The commercial killing of kangaroos provides multiple benefits to society, but also causes both deliberate and unintended harms to kangaroos. The ethics of the kangaroo industry is assessed in terms of whether the assumed benefits justify the welfare costs. An analysis of the stated benefits indicates that killing for damage mitigation is beneficial mainly during drought and not at current levels; that there is a commercial value, although considerably lower than previously estimated, and that demonstrable environmental benefits from commercial killing of kangaroos are lacking; and that the commercial kill may ameliorate the suffering of kangaroos during drought. Welfare practices are very difficult to assess and regulate due to the size and remote nature of the industry. A combination of empirical data on welfare outcomes and inferences drawn from behavioural and reproductive knowledge of the commercially killed species are utilised to assess harm. The welfare costs include deliberate and indirect harm to dependent young (a by-product of the commercial kill), and a number of unintended harms to adult kangaroos, including increased mortality during drought, inhumane killing of a portion of adult kangaroos, and a disruption of social stability and the evolutionary potential of individuals. Furthermore, a substantial gap exists between the intended welfare standards of the code of practice governing the kangaroo industry and the welfare outcomes for both dependent young and adult kangaroos. We found that, on balance, the benefits are lower than expected and the welfare costs are likely to be considerably higher than acceptable. More research, particularly at the point of kill, is necessary to verify and assess the extent of harms. A number of improvements are suggested to the code of practice to improve welfare outcomes.

Accurate identification of key welfare issues for captive elephants could improve standards and help in the development of a welfare index. In the absence of adequate scientific information on the relative importance of key issues, the views of a range of stakeholders were sought using adaptive conjoint analysis. Fifteen key welfare issues were identified by experts, and three to six Levels of each, representing common husbandry practices. In order of declining importance, 224 stakeholders rated the issues as enclosure substrate > group size > healthcare > enrichment > chaining > enclosure type > exercise provision > enclosure size > interaction with keeper > enclosure environment > keeper knowledge/experience > diet > contact method with keeper > display duration > enclosure security. Enclosure size was considered more important by scientists and keepers than zoo directors/managers and animal welfare organisation representatives. Animal welfare organisation representatives rated enclosure security higher than scientists. Keeper husbandry methods and ability of elephants to be active were two principal components in responses. Three principal groups of respondents were identified: scientists/veterinarians focusing more on conditions for the elephants and less on interaction with the public; keepers, focusing on keeper contact method, feeding and knowledge of elephants; and a group with mainly animal welfare organisation representatives/zoo directors focusing on enclosure security. It is concluded that there are some differences between stakeholders in their recognition of the most important welfare issues for elephants in zoos. However, recognising that a diversity of informed opinion is necessary to adequately devise welfare standards, an index of elephant welfare in zoos is proposed, based on the relative merits of different husbandry practices and the importance of the different issues.

A welfare assessment was conducted during 475 observations of 75 long-line tethered horses and 587 observations of 112 freerange horses kept on public grazing land in South Wales over a six-month period from March to August 2010. The observations included quantitative and qualitative behavioural assessments, assessments of physical welfare and assessments of the environment of the horse. Multi-level modelling was used to identify the significant factors affecting each measure. Tethered horses had similar behavioural repertoires to free-range horses but there were differences related to tethering, such as fewer observations of walking, trotting and cantering, increased vocalisations occurring during the observation and poorer qualitative ‘mood’ scores. There were few observations of severe physical welfare problems in either tethered or free-range horses, however tethered horses were observed more often to have eye abnormalities, hoof cracks, lameness and signs of limb pain but less often with mane and tail tangles, as thin or as dirty. Shelter from wind, rain or sun was available to almost all free-range horses (99.8% of observations) but was only found during 16.5% or fewer observations of tethered horses, giving them a greater risk of poor welfare during inclement weather. Similarly, tethered horses were infrequently observed to have access to clean water, and their willingness to drink when offered water, suggests the provision of water was inadequate and tethered horses may have been thirsty. There were significant confounding effects of the observer or climatic factors for some behavioural and physical measures that should be considered when conducting future studies.

