Assessing and Enhancing the Welfare of Animals with Equivocal and Reliable Cues

Jason V Watters,Bethany L Krebs

doi:10.3390/ani9090680

Abstract

Simple SummaryActions of human caretakers influence the experience of animals under their care, in zoos and elsewhere. These animals often learn to associate stimuli—sights, smells, sounds—with desirable outcomes such as feedings, training sessions, or other positive experiences. Here, we propose that a conscientious approach to providing reliable cues about daily events and observing animal behavior in response to both reliable and uncertain cues can help caretakers support and assess animal welfare.The actions of human caretakers strongly influence animals living under human care. Here, we consider how intentional and unintentional signals provided by caretakers can inform our assessment of animals’ well-being as well as help to support it. Our aim is to assist in further developing techniques to learn animals’ affective state from their behavior and to provide simple suggestions for how animal caretakers’ behavior can support animal welfare. We suggest that anticipatory behavior towards expected rewards is related to decision-making behavior as viewed through the cognitive bias lens. By considering the predictions of the theories associated with anticipatory behavior and cognitive bias, we propose to use specific cues to probe the cumulative affective state of animals. Additionally, our commentary draws on the logic of reward sensitivity and judgement bias theories to develop a framework that suggests how reliable and equivocal signals may influence animals’ affective states. Application of this framework may be useful in supporting the welfare of animals in human care.

Highlights

There is an appreciable concentration on the development of animal welfare standards in much of the international zoo and aquarium community
We suggest that anticipatory behavior is a regular part of an animal’s day as it is appetitive behavior and much of an animal’s activity is aimed at acquiring rewards
We suggest that anticipatory behaviors and optimistic behaviors are related appetitive behaviors

Summary

Introduction

There is an appreciable concentration on the development of animal welfare standards in much of the international zoo and aquarium community. The second benefit is that the behavioral responses of animals to both known and unknown cues provide human caretakers with insight into the animal’s perception of its state of well-being—that is, whether it perceives its experience as mostly positive or negative. We will rely on the term stimulus to refer to any other sensory signal present in the ambient environment We realize that this is an arbitrary distinction of two words that are often considered synonymous, though we hope that it helps us to communicate clearly about information generated by animal caretakers and elsewhere. As the object is new, the animal has no learned associations with it, and the animal’s response state.provide Another behavioral probe is the open field test, where response there are probe many unattached can insight into itsresponse current affective state.

Different

How Do Cues Help Us Understand Welfare?

Concentration

Predicted

Discussion