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adolescence. Concerning the current environmental situation, the
concepts of “environmental enrichment” and “social support by
a bonding partner” have proven most successful to improve the
animals’ quality of life. Another important method that can be used
to see, if the animals really get what he wants, is through choice
or preference tests. According to this experimental procedure the
animal must work (for example by pushing a weighted door) to gain
access to one resource in preference to another. This procedure
helps to understand what the animal needs at a fundamental level.
Cognitive processes definitely play an important role in behaviour
and certainly our effort to understand behavioural traits can scarcely
be complete without a detailed exploration of cognition. It
is widely accepted that there are important links between
animal cognition and animal welfare. Poor welfare can result
in anxiety and chronic stress, which are known to affect
important aspects of cognition like attention, memory and
decision-making. For example, starlings housed in cages
without any form of enrichment may be more pessimistic
in their interpretation of ambiguous stimuli as it was
demonstrated by an operant task and also by a more
naturalistic foraging task. As the studies of animal cognition
use the information-processing approach of cognition
it clearly shows that scientists are able to investigate
cognition in animals as diverse as bees, frogs, reptiles,
birds and mammals. It is this approach that contradicts the
view that just mammals are capable of higher cognitive
processes. The data presented by Onur Güntürkün in his
talk clearly demonstrated that birds with only a small brain
without cortex are able to produce cognitive performances
that are on par with primates and other mammals. Thus,
neural fundaments for solving similar cognitive problems have
evolved multiple times and in parallel during evolution. Based on
these findings it is evident that animal welfare as a science should
include the study of a wide variety of animal classes.
As the bottlenose dolphins are one key species regarding their
capability to adapt to a human made environment and because
only few animal species elicit such diverse opinions about their
welfare status, one major goal of the Nuremberg meeting was
to discuss the possibility to develop a scientific based welfare
assessment for this species. Isabella Clegg presented the first
comprehensive assessment (C-Well
®
) that includes 36 welfare
measures containing both animal and resource-based measures.
The C-Well
®
assessment was applied to individual dolphins, thus
facilitating comparisons between the different welfare criteria as
well as among age classes, sex, groups and facilities, allowing
identification of best practices and benchmarks as well as guiding
legislation. Despite the fact that some measures need validation,
the C-Well
®
assessment provides the first practicable framework in
order to evaluate objectively the welfare of dolphins.
During the meeting all the participants agreed that the C-Well
®
protocol can be used to assess welfare in dolphins and offer a
good tool towards establishing welfare indicators for dolphins and
other marine mammals.
In summary it is a fact that zoos and aquariums have made
great improvements over the last decades concerning exhibit
design, feeding routines, social housing conditions mixed species
presentations and environmental enrichment, and prevention
of infectious and parasitic diseases in an attempt to enhance
animal welfare. However the provision of all these inputs does
not automatically imply good welfare for the animals. In order
to control the effectiveness of all these changes animal welfare
science is needed. It is important to evaluate animal responses by
applying welfare metrics that include behaviour and/or physiology.
This workshop dealt with the challenges we face in developing and
applying animal welfare indicators to zoo and aquarium animal
species and clearly emphasized the need to assess the welfare of
these animals. It was shown that animal welfare is science and
enough scientific methods are available to assess welfare objectively
at the species level. However the discussions also revealed that the
assessment of animal welfare is a topic of large debates due to the
complexity and practical implications of the evaluation. With the
C-Well
®
protocol the first comprehensive assessment for dolphins
was proposed as a first step in order to evaluate the welfare of
dolphins using a protocol based on scientific methodologies.
For the political discussion the workshop showed that science is a
neutral ground, where people with a wide range of opinions can
learn to discuss peacefully following a common aim: the welfare
of animals.
Summary of the contents of the workshop presentations |
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