock
• Why do people kill animals? The psyche behind animal cruelty
• Evaluation of the growth performance of three sheep breeds
• Study on the protection of terrestrial ecosystems
• Ecology of African dung beetles
• Effects of road infrastructure on wildlife in developing countries
• Analysis of the consequences of climate change related to pastoral livestock
• Strategies for management in the animal feed sector
• The feeding behavior of mosquitoes
• Bee learning and memory
• Immediate response to the animal cruelty
• Study of mass migration of land birds over the ocean
• A study of crocodile evolution
• The cockroach escape system
• The resistance of cockroaches against radiation: Myth or fact?
• Temperature regulation in the honey bee swarm
• Irresponsible dog breeding can often lead to an excess of stray dogs and animal cruelty
• Reliable communication signals in birds

Also see:  How to Write an 8 Page Research Paper ?

Animal Research Topics For University

• Color patterns of moths and moths
• Mimicry in the sexual signals of fireflies
• Ecophysiology of the garter snake
• Memory, dreams regarding cat neurology
• Spatiotemporal variation in the composition of animal communities
• Detection of prey in the sand scorpion
• Internal rhythms in bird migration
• Genealogy: Giant Panda
• Animal dissection: Severe type of animal cruelty and a huge blow to animal rights
• Cuckoo coevolution and patterns
• Use of plant extracts from Amazonian plants for the design of integrated pest management
• Research on flying field bug
• The usefulness of mosquitoes in biological control serves to isolate viruses
• Habitat use by the Mediterranean Ant
• Genetic structure of the  African golden wolf  based on its habitat
• Birds body odor on their interaction with mosquitoes and parasites
• The role of ecology in the evolution of coloration in owls
• The invasion of the red swamp crayfish
• Molecular taxonomy and biogeography of caprellids
• Bats of Mexico and United States
• What can animal rights NGOs do in case of animal cruelty during animal testing initiatives?

Or you can try 297 High School Research Paper Topics to Top The Class

Controversial Animal Research Topics

• Is it okay to adopt an animal for experimentation?
• The authorization procedures on animals for scientific experiments
• The objective of total elimination of animal testing
• Are there concrete examples of successful scientific advances resulting from animal experimentation?
• Animal rights for exotic animals: Protection of forests and wildlife
• How can animal rights help the endangered animals
• Animal experimentations are a type of animal cruelty: A detailed analysis
• Animal testing: encouraging the use of alternative methods
• Use of animals for the evaluation of chemical substances
• Holding seminars on the protection of animals
• Measures to take against animal cruelty
• Scientific research on marine life
• Scientific experiments on animals for medical research
• Experimentation on great apes
• Toxicological tests and other safety studies on chemical substances
• Why isn’t research done directly on humans rather than animals?
• Are animals necessary to approve new drugs and new medical technologies?
• Are the results of animal experiments transferable to humans?
• Humans are not animals, which is why animal research is not effective
• What medical advances have been made possible by animal testing?
• Animals never leave laboratories alive
• Scientific interest does not motivate the use of animal research
• Animal research is torture 
• How can a layperson work against the animal testing?

Every crime is a controversy too, right? Here are some juicy  Criminal Justice Research Paper Topics  as well.

Animal Research Topics: Animal Rights

• Growing awareness of the animal suffering generated by these experiments
• What are the alternatives to animal testing?
• Who takes care of animal welfare?
• Major global organizations working for animal rights
• Animal rights in developing countries
• International animal rights standards to work against animal cruelty
• Animal cruelty in developing countries
• What can a layperson do when seeing animal cruelty
• Role of society in the prevention of animal cruelty
• Animal welfare and animal rights: measures taken against animal cruelty in developing countries
• Animal cruelty in the name of science
• How can we raise a better, empathetic and warm-hearted children to put a stop to animal cruelty
• Ethical animal testing methods with safety
• Are efforts being made to reduce the number of animals used?
• The welfare of donkeys and their socioeconomic roles in the subcontinent
• Animal cruelty and superstitious conceptions of dogs, cats, and donkeys in subcontinent
• Efforts made by international organizations against the tragedy of animal cruelty
• International organizations working for animal welfare
• Animal abuse: What are the immediate measures to take when we see animal cruelty
• Efforts to stop animal abuse in South Asian Countries
• Animal abuse in the name of biomedical research

Talking about social causes, let’s have a look at social work topics too: 206  Social Work Research Topics

Interesting Animal Research Topics

• The urbanization process and its effect on the dispersal of birds:
• Patterns of diversification in Neotropical amphibians
• Interactions between non-native parrot species
• Impact of landscape anthropization dynamics and wild birds’ health
• Habitat-driven diversification in small mammals
• Seasonal fluctuations and life cycles of amphipods
• Animal cruelty in African countries
• Evolution of the environmental niche of amphibians
• Biological studies on Louisiana crawfish
• Biological studies on Pink bollworm
• Biological studies on snails
• Biological studies on Bush Crickets
• Biological studies on Mountain Gorillas
• Biological studies on piranha
• Consequences of mosquito feeding
• Birds as bioindicators of environmental health
• Biological studies on victoria crowned pigeon
• Biological studies on black rhinoceros
• Biological studies on European spider
• Biological studies on dumbo octopus
• Biological studies on markhor
• Study of genetic and demographic variation in amphibian populations
• Ecology and population dynamics of the blackberry turtle
• Small-scale population differentiation in ecological and evolutionary mechanisms
• Challenges in vulture conservation

Also interesting: 232  Chemistry Research Topics  To Make Your Neurochemicals Dance

Submarine Animals Research Topics

• The physiology behind the luminous fish
• A study of Fish population dynamics
• Study of insects on the surface of the water
• Structure and function of schools of fish
• Physiological ecology of whales and dolphins
• Form and function in fish locomotion
• Why do whales and dolphins jump?
• Impact of Noise on Early Development and Hearing in Zebrafish
• Animal cruelty against marine life on the hand of fishermen

Read More:  Accounting Research Topics

Animal Biology Research Topics

• Systematic and zoogeographical study of the ocellated lizards
• Morphological study of neuro histogenesis in the diencephalon of the chick embryo
• Anatomical study of three species of Nudibranch
• The adaptive strategy of two species of lagomorphs
• The Black vulture: population, general biology, and interactions with other birds
• Ocellated lizards: their phylogeny and taxonomy
• Studies on the behavior of ocellated lizards in captivity
• Comparative studies of the egg-laying and egg-hatching methods of ocellated lizards
• Studies on the ecology and behavior of ocellated lizards
• The taxonomic and phylogenetic implications of ocellated lizards
• Research on the egg-laying and egg-hatching methods of ocellated lizards
• Studies on the ecology and behavior of ocellated lizards in their natural environment
• Comparative studies of the egg-laying and egg-hatching methods of ocellated lizards in different countries
• Studies on the ecology and behavior of ocellated lizards in their natural environment in the light of evolutionary and ecological insights

Animal research topics are not hard to find for you anymore. As you have already read a load of them. You can use any of them and ace your research paper, and you don’t even need to ask permission. If you are looking for a research paper writing service , be it animal research, medical research, or any sort of research, you can contact us 24/7.

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• Open access
• Published: 29 December 2023

Animal welfare research is fascinating, ethical, and useful—but how can it be more rigorous?

• Georgia J. Mason 1  

BMC Biology volume  21 , Article number:  302 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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The scientific study of animal welfare supports evidence-based good animal care, its research contributing to guidelines and policies, helping to solve practical problems caused by animal stress, and raising fascinating questions about animal sentience and affective states. However, as for many branches of science (e.g. all those with replicability problems), the research rigour of welfare science could be improved. So, hoping to inspire methodologies with greater internal, external, and construct validity, here I outline 10 relevant papers and provide potential “journal club” discussion topics.

Welfare science now: a thriving field with ethical, practical, and fundamental relevance

As noted by Marian Dawkins, a long-standing leader in this field, animals with good welfare are healthy and have what they want (in terms of, for example, space, shelter, and opportunities to perform highly motivated natural behaviours). This results in them having more positive “affective states”, i.e. moods, emotions, and similar. Identifying such states, and understanding how they could be achieved, is the remit of animal welfare research. Studying animal welfare was somewhat fringe when the field emerged in the 1970s and 1980s: a European eccentricity. But today, animal welfare publications number in the thousands annually; animal welfare conferences involve hundreds of researchers; welfare presentations are not uncommon at agricultural, ecology, animal cognition, and even human emotion meetings; welfare research happens in BRICS and developing nations, not just the developed world; and in many countries, welfare research informs policies on how to treat animals. In parallel, welfare research techniques have become more sophisticated, often inspired by studies of human well-being (e.g. mood-sensitive cognitive changes like “judgment bias”).