Resources for tackling animal welfare issues are often limited. Obtaining a consensus of expert opinion on the most pressing issues to address is a valuable approach to try to ensure that resources are wisely spent. In this study, seven independent experts in a range of disciplines (including veterinary medicine, animal behaviour and welfare science and ethics) were consulted on the relative prioritisation of welfare issues impacting companion dogs in Great Britain. Experts first anonymously ranked the priority of 37 welfare issues, pre-defined from a literature review and an earlier published survey. In a subsequent two-day panel workshop, experts refined these issues into 25 composite groups and used specific criteria to agree their relative priorities as a Welfare Problem (WP; incorporating numbers of dogs affected, severity, duration and counter-balancing benefits) and a Strategic Priority (SP; a combination of WP and tractability). Other criteria — anthropogenicity, ethical significance and confidence in the issue-relevant evidence — were also discussed by the panel. Issues that scored highly for both WP and SP were: inappropriate husbandry, lack of owner knowledge, undesirable behaviours, inherited disease, inappropriate socialisation and habituation and conformation-related disorders. Other welfare issues, such as obese and overweight dogs, were judged as being important for welfare (WP) but not strategic priorities (SP), due to the expert-perceived difficulties in their management and resolution. This information can inform decisions on where future resources can most cost-effectively be targeted, to bring about the greatest improvement in companion dog welfare in Great Britain.

Identifying farmers’ attitudes to farm animal welfare (FAW) is an important step in determining farmers’ efforts to improve FAW, knowledge of which is of particular importance for understanding how the living conditions of production animals are determined. This study developed a hypothetical model of farmers’ attitudes to FAW, including the antecedents of these attitudes and possible influences on FAW-related behaviour. Two models for empirical measurement of attitudes, namely formative and reflective models, were also evaluated and compared. The results suggested that choice of measurement model considerably influences conceptualisation of attitudes and that there may be considerable model misspecifications in previous literature relating to farmers’ FAW attitudes. Existing literature on farmers’ FAW attitudes was reviewed with the aim of providing a preliminary indication of the coverage of farmers’ FAW attitudes. A need for future research related to farmers’ attitudes to FAW was identified.

Pododermatitis is a worldwide health and animal welfare problem in captive flamingos (Phoenicopteridae). Since sub-optimal substrate or flooring has been described as a factor in the development of pododermatitis in poultry and raptors, it is also suspected to play a role in flamingo foot health. Small groups of flamingos were separated from the main group in an indoor enclosure with artificial grass carpet and, in earlier years, concrete flooring, with additional fine granular sand in the water basin for the study year. Feet were evaluated before and after the separation. Judged subjectively, foot lesions had shown a general increase in the indoor enclosure in earlier years. In contrast, lesion severity and prevalence, scored in accordance with a standardised protocol, decreased when fine granular sand was provided. Since flamingos were observed mostly standing on sand and as this represented the major differentiating factor between years, it is concluded that fine granular sand is a favourable substrate to maintain, and one that may even lead to an improvement in flamingo foot health.

Increased on-farm cow mortality (ie unassisted death and euthanasia) has been demonstrated in Swedish dairy herds during the last decade. Identifying risk factors associated with type of death is needed for future work in reducing cow mortality rates. The objectives of this case-control study were to quantify the relative proportion of unassisted dead cows among cows that die on-farm, and to identify risk factors associated with unassisted death (as opposed to euthanasia). In Sweden, cadavers and animal waste products are being processed into biofuel at destruction plants. Two destruction plants were visited three times in 2011-2012. All dairy cows (n = 556) entering the plants were examined. Farmers that had sent the cows were contacted by telephone to verify type of death. Of the 433 dairy cows included in the analysis, 30% had died unassisted. A stillbirth rate above or equal to the median in the study material (7%) increased the risk for unassisted death. The proportion of unassisted dead cows was lower than that found in other countries. The results indicate that it might be possible to study euthanasia and unassisted death as one group in Swedish dairy cows, because only one factor differentiating between the two types of death was identified. However, unidentified risk factors may still differ and, possibly more importantly, welfare implications may also differ between the two types of death which implies the need to separate them in future studies.

