Animal welfare is an ever-evolving field that practitioners keep in mind when implementing training and management practices. With this evolution, our understanding of the learning process can help provide an overall positive environment for the animals we care for. With good human-animal relationships, caregivers have the power to assess behaviour to inform how to alter practices, in order to address, prevent and treat behavioural differences seen in human care. Practitioners must remember that animals are always learning from their environment. It is crucial to understand the roles animal behaviour and learning play in animal welfare to provide them the best care.

Links to some practical examples

“I think one of the things we should do, and that I am experiencing more and more, is that, in order to think differently we have to look to the past, to find out why we are thinking as we are thinking right now”.

Let us welcome Jes Lynning Harfeld, an associate professor of applied ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy at Aalborg University, Denmark. Currently, his research focuses on the connections between animal welfare and ethics in the realm of human-animal interactions and the way that language interacts with thinking and character.

It was not until Jes’s PhD when he came across Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, did he develop an interest in the ethical dilemmas regarding animal welfare. As such, he focused his thesis on the ethical dilemmas of modern agriculture. Querying, what it means to have a find and the different approaches of ethics and how it relates to animals. “Animal welfare understandings as types of interpretations, reading their signals then jumping to con...

Unedited transcript of the video above ⬆️

"We are all in the welfare department. So it's really interesting. Sometimes I hear these things about, you know, well, we should talk to the welfare department, or we should, you know, talk to the welfare scientist. And of course, being a welfare scientist and animal welfare scientist is a professional in itself. You know, everybody has their specializations. But it is important to know that we are all in the animal care and welfare department. So sometimes, it's also about, well, let's create a special issue around animal welfare. But everything that we do is about animal wellbeing. Everything that we do, revolves around care, right? So there's no separation with regards to when we're talking about breeding conservation efforts, feeding the animals cleaning, the human-animal interaction, everything is animal care, and well being in the sense that it has an effect. And whether that's a good one or a bad one, you know, depending on how the ani...

Unedited transcript of the video above

Hey, for the love of learning, you know, hashtag forever student. And so I'm Sabrina Brando, I'm the director of AnimalConcepts. And I've been, you know, in the field of animal care and well being for 30 years. And the other day with some friends and colleagues, we were talking about how sometimes we can become like these magpies that are like collecting, you know, all kinds of new shiny things like knowledge, or impressions and ideas, and so on. And but we don't necessarily take that information or those ideas, and use them with the animals or, you know, embed them into our programs or something like that. So and actually, the research on the magpies is out on this thing about collecting, but we tend to say that right, shiny new things. And so it reminded me of some of the work that I've seen by Jim quick, who helps people with knowledge and learning and reading, and he has these three questions that I find useful about, you know, why would I us...

Media contact: Sabrina Brando

Founder and Director

AnimalConcepts

[email protected]

+34644805737

Press Release

A new platform, all dedicated to elephants, and a collaboration between Global Elephant Care and AnimalConcepts, is launching soon! 

Purpose

Coming from a culture of care and compassion and combining the most up to date scientific literature and best practices, we strive to improve standards and promote optimal wellbeing for elephants in all types of human care globally.

"Gerry & Sabrina trumpet in excitement about this new platform for elephants and peoples around the world!" 🐘 💚 🐘

Promoting positive wellbeing and flourishing is at the core of what contemporary zoos, sanctuaries and all other facilities caring for elephants strive for. The aim of this platform is to provide a progressive, safe, and active space for all people involved in caring for elephants anywhere.

Through this online continued education platform, both individuals and organis...

Media contact: Sabrina Brando

Founder and Director

AnimalConcepts

[email protected]

+34644805737

Press Release

AnimalConcepts is delighted to share an event in collaboration with Omuta City Zoo that is now available online as a recording on YouTube. This event was held live on 16 June 2021. We would like to thank Omuta City Zoo again for the invitation! 

The webinar titled 'Animal welfare is a goal and an end in itself' invited the audience to consider an animal's life 24/7 across lifespan. To think about animal wellbeing connected to, but also independent, from other the goals. It highlighted that while other goals such as e.g., conservation, education, and research are important - sometimes called 'greater goals', focusing on the animals and their wellbeing is a goal in itself and it is a greater goal in itself too.

The webinar was fully booked, attracting 50 participants and more views are expected via the online recording. 

Omuta City Zoo opened in 1941 ...

By Holly Molinaro & Sabrina Brando

Usually, we release one Science into Practice (SiP) resource every week. For this month, we have a little bonus for you. Two SiPs in one week! You can access all materials via the PAWS platform, not a member yet? Become one HERE or sign up for more blogs like this via our newsletter!

This week, both SiPs are about fish welfare, pain and intelligence.

One of the reasons for this is that we would like to discuss and cover a wide variety of topics and stances, including the ones we do not necessarily adhere to. We should make all efforts to not fall into the trap of excluding information just because it does not fit our worldview, philosophy, or opinion, but rather discuss openly and put forward our ideas, thoughts and feelings, bringing in all the science and other perspectives available to have a deeper conversation.

(1) Rose (2007), Anthropomorphism and ‘mental welfare’ of fishes

and

(2) Sneddon (2019), Evolution of nociception and pain: evidenc...

Media contact: Sabrina Brando
Founder and director
AnimalConcepts
[email protected]
+34644805737

Press release

Be at your best to achieve excellence in wellbeing and conservation

Teulada, Spain (December, 22^nd) AnimalConcepts has launched a new website to help you care for animals and yourself. This includes new pages dedicated to the Practical Animal Welfare Science (PAWS) platform which launched in April this year. This platform features many of the tools you need for animal care and welfare. It also includes individual and organisational care, so animals and people can flourish.

“The worldwide platform brings us together in ways most other organisations don’t, or can’t. What AnimalConcepts does is so important!" said Darren Minier, Assistant Director of Oakland Zoo. Navigating the sea of animal care and welfare information is a challenge that can leave you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, where do you start? Animal care and veterinary professionals, students, resear...

Wellbeing for you and your animals is too important not to get right

At AnimalConcepts we help you be at your best to achieve excellence in animal care and welfare. The Practical Animal Welfare Science 'PAWS' platform, is the first e-learning platform combining human and animal wellbeing science and practice. It allows you to get the education and continuous personal development (CPD) opportunities as well as tools and practical resources you need so you and your animals can flourish.

Navigating the sea of animal care and welfare information, and caring for yourself while giving care to others is a challenge that can leave you feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, where do you start?

"My vision is that the PAWS platform is one of the go-to resources that animal care professionals can use to learn, engage, and enjoy in our collective commitment to serving and caring for animals and for ourselves. See it as a short of wellness atlas where you can find all kinds of information on a wide ...

We are all thinking about animal care, including how we interact with them and ways we can impact their wellbeing ranging from negatively to positively, i.e., the quality of care. To think about how we do what we do is impacting them, or likely, or possibly impacting them. 

One of the questions, or rather perhaps, exercises, I like to think about and engage in is: what it would be like to be in their position? Where they live, with whom, what opportunities and affordances they have, etc. This is a difficult thing to do and not without interpretational hurdles and problems, I know, I already hear the word anthropomorphism ringing in my ears.

I bet anyone working with animals would love to be able to be that animal or species or individual for 1 day (or longer)! To experience e.g., what the world is like for them, how do they experience varies things in their lives, how and what they think about, how do they feel and experience their world emotionally? Can we just be Dr Doolittle, plea...