The growth of welfare science partly reflects its ethical importance, along with increased acceptance by other branches of biology. It also reflects the rewarding nature of working in this field. Intellectually, welfare research touches on fascinating scientific questions such as the evolutionary functions of emotions and moods and the distribution of sentience. Furthermore, despite some tensions between human interests and animal needs (especially in agriculture), understanding and improving welfare can also help solve some practical problems: reducing behavioural problems in pets, tackling poor reproduction in zoos and conservation breeding centres, and increasing job satisfaction for laboratory animal technicians, to name a few. Welfare science is truly an absorbing, satisfying field to be in.

Welfare science in the future: towards greater rigour and validity

BMC Biology’s twentieth anniversary collection comprises comment articles that provide an overview of different fields and projection of future trends, limited to referencing 10 papers. What to cover in my piece? The promise of new technologies for automated welfare assessment? How human research could reveal the functions of conscious affect? The need for wild animal welfare studies in a time of climate change? So many topics, yet underpinning all is a bedrock need for welfare science to be valid: to say something true and relevant about the animals it aims to understand. Validity is therefore my focus, especially given today’s understanding of the unintended consequences of academia’s “publish or perish” culture. I collate 10 papers and provide discussion topics (Table 1 ) for an imaginary journal club on internal, external, and construct validity. A perfect introduction is a seminar by Hanno Würbel, on the principles of good welfare science ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXJ1TDEUf3U&t=1666s ). Overall, I hope to provoke enjoyable debate, (perhaps uneasy) self-reflection, and ultimately more transparent, valid research.

Internal validity: are our studies bias-free and replicable?

Preclinical animal research (aiming to understand human disease) has been subject to devastating scrutiny especially around “spectacular cases of irreproducibility” [ 1 ]. Only half — at best — of biomedical studies are replicable, impeding biomedical progress with vast numbers of false leads. Causes include research designs that bias data (e.g. absence of blinding or randomisation), statistical misbehaviours like “P-hacking”, and selective reporting of results [ 1 ]. A survey of 271 biomedical publications thus identified “a number of issues” [ 2 ], randomisation being reported in just 12% for example. Practices like blinding are crucial in welfare research too, as Tuyttens and colleagues [ 3 ] demonstrated. Students, trained to extract data from ethological videos, produced skewed data if given false information about the subjects being scored (cattle believed to be hot being scored as panting more, for instance), leading the authors to lament, “can we believe what we score, if we score what we believe?”.

Adding further concerns, Kilkenny and colleagues found that only 62% of biomedical experiments that were amenable to factorial designs actually used them. Reassuringly, 87% did seem to use appropriate statistical methods [ 2 ]. However, P-hacking is often impossible to detect post-publication. Furthermore, other work (e.g. excellent publications by Stanley Lazic, including [ 4 ]) identifies pseudoreplication as a common statistical error. The Kilkenny paper also reported some lack of clarity in writing, inconsistent with a priori hypothesis testing, with 5% of studies not explaining their aims. (This issue resonated with me; in my lab, we recently screened the introductions of 71 papers on judgement bias and found it impossible to ascertain the research aims of 8 of these [11%]).

External validity: are our studies relevant to real-world situations?

Even when results are internally valid and replicable, they might be irrelevant to other populations or contexts. Thus, biomedical research results often do not translate to humans; and for animal welfare, data collected in a welfare research lab may not translate to commercial situations. Solutions to this could include “introducing systematic variation (heterogenization) of relevant variables (for example species/strains of animals, housing conditions, tests)” [ 1 ]. Dawkins [ 5 ] takes this further, arguing that, at least for poultry, controlled laboratory situations have limited value. “Working directly with the poultry industry on commercial farms … shows what works in practice, out there in the real world”: it is critically important because “what is true of 50 birds in a small pen is not necessarily true of 50,000 birds in a large poultry house”.

Construct validity: do our measures mean what we think they mean?

Welfare researchers have another challenge: making defensible inferences about something that cannot be measured directly — affective states. Doing this well requires knowing our measures have construct validity, and understanding a priori their strengths and weaknesses. Welfare studies thus largely fall into two types: those seeking to validate new indicators of affect (via manipulations known a priori to influence affective state) and those using well-validated indicators to discover new things about animal well-being. Both must be logical and transparent. Thus, validation studies must use defensible validation methods; and if a potential indicator fails, that measure must not be treated as if still valid. Likewise, welfare studies must select well-validated, appropriate indicators, such that increased/decreased values have meanings that are known a priori , not invoked post hoc once results are known.

If we do not work in this logical way, we risk “HARK-ing” (‘Hypothesising After the Results are Known’): a form of circular reasoning where aims and predictions are covertly tweaked after seeing patterns in the data, which looks (indeed is ) biased. Perhaps worse, we may draw mistaken conclusions about animals: ones which fail to improve their well-being. As Rosso et al. [ 6 ] argue in a preprint, “HARKing can invalidate study outcomes and hamper evidence synthesis by inflating effect sizes... lead researchers into blind alleys … and waste animals, time, and resources”.

So, how to ensure an indicator has construct validity? Jake Veasey and I [ 7 ] outlined three methods: (1) assessing whether a potential indicator changes alongside self-reported affect in humans (assuming homology between species), (2) assessing whether it changes in animals deliberately exposed to aversive treatments, and (3) assessing whether such changes can be reversed pharmacologically, by giving, e.g. analgesics or anxiolytics. Another two — as beautifully laid out by philosopher Heather Browning [ 8 ] — are as follows: (4) recording effects of exposing animals to factors important for fitness and (5) identifying correlates of existing, well-validated indicators. And to give one illustration of construct validation done well, Agnethe-Irén Sandem and colleagues investigated eye-white exposure as a potential indicator of negative affect in cattle (e.g. [ 9 ]); see Table 1 for details.

Underneath all these issues lies the problematic incentive structure of academia. As Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet , wrote in 2015, “No-one is incentivised to be right. Instead, scientists are incentivised to be productive”. Obsessions with publication rates and P -values under 0.05 affect animal welfare science just as they do other disciplines. One partial solution could involve “open science” practices [ 10 ], such as pre-registering planned studies (so that hypotheses and statistical analyses are spelled out a priori , and, for registered reports, manuscripts are peer-reviewed and accepted before results are generated) and providing open access to data (so that anyone can re-analyse them). But perhaps more radically, perhaps a more fundamental overhaul is needed: a transition to a slower, better science that could improve researchers’ welfare as well as animals'?

Availability of data and materials

Not applicable.

Würbel H. More than 3Rs: the importance of scientific validity for harm-benefit analysis of animal research. Lab Anim. 2017;46:164–6.

Article   Google Scholar  

Kilkenny C, Parsons N, Kadyszewski E, Festing MF, Cuthill IC, Fry D, Hutton J, Altman DG. Survey of the quality of experimental design, statistical analysis and reporting of research using animals. PloS One. 2009;4:e7824.

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Tuyttens FAM, de Graaf S, Heerkens JL, Jacobs L, Nalon E, Ott S, Stadig L, Van Laer E, Ampe B. Observer bias in animal behaviour research: can we believe what we score, if we score what we believe? Anim Behav. 2014;90:273–80.

Lazic SE. The problem of pseudoreplication in neuroscientific studies: is it affecting your analysis? BMC Neurosci. 2010;11:1–17.

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Acknowledgements

With thanks to many colleagues for past discussions (especially Melissa Bateson, Marian Dawkins, Joe Garner, Birte Nielsen, Mike Mendl, Christian Nawroth, Anna Olsson, Liz Paul, Clive Phillips, Jake Veasey, Hanno Würbel, and the members of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare); to Olga Burenkova, Shay Forget, Lindsey Kitchenham, Aileen Maclellan and Alex Podturkin for comments on this paper; and to the many graduate students who took my “Assessing affective states” class (2010–2020). I apologise for relevant studies not mentioned here due to the tight word and reference count restrictions. This work was conducted on the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit.

The Mason Lab is funded by NSERC.

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Mason, G.J. Animal welfare research is fascinating, ethical, and useful—but how can it be more rigorous?. BMC Biol 21 , 302 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-023-01793-x

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Review article, discipline-based education research for animal welfare science.

• Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

Animal welfare science features interdisciplinary and collaborative working across fields, spanning behavioural ecology, psychology, veterinary sciences, economics, and fundamental biology. However, education research is not yet prevalent within the animal welfare literature. In a Web of Science topic search there were 188 papers which specifically discussed or explored how to teach animal welfare from 1978 to 2017. Of these, only 34% ( n = 61) specifically focused on instructional design or pedagogical research, and these were predominantly within veterinary education (57%). Despite this, the literature is in broad agreement that animal welfare education is an important topic that should be done well. Within the UK, there were a possible 586 animal-related courses within Universities College Admissions Service database for potential students to choose from, highlighting the significance of robust and considered educational practice. The current gaps identified in the literature were discussion of hidden curriculums outside of veterinary degrees, animal-centered education, the blueprinting of assessment, and authentic assessment. Therefore, this review proposes that animal welfare scientists interested in education consider discipline based educational research (DBER) practices, and engage more fully with the educational research literature. A key component of DBER is the recognition that specialist knowledge needs to be taught by specialists, and so it is important that animal welfare scientists begin to access educational research too.

