General session: Animal welfare

Schedule: Friday 20 May 2022 15:00 - 16:00 CET Virtual Room 2

15:00-15:15    Designing tasks to compare behaviours in a range of different species: A case study in whisker movement analysis.
Robyn Grant. Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
We present an object exploration task that was designed to encourage whisker movements in a range of mammalian species, without any training or habituation needed. We measured whisker movements from video footage, and compared between species.

15:15-15:30    The use 24 hour activity and video monitoring to determine the social preference of male and female C57BL/6J mice.
Joanna Moore.GSK, Medicines Research Centre, UK
Male mice are generally considered to be unsocial. This study aimed to look at whether increasing their space would give a good indication of whether male mice are more or less social with their conspecifics than female mice housed in the same conditions. Four compatible groups of C57BL/6J, including each sex of adult mice housed in trios. We used three connecting Digital Ventilated Cages to enable us to monitor the activity and location of the mice. All animal studies were ethically reviewed and carried out in accordance with Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and the GSK Policy on the Care, Welfare and Treatment of Animals.

15:30-15:45    ZooMonitor: A User-friendly App to Record Behavior and Space Use of Animals.
Jason Wark. Lincoln Park Zoo, Chicago, USA
ZooMonitor is an app that allows people to record and visualize the behavior and space use of animals. ZooMonitor supports multiple observation methods and features built-in reporting tools. We present app details and share features in development.

15:45-16:00    Different approaches to study emotions and social interactions of farm animals for a deeper understanding of animal welfare.
Jan Langbein & Annika Krause. Research Institute for Farm Animal Biology (FBN), Dummerstorf, Germany
We present two recent approaches to study emotional contagion in pigs and to evaluate a real-time location system to study social interactions of cattle in a free stall barn.

16:00-16:15  Cancelled
Optimizing zebrafish welfare - effects of environmental enrichment on agonistic behavior and stress response in groups of zebrafish kept in different densities.
Oly Sarma, Svante Winberg & Erika Roman, Uppsala University, Sweden
This study aims to expand the knowledge on the effects of enrichment and fish density on the welfare of zebrafish, with hopes of providing a scientific basis for future legislation and recommendations.

If you are looking for the conference's policy on animal welfare, it is here.