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Executive summary: This post from Wild Animal Initiative outlines current approaches to assessing wild animal welfare using the arousal-valence model, indicators, and composite metrics—highlighting both promising tools and the need for further validation, especially for wild species. Key points:
Welfare is defined as an animal’s valenced affective state—how positive or negative their experiences are over time—often visualized through an arousal-valence model where valence represents emotional quality and arousal represents intensity.
Welfare can’t be measured directly, so scientists infer it using indicators (behavioral, physiological, and environmental) and welfare metrics that aggregate multiple indicators.
Whole-animal indicators (like Qualitative Behavioral Assessment or activity budgets) provide a broad view of emotional state, while partial indicators (like fear behaviors or hormone levels) target specific components.
Environmental indicators assess potential welfare risks (e.g., predation) rather than current welfare states and are thus less direct.
Existing welfare metrics like the Five Domains Model and cumulative pain scores are in use, but most were developed for captive animals and need adaptation for wild contexts.
Validation of new indicators is a research priority, with current efforts focused on tools like cognitive bias tests for birds and bees, frailty indexes for insects, and non-invasive stress measurements such as fecal glucocorticoid metabolites.
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Agreement karma indicates agreement, separate from overall quality.
Executive summary: This post from Wild Animal Initiative outlines current approaches to assessing wild animal welfare using the arousal-valence model, indicators, and composite metrics—highlighting both promising tools and the need for further validation, especially for wild species. Key points:
Welfare is defined as an animal’s valenced affective state—how positive or negative their experiences are over time—often visualized through an arousal-valence model where valence represents emotional quality and arousal represents intensity.
Welfare can’t be measured directly, so scientists infer it using indicators (behavioral, physiological, and environmental) and welfare metrics that aggregate multiple indicators.
Whole-animal indicators (like Qualitative Behavioral Assessment or activity budgets) provide a broad view of emotional state, while partial indicators (like fear behaviors or hormone levels) target specific components.
Environmental indicators assess potential welfare risks (e.g., predation) rather than current welfare states and are thus less direct.
Existing welfare metrics like the Five Domains Model and cumulative pain scores are in use, but most were developed for captive animals and need adaptation for wild contexts.
Validation of new indicators is a research priority, with current efforts focused on tools like cognitive bias tests for birds and bees, frailty indexes for insects, and non-invasive stress measurements such as fecal glucocorticoid metabolites.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.