Introduction

In the UK, the Joint Academic Coding System (JACS) is used by the Universities College Admissions Service (UCAS) to classify academic subjects ( 1 ). These codes broadly categorise what an undergraduate degree programme within the UK will teach. There are five JACS codes we might expect to relate to animal welfare teaching, C300 (Zoology), D100 (Pre-clinical veterinary medicine), D200 (Clinical veterinary medicine and dentistry), D300 (Animal Science), D400 (Agriculture), and D900 (Other subjects in veterinary science, agriculture and related subjects). As of late 2017, the UCAS website ( 1 ) reported there were a possible 586 animal-related courses available to students entering further or higher education in the UK. These options may be reasonably expected to grow, with recent proposals for a ninth veterinary school between Keele University and Harper Adams ( 2 ), and an expansion of agricultural programmes at the University of Edinburgh ( 3 ). As the UK moves toward an uncertain legislative front with questions around how the veterinary profession and animal research will withstand the UK's planned departure from the EU, animal welfare concerns are increasingly reported within the media ( 4 – 6 ). While these concerns are uniquely pressing for the UK, we have also seen growing evidence of animal welfare concern internationally, with China implementing animal welfare legislation ( 7 ), and growing need for veterinary and agricultural teaching on an international level ( 8 , 9 ). It is clear that we are approaching a critical period for animal welfare science. As we look toward global food security and safety challenges ( 10 ), it is of fundamental importance that animal welfare is taught as a scientific discipline, and is incorporated within all relevant courses. The UK Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) estimates that between 48 and 99% of graduates from the aforementioned courses will go on to professional occupations ( 11 ), where they may well make decisions affecting animal welfare at all levels of society. Do we give animal welfare teaching the attention it deserves?

It has been argued that animal welfare science is innately interdisciplinary ( 12 , 13 ), requiring an understanding of behavioural ecology, psychology, veterinary sciences, economics, fundamental biology, ethics, anthropology, and the ability to communicate between these different fields. As this paper will demonstrate, this interdisciplinary focus has not always included education research. Indeed, much of the specific animal welfare education research has been focussed around determining that a need for animal welfare education exists [as in ( 14 – 16 )]. Given the current socio-political environment, and the rising importance of animal welfare, this paper aims to explore the current understanding of animal welfare education in the literature, and lay out recommendations for future work.

The Place of Animal Welfare Scientists in Discipline Based Education Research

Before examining the literature, it is worth questioning whether animal welfare scientists are best placed to explore education in animal welfare. At the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 2017, a panel discussion explored the crossover between Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), Educational Research as a discipline within itself, and Discipline Based Educational Research (DBER), and the conflicts that can arise between these fields ( 17 ). Educational research is a broad term, concerned principally with the methodology used to explore learning ( 18 ). Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Nisbet highlights the efforts of animal behaviour scientists such as Edward Lee Thorndike in founding educational research in Europe. Educational research therefore has strong links with psychology and child development. Mortimore ( 19 ) describes the aims of educational research as (1) to systematically observe and record, (2) to analyse and draw out implications, (3) to publish findings, and (4) to attempt to improve educational attainment. However, Mortimore also highlighted that educational research often featured poor quality work and rightly faced criticism regarding its occasional biases. SoTL has emerged as a term which slightly competes with educational research, perhaps with a more applied focus. Miller-Young and Yeo ( 20 ) stated that SoTL's goals were to deepen an educator's understanding of student learning and explore the effectiveness and desirability of what we do in higher education. SoTL is often targeted by educational researchers as a “weaker” version of what education research is itself ( 21 ), however SoTL bears with it an underlying assumption that any expert who teaches a subject must seek out enough pedagogical understanding in order to effectively maintain the production of future experts ( 22 ). SoTL is therefore more firmly linked to higher education or specialist education where it is understood that a generalist, who may understand the principles of learning very well, may not understand the intricacies of a particular subject. This leads us to DBER. The goals of DBER within science have been stated as (1) understand how people learn concepts, practices and ways of thinking of science and engineering, (2) understand the nature and development of expertise within a discipline, (3) identify and measure appropriate learning objectives and instructional approaches, (4) contribute to the knowledge base in a way that can guide the translation of DBER findings to the classroom, and (5) identify ways we can make science and engineering more inclusive ( 23 ). Although keen readers will have spotted that DBER's aims, which come from work explored by the National Research Council, do not follow principles of good instructional design themselves [as we know, “understanding” cannot be assessed ( 24 )]. There is clearly great overlap between these three areas, but the subject-specific import of SoTL and DBER approaches hold particular interest. They highlight that within-discipline knowledge exchange, be that from researcher to undergraduate, or researcher to the public, is an essential component of modern research ( 25 ).

Epistemological Assumptions of This Review

Within education research there is also the issue of epistemology, which will be familiar to animal welfare researchers with more grounding in the philosophies. An epistemology is a theory of knowledge, and can be simplified as “what does it mean to ‘know’ a fact?” Within research a positivist epistemology is encouraged, sometimes implicitly, by the dominance of Science Technology Engineering Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) fields and the reward structures of research ( 26 ). Positivism is often framed in opposition to constructivism ( 27 ), in that positivism views facts as objective truths which can be uncovered whereas constructivism views the truth as a socially negotiated entity. Where scientific writing is ignorant of epistemology, it often ultimately favours positivist leanings ( 26 ), as scientists write in a highly ritualised manner with highly empiricist and positivist viewpoints ( 28 ). As constructivist writing in science has been criticised as being full of “jargon” ( 29 ), I will state plainly that in this paper I write from my individual viewpoint. I present my experience where I believe it is useful to contextualize the opinions I put forth, so that the reader may critically appraise the material. This is sometimes unfamiliar to many STEMM readers but in a discussion of DBER it is important to include reflective practice as an aspect of education research ( 30 ). The aim of this paper is to explore how a DBER approach to animal welfare education can support the animal welfare field through providing a repeatable literature review and a critical evaluation of the educational literature aimed at animal welfare scientists.

Materials and Methods

First, I performed a literature review to characterise the animal welfare education field, and then synthesised the results with my own knowledge of the education research literature to critically evaluate any gaps where DBER can support animal welfare education. The literature review was performed in a repeatable manner, to allow for other work to build on this methodology, and afford the opportunity to re-evaluate how any DBER approaches may influence the field in future.

Conducting the Literature Review

The literature review was conducted using Web of Science's search tools, as this provides meta-data [see ( 31 )] such as citation count and keywords which can provide some indication of an article's reach and impact. While Web of Science is not an exhaustive database, it is the most conservative in terms of this meta-data compared to Google Scholar and Scopus ( 32 ) in that it is less likely to view a non-peer reviewed webpage citation as a “true” citation. Due to the popularity of animal welfare discussions on the internet, I considered this a benefit of using only Web of Science searches for this review.

In October 2017, I conducted a Web of Science search concerning “animal welfare” and “education” as key words using BOOLEAN search terms, i.e., the search would only return articles which reference both topics. This returned 406 articles published over a 39 year period. This search was exported as a text file using Web of Science's search tools for further refinement. I reviewed the text of these publications and 200 were excluded for not specifically discussing animal welfare in an educational context, e.g., they proposed further education would improve animal welfare, or explored the impact of education on attitudes to animal welfare. This excluded a large number of studies about consumer choice behaviour with regards to animal products. Studies were retained where they explored students' perceptions of animal welfare, as participants in these studies were being recruited specifically because of their student role. A further three studies were excluded for being duplicate records. Excluding book reviews, news items, and editorial materials, there were 188 publications from 1978 to 2017 relating to education and animal welfare.

All but 10 papers were available to the author for collection, or possessed abstract information in Web of Science's database. After reviewing the papers they were assigned to broad categories to characterise the type of animal considered in the study, the educational audience, and the “purpose” of the paper. These categories are defined in Table 1 . X 2 analyses were used to explore differences in observed numbers of papers across the categories in R Version 3.4.2 (Short Summer) from the R Foundation for Statistical Computing and R Studio. The “textstem” package was used to lemmatise the abstracts of these articles. Lemmatisation is a form of language processing which stems words with reference to their grammatical origin, e.g., “running,” “runs,” and “ran” would be shortened to “run,” while “runner” would be retained as independent to “run”. Then the tidytext package ( 33 ) was used to strip data from the abstracts of these papers and explore most frequent words through the use of document term matrices. All data processing code is available in the Supplementary Materials .

