Applying wildlife welfare principles to individual animals

COMMISSIONED REPORT
Summary
Applying wildlife welfare principles to individual animals
Commissioned Report No.: 630
Project no: 13899
Contractor: Ohl, F., Putman, R. J., Department of Animals in Science and Society,
Utrecht University
Year of publication: 2013
Background
Welfare of wildlife has increasingly become a focal point for SNH in recent years. SNH has
developed a draft position statement on wildlife welfare which sets out essential principles on
welfare which the organisation will adopt. This report is presented as part of an extension of
such principles in seeking to establish how SNH’s welfare principles should be applied at the
level of individual wildlife animals.
Main findings
At any one point in time an individual animal’s welfare status lies on the continuum
between negative/bad welfare and positive/good welfare.
Welfare must be considered as more than simply the avoidance of negative states: any
welfare concept should extend to embrace promotion of positive status.
Short periods of ‘negative welfare’ may be inevitable if these are understood as triggers to
release appropriate behavioural or physiological responses to adapt to these challenges.
A welfare issue arises only when an animal or group of animals have insufficient
opportunity (freedom) to respond appropriately to a potential welfare ‘challenge’ by
adaptation and changes in its own behaviour.
A positive (individual) welfare state would be safeguarded when the animal has freedom
to adequately react to the demands of the prevailing environmental circumstances.
Assessment of welfare should thus focus not so much on the challenges which any
animal may face at a given moment but on whether or not the animal has freedom and
capacity to react appropriately (i.e. adaptively).
Because of differences in behavioural repertoire and coping strategies, welfare status
may vary considerably between individuals even when exposed to the same
environmental conditions.
Any animal’s status must be assessed against its own individual adaptive capacity and
can only really be considered in relation to how that status is perceived and judged by
that animal itself.
For further information on this project contact:
Jessica Findlay, Scottish Natural Heritage, Cameron House, Oban, Argyll, PA34 4AE.
Tel: 0300 244 9360 or jessica.findlay@snh.gov.uk
For further information on the SNH Research & Technical Support Programme contact:
Knowledge & Information Unit, Scottish Natural Heritage, Great Glen House, Inverness, IV3 8NW.
Tel: 01463 725000 or research@snh.gov.uk
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