Dr. Monica Battini is a Research Fellow at the Department of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences in Milan, Italy, where she also received her PhD in animal welfare.

Monica shares experiences about her previous work researching welfare quality and welfare assessment protocols for different farming species, animal emotions, and communication among others. She dives into two European projects: Welfare Quality® (WQ) and Animal Welfare Indicators (AWIN).

In WQ, protocols for cattle, pigs and poultry (broiler and hens) were developed and I collected data for the development of the protocol for dairy cows.  In AWIN, protocols were developed for small ruminants, equids and turkeys and she co-authored the protocol for goats.

Her advice to become an animal welfare scientist is to be curious, strong, and keep to achieving goals during the journey.

Monica talks about the importance of considering good welfare for farm animals, looking at positive indicators and the Five Domains model. She highlight...

Dr. Rebecca Ledger is an animal behaviour and animal welfare scientist from Vancouver. Part of her work focuses on using behavioural assessments to assess animal welfare, and she has worked in the management of shelter dogs. She is regularly retained by humane societies, pet owners, and the Crown and Defence counsel across Canada to provide expert opinion in legal cases involving animal cruelty and animal behaviour.

Rebecca shares with us her rich background of experiences, her different jobs for universities, her consulting company, and the many years as a columnist, bringing animal welfare science to the general public. She enjoys teaching the most and talking to laymen scientific audiences about animal science. Rebecca talks about her studies and research mostly in companion animals, primarily dogs, with some cases revolving around cats.

Rebecca introduces us to her work as an animal expert in court, how she started, and some cases involving animal suffering. She states that suffe...

Today's podcast is a combination of different animal welfare scientists from around the world, giving their perspectives, insights, and visions on animal welfare assessments. This podcast will feature:

• Dr. Elizabeth Herrelko, Animal Welfare and Research Manager at Smithsonian's National Zoo
• Dr. Katherine Cronin, Senior Animal Welfare Scientist at Lincoln Park Zoo
• Daren Minier, Assistant Director, Animal Care, Conservation, and Research at Conservation Society of California - Oakland Zoo
• Dr. Eduardo Fernandez, Senior Lecturer of Animal Behaviour, Welfare, and Ethics, School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, the University of Adelaide
• Dr. Samantha Ward, Senior Lecturer in Animal Science at Nottingham Trent University
• Dr. Jason Watters, Executive Vice President of Wellness and Animal Behavior at San Francisco Zoological Society
• Dr. Stephanie Allard, Vice President, Animal Care and Welfare at National Aquarium
• Sabrina Brando, Director of AnimalConcepts & PAWS

This is the firs...

Professor Hannah-Buchanan-Smith is the head of the Behaviour and Evolution Research Group, and Director of Human Animal Interaction Research Group in Psychology, University of Stirling, Scotland, UK.

Hannah introduces us to her work, the importance of understanding how animals have evolved, their capacities, and adaptations. She emphasizes that it is key to learn about how animals live in the wild to provide good captive conditions. She shares highlights from her research career such as why animals live in mixed-species groups, research on comparative colour vision, and animal welfare studies.

Hannah describes some early life experiences and encourages you to persevere in reaching your goals and not to give up. She tells us what she finds rewarding and keeps her motivated in her job.

Hannah and Sabrina discuss the important distinction between care and welfare. Hannah talks about continuous animal welfare assessments, and she presents in detail different approaches. For her, the key...

In this episode Amanda Embury, whose career has spanned over 40 years in the fields of animal welfare and species management, shares insights on ongoing animal welfare assessments, teamwork and continuous improvements.

Amanda shares how she started her work in zoos, her study comparing behaviour of wild and zoo gibbons, and ongoing interest in enrichment and behaviour of zoo animals. She gives insights of her work in her current role as Senior Manager Animal Welfare and Life Sciences which leads the team that provides strategic directions for animal welfare, species planning, animal behaviour, training and enrichment.

This includes developing policies and key strategic documents such as frameworks for animal welfare and species planning, and tools to help assess practices including an Animal Welfare Survey and Species Assessment Tool.

Amanda shares snippets of the ongoing process of developing and maintaining an animal care and welfare program, founded on a code specifying criteria ...

In this episode, Dr. Jason Wark, an Animal Welfare Scientist in Lincoln Park Zoo’s Animal Welfare Science Program shares details and stories of how he and a wider team, manages and develops the ZooMonitor app.

Jason talks about his career and how he started in the zoo world. Jason describes the history of ZooMonitor – which was the brainchild of Dr. Megan Ross (iBuzz podcast #22) and was developed by Lincoln Park Zoo. It has grown as a data collection tool for recording and analysing behaviour to infer the welfare of animals.

Jason details many features of ZooMonitor including who is it for, and how to use it. He also gives us different examples of research that have been done thanks to this software, which is also available on mobile devices. Jason highlights the flexibility of this app for behavioural recording and different taxa. He thinks ZooMonitor has grown so quickly due to the accessibility and the increased attention to evaluating welfare and specifically animal-based measur...

Robert Young is a Professor at University of Salford, at the School of Science, Engineering and Environment, and also a Chair in Wildlife Conservation. He has hundreds of publications in Wildlife Conservation, Animal Welfare, Animal Behaviour, Zoos and Anthropogenic Impacts.

Throughout the podcast, Rob talks about decades of research with over 50 species, on different continents, covering a wide variety of topics, studying animals both in the wild and in captivity.

Rob started his research during his Ph.D. on foraging behaviour in pigs and enrichment activities. He shares amazing and detailed stories of his projects in Brazil, including preparing animals for reintroduction into the wild, first studies in referential communication, vision and behaviour in primates, and sound pollution, among others!

Rob discusses with Sabrina the importance of learning and studying animals in the wild and applying that knowledge to improve the care of animals in zoos and other facilities where animal...