Table 1 . Category definitions for 178 papers regarding animal welfare education.

Current Views on Animal Welfare in Teaching

The majority of papers were published in the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education ( n = 39, 21%), with Animal Welfare ( n = 15, 8%), and ATLA-Alternatives to Laboratory Animals ( n = 10, 5%) representing the three most populous journals. Overall, 79 papers (42%) were published in journals with fewer than three papers on animal welfare education ( Figure 1 ). In addition, the majority (71%) had been published since 2008 ( Figure 2 ).

Figure 1 . Publications ( n = 188) by source title in Web of Science Search. Topic Boolean search string: “Animal Welfare” and “Education”.

Figure 2 . Publications by year ( n = 188) in Web of Science Search. Topic Boolean search string: “Animal Welfare” and “Education”.

The distribution of paper “purpose” was non-random across the type of animal in a Chi 2 , but perhaps this is to be expected. However, there were significantly more “practice reviews” on the topic of research animals [ χ ( 3 5 ) 2 = 268.58, P < 0.001], and the odds of a paper about research animals being about a practice review were 9.2 times higher than other animal categories. The 20 most common words found in the abstracts are depicted in Figure 3 .

Figure 3 . Frequency of lemmatised words present in 188 abstracts regarding animal welfare education.

Summary of Current Animal Welfare Education Research

There is a broad consensus within the literature that animal welfare education is an essential part of many animal-related curricula, from primary school ( 34 ) to high school ( 35 ), the veterinary curriculum ( 36 ), and to people working within animal industry ( 37 ). Much of the focus of the papers published on animal welfare education focus on higher education (60% of the papers sampled, across veterinary, and general higher education subjects), and all papers supported the provision of animal welfare teaching at this level in animal or society related subjects.

Of pedagogic approaches, digital education is a common topic within the higher education sector ( 38 – 42 ) and industry environments ( 43 – 45 ). This may seem surprising initially, as digital education is often synonymous with “distance learning,” and distance learning presents a challenge for the teaching of practical skills ( 46 ). Conversely, animal welfare education is often spoken of in terms of skills, from clinical skills for vets to communication and management skills ( 47 ). Other work has shown that within farm animal welfare education across Europe, the interactivity of teaching is greatly variable ( 48 ), so it is wise not to assume that on-campus teaching is inherently more practical-focussed. Some of the studies around digital education and animal welfare have explored whether this results in a more theoretical and less applied understanding of animal welfare. For example, Klupiec ( 40 ) found that veterinary students often “missed” the practical application of work when working solely from e-learning resources about animal handling. However, the rise of digital education papers does not appear to be from a belief that digital spaces are particularly well-suited for teaching animal welfare, but because the demand is so high, and time often in short supply. Of the 20 papers aimed at educating the public, four explored digital education for the public and whether the provision of these resources could be used to improve animal welfare knowledge more generally ( 49 – 52 ). These papers highlighted that digital resources, when well-designed, can offer flexible learning opportunities at a pace that suits the student, and is suited for global education initiatives.

Despite this strand of producing open educational resources for public consumption, continuing education was most often discussed for veterinary or research professionals, with a number of papers exploring the poor flow of information between science and industry ( 53 , 54 ). For example, Algers et al. ( 38 ) criticised higher education institutes for not making more open educational resources about this societally-important issue. However, there are challenges in developing resources for professional industries. Algers and Berg ( 55 ) conducted a case study on controversy surrounding slaughter and why this affected the creation of open educational resources. They highlighted that educators worried about discussions of the learning materials rapidly becoming “polarised”. Zuin et al. ( 56 ) performed a qualitative evaluation of a “dialogical” course in animal management in Brazil, and the participants of this study highlighted that students drawing their own opinions from the material presented was important. Although this study also highlighted some differences in practice between the animal handlers and the trainers. Regardless, the sensitivity of animal welfare topics present as a barrier to teaching in many studies, but may be a space for a different pedagogic approach (see patient-centred teaching below).

A large number (22%) of the papers on animal welfare education are attitudinal, e.g., does education have a positive or negative effect on attitudes, or do vets lose empathy ( 57 ) or find animal welfare discussions a challenging component of their job ( 58 ). Attitudinal research is undeniably important within human-animal interactions and animal welfare education research, but it has its limits. It is also important not to confuse either educational attainment nor attitudinal change with behavioural change. There is extensive evidence from the field of public health and environmental sustainability demonstrating that the link between knowledge, attitudes and behaviours is complex ( 59 – 61 ), and there is considerable discussion in the literature about behavioural change theories such as the Theory of Planned Behavioural Change ( 62 , 63 ). Animal welfare education studies should be cautious of claiming that human behaviours will be changed because a short term change in attitudes or knowledge has been attained.

Current Gaps in Animal Welfare Education Research

There are a number of areas of education research which would be pertinent for animal welfare educators to explore. Many of these have already been touched on within veterinary education, although not always with an understanding of how they might affect animal welfare teaching. There are four main areas which may be of particular interest to animal welfare educators: the role of hidden curriculums; the concept of patient-centred education; the use of instructional objectives or learning outcomes to blueprint assessment; and the role of authentic assessment in a practical subject. This is by no means an exhaustive list of topics which may be of interest to the animal welfare educator, but includes topics which should be familiar to those who research attitudes to animal welfare, and key areas where there is room for improvement in how we think about teaching animal welfare across a variety of levels.

Hidden Curriculum

Sambell and McDowell ( 64 ) referred to the “hidden curriculum” as the difference between what institutions intend to teach, and what learners experience “on the ground.” The seminal report on hidden curriculums comes from Snyder ( 65 ) who detailed its formation in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and presented to students principally a focus on achieving the right exam results over developing well-rounded degree experiences. Snyder ( 65 ) details examples such as the student who learns how to precisely follow protocol and take the minimum amount of risk in order to achieve their predicted grades, generating an unpleasant higher education experience. Of note to the animal welfare scientist, Snyder spends some time in chapter one defining “adaptive mechanisms,” “adaptation,” and “coping patterns” with respect to students.

“ Coping patterns I take to refer to some behaviour, some action which alters the individual's relationship to his environment. A coping pattern, in order to be so named, must have some influence on the individual's adaptation to the environment by altering his behaviour in relation to that environment .” [( 65 ), p. 11].

Upon my first reading of Snyder's book I was struck by the connection between education research and animal welfare science, as I would not consider this definition of coping patterns out of place in animal welfare literature.

The relevance of hidden curricula to animal welfare education goes beyond a commonality between student coping and animal coping. They are probably one of the more explored pedagogical theories in reference to animal welfare science. For example, they were discussed as part of the veterinary curriculum by Dolby ( 66 ), who emphasised that as veterinarians are a key point of contact for the public's understanding of animal welfare, hidden curriculums within veterinary teaching have a long-lasting impact. The formation of these hidden curriculums within veterinary teaching have been discussed as a reason for a lack of veterinary empathy by Degeling et al. ( 67 ), and it is recognised that much of this occurs in the workplace as well as within the classroom ( 68 ). Hidden curriculums were referenced in a veterinary animal welfare teaching context, though not explicitly discussed by Whittaker ( 16 ), Batchelor et al. ( 69 ), and Dolby and Litster ( 70 ).

The hidden curriculum impacts both student and animal. I would claim that the majority of students who go in to animal-related subjects do so because they have an innate affection for animals. They want to work with or help animals. Incidentally, while there is some research exploring why potential veterinarians choose their degrees ( 71 , 72 ), there is less work exploring this in other animal-related professions although the “sense of calling” seems to be important here too ( 73 ). In animal welfare education we must guard against a passive message that grades are more important than this initial passion for the subject. This does not imply that we lower standards, but that we encourage well-rounded practitioners of animal welfare who are self-reflective and critical, and not dependent upon a simple view of education that there is one right answer. As Snyder highlights, simplistic right/wrong views of education can produce frustrated students who are unable to create a conversation about what they want out of their educational experience. If our hidden curriculum fosters a fundamental conflict in a person's core values, it will inevitably produce unhappy students.

Hidden curriculums are thought to arise mainly from the socialisation of the student into the unwritten culture of the teaching department ( 74 ). In this way, I personally find constructivism a useful lens through which to conceptualise how these are formed. Constructivism describes how an individual consolidates their own knowledge through the discussion of and sharing of knowledge with others in the same “field” ( 75 ). When students enter an animal or veterinary science degree, they begin constructing their own academic identity ( 76 ), which can be greatly influenced by the practitioners they observe. So where might animal welfare education be compromised by a hidden curriculum? The most obvious place is when animals used in teaching are used without consideration for their welfare, prioritising attainment above the animals, e.g., where live animals are used when simulations could do, or clear “end points” not being used to dictate where an animal is no longer to be used in demonstrations. There has been some research in these areas already, for example the use of cadavers in US high schools for dissections was discussed by Suiter et al. ( 77 ) who highlighted that a clear dissection policy will include discussion with the class about their preferred method. They also stated that students should not receive a penalty for choosing not to participate.

