FIVM Series presents: Animal welfare - the human dimension

Current efforts to safeguard animal welfare for farms, zoos and laboratories have typically emphasized elements of the animals’ environment such as space allowance, ventilation and behavioural freedom. However, the farm literature now shows that when basic welfare outcomes on different farms are compared, the outcomes range from very good to very poor even when animals are kept in similar environments.

On Friday, February 16, Dr. David Fraser will discuss how animal welfare depends strongly on the ‘human dimension’ – the people involved.  Animal welfare depends on a complex interaction of the people, the animals and the environment.  Dr. Fraser will explore how problems can arise, for instance, if the environment causes people to handle animals in aversive ways, if the animals are genetically unsuited to the environment, or if human stress and mental health problems cause a decline in attention to the animals and their environment.

Dr. Fraser is professor in the Animal Welfare Program at the University of British Columbia, a program of research, teaching and public outreach focused on the welfare of animals.  After studying animal behaviour at the Universities of Toronto and Glasgow, he worked at the Edinburgh School for Agriculture, doing some of the earliest research on the welfare of animals kept under intensive farming conditions.  Dr. Fraser then spent six years in wildlife research in Ontario where he studied the animals’ use of mineral springs and aquatic plants, and established the role of highway de-icing salt in road accidents involving moose. In the 1980s and 90s he led a team of researchers dealing with the welfare of farm animals.

Dr. Fraser has been at UBC since 1997. He has served as a scientific advisor to many organizations including the World Organisation for Animal Health (Paris), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Rome), the Food Marketing Institute (Washington) and the Loblaw Corporation. He is the author of Understanding Animal Welfare: The Science in its Cultural Context (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008) plus several hundred other publications. In 2005, he was appointed a member of the Order of Canada for his work as a pioneer in the application of science to animal welfare.