This paper investigates public attitudes towards emotional experiences in animals. We surveyed 1,000 members of the public to investigate how companion animal ownership affects the attribution of emotions to animals and beliefs about whether animals can grieve. Respondents who owned a companion animal were more likely to believe that some animals can experience grief compared with respondents that did not own a companion animal. The non-owning respondents were more likely to believe that animals do not experience emotions including: anxiety, distress or depression, do not show behavioural changes when they are experiencing grief and do not grieve as a result of separation from a conspecific. Our findings show that companion animal ownership plays a significant role in the public perception of the emotional experiences of animals and belief in the animals’ ability to grieve.

Welfare assessment protocols using primarily animal-based measures are believed to give valid information about the welfare of animals. However, they tend to be time consuming and therefore costly, thus in practice there is often considerable reluctance to use them. In the present study, the relatively quick to use, simple but non-validated welfare assessment protocol for dairy cattle developed by the Danish Cattle Federation and the validated comprehensive Welfare Quality® protocol were compared in Danish conditions. In total, 44 Danish dairy herds were evaluated using the two protocols. The protocols were correlated on four sub-levels (corresponding to the ‘Principles’ in the Welfare Quality® protocol) and on the Overall welfare score. They correlated significantly with regard to the Principles ‘Good health’ and ‘Appropriate behaviour’. Significant correlations were not found for ‘Good feeding’, ‘Good housing’, and the Overall score. On the basis of this we changed the Danish Cattle Federation protocol by introducing six new measures, changing three measuring procedures and omitting two measures. This extended protocol was found to correlate significantly with the Welfare Quality® protocol in all four Principles and on the Overall score. The extended protocol still has the advantage of the original Danish Cattle Federation protocol whereby under Danish field conditions it will take only 2 h to apply as opposed to 7-8 h for the Welfare Quality® protocol. We believe that the extended protocol balances, in a good way, the demands of practicability against its value as a diagnostic test.

This paper presents an account of a Welfare Quality® assessment of 92 dairy farms carried out by seven experienced assessors. The aim was to evaluate the potential of the Welfare Quality® assessment protocol with respect to its uptake by UK farm assurance schemes. Data collection, and measure aggregation were performed according to the Welfare Quality® protocol for dairy cows. This study examined the data itself, by the testing of how hypothetical interventions might be reflected in changes in the aggregated scores, and also investigated human-related aspects, through inter-assessor standardisation sessions to evaluate reliability, and an assessor focus group to collect feedback. Overall, three main ‘challenges’ were identified. The first challenge related to the large amount of missing data. Unexpectedly, this was such that it was only possible to calculate an overall classification for 7% of farms. The second challenge concerned the way in which aggregated scores did not always reflect hypothetical interventions. The final challenge was inter-assessor reliability, where not all assessors were found to achieve acceptable levels of agreement on a number of outcome measures by the third training session. Suggestions for managing these challenges included, follow-up to assessor training, the use of multiple imputation methods to fill in missing data, and, where applicable, not aggregating the scores. The conclusion of the study was that the protocol provided useful information from which to make an informed selection of measures, but that the challenges, combined with the lengthy assessment time, were too great for its use as a certification tool.

Reproductive medicine is one of the fastest developing fields of veterinary medicine. Regulation of veterinary-assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) is currently divided between the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act (1986), the Veterinary Surgeons Act (1966), and the Animal Welfare Act (2006). None of those pieces of legislation was purpose designed to protect the welfare of animals undergoing ARTs, either directly or by determining which veterinary ART procedures may or may not be performed. Consequently, due to the lack of reference to such procedures, the welfare protection aims of the legislation are sometimes ambiguous. It is therefore difficult to ascertain whether the aims of the legislation are being fulfilled but, in the opinion of this author, the legislation is anyway inadequate in scope, most particularly because it fails to provide a reporting function. It is unclear whether all or any veterinary ART procedures being undertaken on post-natal animals are associated with suffering. Some ARTs may cause discomfort, stress or pain: study or review of the welfare effects of these would be valuable. Any future review of the legislation regulating veterinary ARTs, be that an overall review or a review of one of the relevant statutes (for example the VSA), should take into account the interface between research and clinical medicine; the potentially welfare-compromising gaps between the Acts, the need to introduce reporting functions in order to build an evidence base, and the issue of veterinary specialisation and whether specialised techniques should be carried out only by those with specialist post-graduate qualifications.