More work exploring what types of hidden curricula develop in animal science could help ensure animal welfare light on the potential welfare challenges.

Animal-Centred Education

Patient-centred care highlights the patient as an individual, and pushes the care of that individual away from what is easy for the medical practitioners, what is easy for automated systems to measure, or what is easy for hospitals to record, and instead highlights the importance of the individual's experience in their medical journey ( 78 ). The concept is relevant for animal welfare education not because patient-centred care is necessarily a fully developed model with a clear definition, but because of the ethos behind it. It may also help to tackle some of the concerns previously mentioned about hidden curriculums. The emphasis on the individual should be an innately comfortable stomping ground for the animal welfare scientist, as animal welfare is often defined as the individual's experience as it copes with its environment.

If animal science degrees adopt an “animal-centered” education approach, what could we expect to change? This work is already being explored in some zoos, with a recognition that some animals are more tolerant of being “on-exhibit” ( 79 , 80 ) than others, and changing zoo management in response to these individual needs. This might work in a variety of ways. Glick and Moore ( 81 ) discussed whether ongoing digital revolution could lead to patient-centred education in the medical curriculum, through using technology to support relationships between clinician and patient. They discussed how networked care systems allow clinicians to have an understanding of the patient's history prior to consultation. It is common in animal courses, from animal care to zoology, to have “teaching animals.” With a little investment, a database could be implemented which logs the interactions each animal has in teaching, and allows for considered use over time. Students could be encouraged to contribute to and manage such a database (teaching valuable information skills as a bonus), such as deciding what information is relevant to include. Each year, as part of general feedback on the course, students could be asked to review their thoughts on the animals included in the course, or some volunteers give a “handover” round to incoming students.

Many of the approaches to animal-centred education have additional benefits, perhaps forming more holistic communities of practice [see ( 82 )]. Given the prevalence of untreated mental illness in the UK student body ( 83 ), these approaches could be incorporated into general well-being reform.

Blueprinting Assessment

Assessment “blueprinting” refers to the overt linking of learning outcomes (or instructional objectives) to assessment, e.g., fully describing what someone should be able to do after an educational intervention. Learning outcomes have a common stem, a description of the behaviour, and an assessable outcome ( 24 ). For example, after reading this paper, the reader will be able to list some gaps in the animal welfare education literature. We could assess this by asking the reader to list materials, and award points for correct identification.

Assessment is a hot topic within higher education research. Assessment and feedback are integrally linked, and one cannot exist without the other. Both are powerful influencers on student behaviour ( 84 ), and feedback is often the more tricky element, often conceptualised as a commodity passed from marker to student ( 85 ). The basic principle is that we use multiple criteria to judge a student's piece of work, and not all of these are entirely objective [indeed, within disciplines we often see co-constructed understandings of the discipline as a sort of “academic literacy” which is not always legible to those outside of a discipline, see ( 86 )]. Therefore, students require multiple opportunities to practice these skills and receive feedback on them in order to improve ( 87 ).

As a case study, Patil et al. ( 88 ) reported on a workshop they had run to expose their pathology teaching staff to the concept of blueprinting. The faculty staff gathered to scope and define the purpose of assessment in their course, decide weightings, and discuss the available methods. Their students reported satisfaction with the new assessments, and staff considered the changes meaningful. There are a number of exercises that are open source and which incorporate blueprinting assessment into programme or course design such as the CAIeRO 1 process and the ELDeR process 2 . The ELDeR process was core to the development of the new Agricultural BScs at Edinburgh ( 89 ) and sparked rigorous discussion about how and why assessments run as they do.

Blueprinting assessments can be particularly relevant for animal welfare course because of the aforementioned reliance on practical and critical reasoning skills. When a piece of animal welfare work is interdisciplinary, as many student theses are, it can become extremely pertinent to give students the opportunity for feedback on these skills at earlier stages. Imagine a short animal welfare course with a single assessment, an essay discussing the importance of the human-animal bond. A blueprinting approach would identify what learning outcomes that essay would cover, and then be able to identify at what point students would receive an opportunity within the course to practice the skill and receive relevant feedback prior to submission of the essay. This approach by nature encourages more assessment, although not necessarily more summative assessment. The role of formative assessment in animal welfare has been poorly explored, but is likely to improve the student's ability to parse assessment criteria ( 90 ), and therefore improve their academic literacy within an interdisciplinary topic such as animal welfare science.

Authentic Assessment

Related to the idea of blueprinting assessments is that of authentic assessment. It is now fashionable in higher education to talk of assessment as learning, which promotes the student's role in their own learning process ( 64 ). Authentic assessment is one attempt to address this by returning the context of practice to an assessment. Unsurprisingly, there are varying conceptualisations of authentic assessment in the literature. Gulikers et al. ( 91 ) provided a framework for authentic assessment encompassing: task; physical context; social context; assessment form; and assessment criteria. Many animal welfare assessments incorporate some level of authentic assessment, e.g., encouraging the collection of behavioural data and incorporating this into the write-up of a report. This would cover elements of task, physical context (being in the animal's environment), as well as aspects of form and criteria (grading a product that they will likely have to understand or reproduce in practice). There is already some discussion in the literature regarding authenticity of assessment, particularly social context, such as in Zuin et al. ( 56 ).

Role play is used in animal welfare teaching to simulate the social context ( 44 ) students will find themselves in. As educators have reported on the perceived tension between different ethical standpoints in animal welfare teaching ( 50 , 55 ), this may also be a valuable tool for teaching. Authentic assessments could incorporate recognition of “wicked” problems, challenges which are considered complex, open-ended and intractable ( 92 ). Wicked problems are widely discussed in terms of agriculture ( 93 ), public policy ( 92 ), and economics ( 94 ). The assessment of such involves an understanding of not only how physiology and psychology relate to animal welfare, but also how networks should be managed in an attempt to encourage multiple partners to move toward a goal. In essence, how can a group form a flexible and innovative enough network in order to achieve the aims of a wicked challenge ( 95 )? One component of a grade is that it ought to inform potential employers in some manner about how the student should be expected to perform in a relevant task ( 96 ), and so assessments which also grade elements that we value when we tackle wicked problems (e.g., teamwork, etc.) as well as the knowledge and critical analysis the majority of higher education assessments focus on.

An authentic assessment for animal welfare science could have a strong focus on social context to recognise the communicative nature of the roles these student scientists are likely to take on. However, it should also incorporate more forms and criteria. Given the vast prevalence of animal-related content online, students could create an educational resource for the public. This is a product which many will need to create in their own future employment, and reflects a range of skills that are challenging to assess in a short-form essay.

We also know what challenges face animal science students in their likely career paths. Shelter workers experience euthanasia related strain ( 97 ), and feel unprepared for work environments with limited resources and upskilling potential owners ( 98 ). An authentic assessment might capture some form of this in criteria, such as asking students to justify what resources they prioritise. A task-orientated authentic assessment might ask students to work in an environment where euthanasia occurs, if there is convincing evidence that many animal science graduates may need to work with this task.

There are challenges with authentic assessment, such as accountability and cost ( 99 ), however there are numerous descriptions of case studies incorporating authentic assessment in a range of disciplines ( 100 – 102 ). For animal welfare science educators aiming to explore authentic assessment the answer is likely not wholesale change but exploring what graduates currently feel unprepared for to produce an assessment that will help them learn how to practice their discipline, not simply assess knowledge.

