飼育カモの「Welafare Assessment Tool」科学誌に掲載

Welfare assessment is a tool to both identify welfare challenges and to evidence where current husbandry practices support positive welfare outcomes. Such tools are becoming more available and can be amended based on the nature of the facility and needs of taxonomic groups. Currently, welfare assessment has a strong mammalian theme, and some behavioural measures of welfare commonly applied to mammals do not translate well for other taxa. This paper provides a method for welfare assessment of Anseriformes; widely housed, diverse bird species kept under a range of management styles. A mixture of resource-based (i.e., determination of aspects of the physical environment or the bird’s physical appearance or activity) and animal-based (i.e., observations that equate to a bird’s feelings or personality characteristics) measures are integrated to enable a full review of potential predictors of welfare. The method provides a rapid and valid way for all personnel to collect informat