Perceived gaps in animal welfare teaching are not a novel finding, with the earliest paper included in this literature search being a letter in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association calling for humane education ( 103 ). The importance of embedding this education within animal-related curricula has been a recurring topic of discussion over the last few decades ( 35 , 48 , 57 , 104 , 105 ). However, this review has found that this call is rarely framed in terms of pedagogical design. This is not a criticism, indeed animal welfare science can be said to be a relatively new science, and one which has had to prove its credentials, both as a scientific discipline ( 106 ), but also to recognise the importance of animal sentience ( 107 ). In other, perhaps more established fields, discipline based educational research is still relatively new. For example, the journal Chemistry Education: Research and Practice began in 2000 ( 108 ). We can benefit from the extensive experience in medical education however, as the Journal of Veterinary Medical Education recently published a 50 year retrospective ( 109 ), and in the first issue of Medical Teacher, one article advised the use of an overhead projector as an incoming technology ( 110 ). Human education and behavioural change for animal welfare is increasingly becoming a topic of interest, with the foundation of the Human Behavioural Change for Animal Welfare conference in 2016 ( 111 ) and animal welfare is a common topic in the annual Veterinary Education conference run by the Veterinary Schools Council, with international reach ( 112 ). The purpose of this review was both to highlight some key areas where animal welfare science could explore from an educational research standpoint, and to make educational research more accessible to those within the animal welfare discipline. There has been an increase in the number of publications, likely reflecting the increase in scholarly output that has been observed over the past decade ( 113 ), and the challenge for DBER is to parse this literature alongside the literature of their own specialism. Fraser's ( 12 ) contention is that specialists who teach must have an understanding of educational research too, at least enough to critically appraise their own practice. This is particularly challenging in STEMM educational research where the interplay between the humanities-born discipline of educational research and the STEMM fields can be difficult for the STEMM researcher to work with [see discussion in ( 114 )]. In this review, I aimed to purposefully select gaps which had been lightly explored within the literature, or had particular relevance to animal welfare research, to provide budding animal welfare DBER practioners with a basis to explore further. I hope I have demystified some of the terminology and provided an accessible introduction to concepts within DBER, but this will only prove to be true should the field develop its own DBER practices. These may very well be practices that I have not conceived of in this review.

There are other aspects of educational research which can and should be explored within animal welfare. A theory-led approach, perhaps focussing on cultural perspectives, individualism, action theory, or positivist vs. constructionist epistemological stances may offer new perspectives on how we teach animal welfare. These approaches may be more suited to fields like veterinary education where the field of work is more developed, as in the body of work in Perrin ( 72 ), however there are more students of animal welfare than in the veterinary field, and our research ought to include those too.

Conclusions

Animal welfare should incorporate education research in its interdisciplinary approach. There are a number of gaps in the current literature base which could be explored within animal welfare science education, such as hidden curricula, blueprinting assessment, animal-centred education, and authentic assessment. These approaches are particularly missing outwith veterinary education research, and could offer new perspectives on how we teach animal welfare across a variety of courses.

Author Contributions

JM conceived of the study, performed all analyses, and wrote the manuscript in its entirety.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Education & Human Behaviour for Animal Welfare Group at the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies for their comments on earlier version of the manuscript.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://gist.github.com/jillymackay/06b27e982b4f412349fc0973f224e0c5

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Keywords: education, animal welfare, education research, interdisciplinary research, scholarship of learning and teaching

Citation: MacKay JRD (2020) Discipline-Based Education Research for Animal Welfare Science. Front. Vet. Sci. 7:7. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.00007

Received: 23 September 2019; Accepted: 07 January 2020; Published: 28 January 2020.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2020 MacKay. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Jill R. D. MacKay, jill.mackay@ed.ac.uk

Articles on Animal welfare

Displaying 1 - 20 of 297 articles.

Flat faces and difficulty breathing: how pet trends have harmed animal health – and what we can we do about it

Jacqueline Boyd , Nottingham Trent University

Chimpanzees stayed in an ‘invisible cage’ after zoo enclosure was enlarged – South African study

Luke Mangaliso Duncan , University of Warwick

Surviving fishing gear entanglement isn’t enough for endangered right whales – females still don’t breed afterward

Joshua Reed , Macquarie University ; Leslie New , Ursinus College ; Peter Corkeron , Griffith University , and Rob Harcourt , Macquarie University

Wildlife selfies harm animals − even when scientists share images with warnings in the captions

Andrea L. DiGiorgio , Princeton University

How long might your dog live? New study calculates life expectancy for different breeds

Angus Nurse , Anglia Ruskin University

Fowl language: AI is learning to analyze chicken communications to help us understand what all the clucking’s about

Suresh Neethirajan , Dalhousie University

Are catnip and treats like it safe for cats? Here’s how they affect their minds and moods

Mia Cobb , The University of Melbourne and Anne Quain , University of Sydney

Won’t my cat get bored if I keep it inside? Here’s how to ensure it’s happy

Tiffani J. Howell , La Trobe University

Cats like to play fetch, as long as it’s on their terms – new research

Elizabeth Renner , Northumbria University, Newcastle and Jemma Forman , University of Sussex

Farming tuna on land heralded as a win for sustainability – but there are serious concerns around animal welfare

Wasseem Emam , University of Stirling

How the world might look if animals had legal rights

Steve Cooke , University of Leicester

Horseshoe crab blood is vital for testing intravenous drugs, but new synthetic alternatives could mean pharma won’t bleed this unique species dry

Kristoffer Whitney , Rochester Institute of Technology and Jolie Crunelle , Rochester Institute of Technology

Puppy yoga? Goat meditation? An animal welfare scientist explores what these activities might mean for the cute creatures

Mia Cobb , The University of Melbourne

How a surfing sea otter revealed the dark side of human nature

Patricia MacCormack , Anglia Ruskin University

Consumers want NZ farmers to comply with regulations – better monitoring and transparency would help to build trust

Pavel Castka , University of Canterbury ; Corey Ruha , University of Waikato ; John Reid , University of Canterbury , and Xiaoli Zhao , Lincoln University, New Zealand

10 reasons humans kill animals – and why we can’t avoid it

Benjamin Allen , University of Southern Queensland

Why Australia banning live sheep exports may be a net loss for animal welfare

Elizabeth (Liz) Jackson , Curtin University

Backpack-wearing chickens are helping change the way we study animal welfare

Mary Baxter , Queen's University Belfast

‘We are gambling with the future of our planet for the sake of hamburgers’: Peter Singer on climate change

Peter Singer , Princeton University

Australian shelters and pounds kill 50,000 mostly healthy cats and kittens in a year. There’s a way to prevent this pointless killing

Jacquie Rand , The University of Queensland and John Morton , The University of Queensland

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Former Foundation Professor of Animal Welfare, University of Queensland, Curtin University

Professor of Animal Behaviour and Welfare, University of New England

Associate professor, UNSW Sydney

Professor, Management and Organizational Studies, Huron University College, Western University

Professor of Wildlife Conservation, University of Salford

Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Professor of Law, The University of Melbourne

Honorary Associate, Australian Institute for Primary Care and Ageing, La Trobe University

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Western Sydney University

Honorary Associate, Sydney School of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney

Senior Lecturer, Sydney School of Veterinary Science, University of Sydney

Post Doctoral Fellow-School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University

PhD Candidate, Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University

The University of Melbourne

Historian, The University of Melbourne

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170 Animal Rights Research Paper Topics That Will Inspire You

Just as almost every social issue or topic can be written about as an essay or a research paper, so can you write about animal rights in either your dissertation, school essay, or whatever reason you’re writing a research paper for. Exploring your research writing with animal rights topics can provide you a lot to write about considering how mainstream the animal rights movement has been over time. When writing an essay on animal rights, there are so many angles through which you can structure your topic to get what you want. It’s better to hire a custom research paper service and get your papers complete on time.  Your research paper can either focus on animal welfare vs. animal rights topics, looking either at how animals are catered for today or the challenges animals in our societies face today and how they can be addressed. It’s important to note that animal rights topics for research papers can be drawn from different angles. Many sample topics engage animal rights issues and here are some of the modern topics to include in your animal rights research paper.

Animal Rights Research Paper Topics

The first step to understanding what you’re required to do when presented with a research paper on animal rights is to first understand the rationale behind animal rights. Animal rights focus on addressing the issue that surrounds the treatment of animals by humans and how with the enabling of animal rights, these issues can be curbed and in turn, the animal protected. There are so many topics that can be coined out when you’re writing precisely on animal rights. Here are some of them.

• Why do animals need to be treated with respect
• Local and exotic breeds: should crossbreeding be encouraged?
• The inhuman nature of animal experimentation.
• The use of animals for carrying out experiments and why it should be addressed
• Why animal rights should become legally binding across the globe
• The sustainability of animal rights sensitization
• Why animal advocates require legal backings
• How the growth of pet owners is gradually increasing the cases of pet abuse
• Navigating the pain and suffering of Animals
• Pet Abuse: why animals rights should be looked into
• How the embrace of vegetarianism is addressing the issue of using animals for food
• A sustainable measure on how to promote animal safety in the human environment
• The worth of animals as opposed to being used for consumption
• The inhumane nature of using animals as a means of transportation
• How the use of animals for sports can be detrimental to their health.
• How humans and animals can peacefully coexist
• An analysis of the animal legislative rights
• Legislation: how animals can feel safe in the environment
• How the legislation of animal rights affects man
• Should animals be viewed as properties?
• A study into the protection of animals in the United States.
• Why does animal cruelty will practically take longer to be eradicated
• The economic limitations animal rights can cause man
• A look into the future of animal rights in the human environment
• How culture backs animal cruelty

Animal Rights Debate Topics

Not every single human backs the animal rights movement. And the only way to draw the attention of people towards the challenges animals face in the human environment can be achieved in a research paper about animal rights that takes the form of a debate. Debates are mostly argumentative where either the speaker or writer compels the audience or reader through carefully chosen and thought out words to convey interests, ideas and emotion. There are so many growing conversations today surrounding animal rights and here are some animal rights debate topics to consider when writing.

• Does the promotion of animal rights affect humans?
• Mental health in animals: is that a real thing?
• Does the right of animals include the right of wild animals to exist as well?
• Why veterinary medicine should be encouraged in every locality
• Does the increase in the human population affect the welfare of animals?
• Do animals suffer challenges like distress and pain due to animal cruelty?
• Should every locality embrace the fundamental rules for animal protection?
• Should the law against animal violation be punitive?
• Can eating meat be completely stopped with the help of animal movements?
• How sustainable is the Vegan lifestyle to animal rights?
• The psychological effect of animal cruelty on animals
• The violation of animals right by using them as experiments and specimens
• Do animals have any legal rights?
• Should legal backing be encouraged for animals?
• Can the absence of legal rights affect the existence of animals?
• Are animals destined to be subjected to the whims of man?
• Animal right vs. animal welfare: what are the ways they diverge
• What are the moral backings of the use of animals for scientific research?
• Could personal belief play a role in animal cruelty?
• Does personal belief rub off on animal rights?
• Should animal welfare be chosen over animal rights?
• Why there needs to be a control to animal cruelty
• How historical events set the precedent for animal violation
• How history sets precedent for the animal rights movement
• Should the promotion of animal drugs for wild animals be encouraged?

Animal Rights Research Topics

Since the animal rights movement is still burgeoning, sensitizing people on the need to promote animal rights, there are therefore so many researchable topics into the subject that can be highlighted as a research topic. Here are some of them to look into.

• How the use of animals for food undermines animal rights
• How animal cruelty threatens to wipe off the existence of animals shortly
• The dispose of refuse into rivers, oceans, and seas and how detrimental it is to aquatic animals
• The regulation on scientific experiments on animals
• How hunting negates the animal rights movement
• Vegan lifestyle and how it promotes animal welfare and rights
• The role of empathy in the animal rights movement
• Animal welfare: the separation of domestic animals from wildlife
• The inbound nature of animal cruelty amongst animals
• Measures to curb animal cruelty amongst themselves
• Why sheep should be saved and wools forgone
• How detrimental human violence is to animals welfare
• Does owning a pet improve animal welfare?
• Affordable healthcare for animal welfare
• The role of zoo managers in animal welfare
• Animal welfare: the need for an affordable diet plan for animals
• The benefits of pet supplies to the animal rights movement
• Government’s role in improving the situation of animals and their welfare
• How Wildlife could wipe out domestic animals
• Should domestic animals be chosen over wildlife in the movement?
• The sustainable benefits of consuming organic eggs
• How crossbreeding benefits animals
• The potential threat of overbreeding.
• Fear is the default mode for most animals

Persuasive Speech Topics on Animal Rights

• Why purchasing meat should be discouraged to promote animal welfare
• Animal cruelty should be punitive
• Indecent acts against animals and how they must be addressed
• Why domestic animals should be tendered to more than wildlife
• Using chains as Dog leash is unethical
• Why animal rights agencies should supervise pet owners
• The moral backing of animals as pets
• Importance of cross-breeding amongst animals
• Why the view of animals as disposable is offensive
• Why domestic animals deserve human treatments
• Should how wild lives are a reason for animal cruelty?
• Surviving within a society without reliance on meat
• The importance of animal vaccination and checkups
• The diverse nature of domestic animal cruelty
• How egg consumption violates animals privacy
• Why farm animals need legal protections
• Why animals brought to the movies deserve compensation fees
• Another form of animal cruelty: Abandonment
• Effects of animal abandonment on animals
• Why animal insurance is important today
• The defense of violence on wildlife
• Getting leather from animals: how disturbing is that?
• The importance of protecting animals from violence, cruelty and the provision of shelter for them
• The importance of animal shelters and why they should be promoted

Animal Rights Controversial Topics

If you are passionate about animal rights and you’re embarking on writing an essay based on the topic, choosing controversial topics will give you an upper hand as you’ll be drawing in people’s attention through the topic of what you write as it’ll gradually marinate into the content of your work. The thing about choosing a controversial topic is that it requires that your essay will be persuasive enough to convey the thoughts and emotions.

• Why wildlife animals should be prioritized
• Why stray dogs and abandoned dogs should be fostered by founders
• Why humans must pay attention to animal abandonment
• Animals should be in the shelter and not in homes
• Why animal abandonment should be punishable by law
• The disturbing fact about bullfights
• Taking away chicken eggs and how unethical it is
• Invasion of animal privacy should be followed with adequate punishment
• The disturbing nature of butcher animals
• Animals play important roles in the society
• How Thanksgiving Turkey negates the principle of animal welfare
• License to rescue pets from violent homes
• Why pet emergency fund is important
• The use of animals as race materials: problematic or not?
• The importance of healthy eating for animals
• Why animal healthcare should be promoted.
• Domestic pets: why they need a hotline for rescue and protection
• The need to curb malnutrition in animals
• Why does the health of exotic animals matter more than their economic importance
• Animals should not be killed for human benefits
• Is it wise to keep animals as pets?
• Why the use of animals as a means of transportation should be stopped
• How to promote intensive care amongst animals
• The effect of climate change on animal health and welfare.

Argumentative Essay Topics About Animal Rights

So many conversations are ongoing on the need to prioritize the existence of animals and how to improve the general welfare of animals in society. These issues can be presented in an argumentative format and here are some topics that go in handy.

• Human violence is the leading cause of Animal cruelty
• Why embracing a vegan lifestyle will improve animal welfare
• Hunting as a sport contributes to the fatal extinction of animals
• How the continuous testing and experimentation using animals will lead to the decline of animals in the near future.
• Are farmers exposing animals to more harm?
• Why the legislation would improve the livelihood of animals
• Animal welfare for sustainable environmental growth
• Why pet adoption is better than buying pets
• Animal rights should be a human concern
• Why should the government legislate against the production of garments from animal skin
• Why animal rights should be included in students’ curriculum.
• Why butchering of animals is a barbaric practice
• Principal ways through which animal welfare can be encouraged
• Why society needs to pay more attention to the protection of wildlife
• Why cross-breeding amongst animals should be encouraged
• How water pollution is affecting aquatic animals
• Why do we need legislation for free pet healthcare
• Animal insurance should be free
• Domestic animals should be protected from wildlife
• How humans can improve the lives of animals through welfare
• Why animal welfare should be of community importance
• Testing of cosmetics on animals leads to health complications in animals
• Why animals should not be used for farm practices
• Why animals cannot protect themselves against abuse

Hot Topics on Animal Rights

Today, animals go through so much due to the increase in their commercial needs. With the help of movements on animal rights issues and the need to create awareness and consciousness on animal welfare and rights, so many aspects of animal-related topics are being looked into and some of the topic examples include:

• Battery cages for hen confinement as an animal welfare issue
• Factory farming: a growing discomfort to animal welfare
• The need to curb the slaughtering of wildlife for commercial purpose
• How overcrowded confinement causes depression in farm pigs
• Increase in the demand for Dairy milk as a challenge to Dairy cows
• Consumerism: a negative impact on Dairy Cows
• How Truth in labeling legislation will create awareness of animal cruelty
• A case study on how animal cruelty impacts the psychological well-being of farm animals
• The negative impact of Duck confinement
• How puppy farming risks the health of dogs
• The growing cases of animal cruelty on the wildlife.
• How factory farming affects animal welfare
• How overbreeding impacts the health and welfare of animals
• A psychological analysis of farm animals
• How animal cruelty negatively impacts animals
• Do animals develop mental aversions?
• How commercial slaughtering heightens animal violence
• Violence against animals and ways to curb it
• The displacement of animals through live exportation
• Undiagnosed depression amongst farm animals
• How Voiceless Animal Cruelty impacts animal welfare
• Addressing the issue of animal exploitation in American farm factories
• Growing need for animals shelters
• Why pet adoption should be encouraged

If you need the ideas and reliable assistance of professional writers or help with research paper writing on animal rights for your college essay, or you need assignment help in this field; look no further for there are expert online writers, best rated for their ability to coin brilliant research titles, carry out research writing effectively and also provide high-quality materials at an affordable and cheap rate. Contact us with a “ do my research paper now” request and get an A+. 

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Animal welfare, ethics, and one health

Guest Editors: Izhar Hyder Qazi : Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University of Veterinary & Animal Sciences, Pakistan Gemma Walmsley : University of Liverpool, United Kingdom

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Animal Welfare Challenges in Research and Education on Wildlife, Non-Model Animal Species and Biodiversity

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Institute for Laboratory Animal Research ; Teresa J. Sylvina , Rapporteur.

• Copyright and Permissions

Research to advance understanding of the ecology and biology of wildlife species is more important than ever as the world confronts issues ranging from biodiversity loss to the emergence of zoonotic diseases. However, the current understanding of animal welfare in research and education has been based on laboratory work with specific domesticated species. Wildlife research represents a starkly different context and with different implications for animal welfare. Wild species that are the subject of research have extremely diverse physiologies and behaviors and live in diverse habitats. This makes it challenging and sometimes impossible for wildlife researchers to follow the recommendations outlined in the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals ( NRC 2011 ) and other guidelines developed for a laboratory-based, biomedically focused research context. To explore issues associated with the unique welfare considerations of wildlife research, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (under the auspices of the Roundtable on Science and Animal Welfare in Laboratory Animal Use), hosted a workshop titled Discussing and Understanding Animal Welfare Challenges in Research and Education on Wildlife, Non-Model Animal Species, and Biodiversity on February 9-10, 2022. The event, held virtually, included pre-recorded presentations and overarching discussions to explore this topic in breadth and depth. More than 1,800 participants from academia, industry, government, and nonprofit organizations joined the webcast. This proceedings summarizes key topics covered in the workshop presentations and discussions based on transcripts, recordings, and slides from the event.

• Collapse All
• The National Academies of SCIENCES • ENGINEERING • MEDICINE
• WORKSHOP PLANNING COMMITTEE ON DISCUSSING AND UNDERSTANDING ANIMAL WELFARE CHALLENGES IN RESEARCH AND EDUCATION ON WILDLIFE, NON-MODEL ANIMAL SPECIES AND BIODIVERSITY
• ROUNDTABLE ON SCIENCE AND WELFARE IN LABORATORY ANIMAL USE
• INSTITUTE FOR LABORATORY ANIMAL RESEARCH
• Acknowledgments
• In Memory of
• Acronyms and Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Workshop Opening Remarks
• INTRODUCTION TO WILDLIFE RESEARCH CHALLENGES AND ANIMAL WELFARE
• NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION PERSPECTIVE
• U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE PERSPECTIVE
• NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH’S OFFICE OF LABORATORY ANIMAL WELFARE PERSPECTIVE
• AAALAC INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: WILDLIFE STUDIES: BEYOND THE THREE PRIMARY STANDARDS
• ANIMAL WELFARE CHALLENGES IN RESEARCH AND EDUCATION ON WILDLIFE: A NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM PERSPECTIVE
• CHALLENGES FROM THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PERSPECTIVE
• RESEARCH ON TRIBAL LANDS: UNIQUE EXAMPLES
• UNIQUE CHALLENGES WHEN WORKING WITH FREE-RANGING WILDLIFE: HUMMINGBIRDS AS A CASE STUDY
• CONDUCTING BIODIVERSITY SURVEYS IN THE NEW AGE OF WILDLIFE DISCOVERY
• FIELD RESEARCH INVOLVING REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS, REMOTE STUDY SITES, AND UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS
• CHALLENGES OF HIGH-RISK FIELDWORK AND WORKING WITH VENOMOUS AND HAZARDOUS SPECIES FOR IACUCs
• STANDARDS OF PRACTICE FACILITATE RESEARCH AND MANAGEMENT OF WHITE-NOSE SYNDROME IN BATS
• ANIMAL WELFARE CHALLENGES IN RESEARCH ON AMPHIBIAN DISEASE ECOLOGY: IMPACTS ON NATURAL SYSTEMS, BIODIVERSITY, AND BIOSAFETY (PART 1)
• ANIMAL WELFARE CHALLENGES IN RESEARCH ON AMPHIBIAN DISEASE ECOLOGY: IMPACTS ON NATURAL SYSTEMS, BIODIVERSITY, AND BIOSAFETY (PART 2)
• A BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INHERENT ASPECTS OF RISK MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF WILDLIFE ANIMAL USE ACTIVITIES
• SESSION ONE SYNTHESIS: PERSPECTIVES ON ANIMAL WELFARE CONSIDERATIONS BETWEEN LABORATORY ANIMAL AND FREE-RANGING FISH AND WILDLIFE FIELD RESEARCH
• SESSION TWO SYNTHESIS: REVIEW OF THE LAWS, REGULATIONS, AND PERMITS ASSOCIATED WITH FISH AND WILDLIFE AND CASE STUDIES AND EXAMPLES
• SESSION THREE SYNTHESIS: WILD ANIMAL POPULATION CONCERNS
• EXTRA-LABEL DRUG USE IN FREE-RANGING WILDLIFE: RULES, REGULATIONS, AND REALITY
• THE USE OF PHARMACEUTICAL AGENTS IN CARNIVORES, BEARS, AND UNGULATES WITHIN A WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT AGENCY (REALITY AND CHALLENGES)
• A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE COMPLEXITIES OF WORKING WITH MULTIPLE AGENCIES TO CONDUCT WILDLIFE ANIMAL USE ACTIVITIES
• CHALLENGES IN THE CAPTURE AND HANDLING OF WILD BIRDS IN RESEARCH
• CAPTURE AND HANDLING OF FREE-LIVING WILD SMALL MAMMALS FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
• THE WILDLIFE VETERINARIAN’S ROLE IN CHAMPIONING ANIMAL WELFARE PROGRAMS AND POLICIES
• UNDERSTANDING, RESPECTING, AND ENHANCING THE ROLE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE IN WILDLIFE RESEARCH: A WILDLIFE BIOLOGIST’S PERSPECTIVE
• UNDERSTANDING, ACCEPTING, AND ENHANCING THE ROLE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE IN WILDLIFE RESEARCH: A WILDLIFE VETERINARIAN’S PERSPECTIVE
• SURGERIES IN THE FIELD
• AVMA PERSPECTIVE ON ENDING THE LIVES OF WILDLIFE SPECIES
• CHALLENGES IN HUMANE KILLING OF WILD BIRDS AS MUSEUM VOUCHERS SUPPORTING BIODIVERSITY RESEARCH
• CONTEXT-DEPENDENT CHALLENGES AND DECISIONS FOR THE HUMANE KILLING OF WILD SMALL MAMMALS
• CHALLENGES IN FOLLOWING EUTHANASIA GUIDELINES IN MARINE FISHERIES SAMPLING
• ESTABLISHING CAPTIVE POPULATIONS OF WILD ANIMALS: COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR IACUC
• CHALLENGES OF WILDLIFE ADJUSTING TO CAPTIVITY: NEGOTIATING WITH THE IACUC
• COMPLIANCE CHALLENGES FOR CAPTURING, TRANSFERRING, AND KEEPING WILD BATS IN CAPTIVITY FOR RESEARCH AND TEACHING
• CONSIDERATIONS FOR IACUCS
• ADDITIONAL CHALLENGES
• FINAL THOUGHTS
• SESSION FOUR SYNTHESIS: RESTRAINT AND HANDLING OF ANIMALS IN THE FIELD TO INCLUDE USE OF COMPOUNDS FOR CAPTURE AND HANDLING
• SESSION FIVE SYNTHESIS: ROLE OF VETERINARY MEDICINE IN WILDLIFE RESEARCH
• SESSION SIX SYNTHESIS: PAIN AND DISTRESS, EUTHANASIA, HUMANE KILLING, AND LETHAL TAKE
• SESSION SEVEN SYNTHESIS: TRANSITION OF WILD ANIMALS TO CAPTIVE SETTINGS AND HOUSING CHALLENGES
• SESSION EIGHT SYNTHESIS: AVAILABLE TAKE-HOME RESOURCES
• Appendix A. Statement of Task
• Appendix B. Workshop Agenda
• Appendix C. Workshop Speaker Biosketches
• Appendix D. Workshop Planning Committee Biosketches
• Appendix E. Workshop Synthesis Session Moderator Biosketches

Suggested citation:

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Animal Welfare Challenges in Research and Education on Wildlife, Non-Model Animal Species and Biodiversity: Proceedings of a Workshop . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26614 .

Digital Object Identifier: https://doi.org/10.17226/26614

This publication is available from the National Academies Press, 500 Fifth Street, NW, Keck 360, Washington, DC 20001; (800) 624-6242 or (202) 334-3313; http://www.nap.edu .

Printed in the United States of America.

• Cite this Page National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Division on Earth and Life Studies; Institute for Laboratory Animal Research; Sylvina TJ, editor. Animal Welfare Challenges in Research and Education on Wildlife, Non-Model Animal Species and Biodiversity: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2022 Dec 7. doi: 10.17226/26614
• PDF version of this title (1.8M)

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