Lecture #9 ~ Animal Domestication, Welfare, and Behavior + Quiz #4

Dr. Ross

To evaluate fitness, you need to know:

did the animal survive?

how many offspring did the animal have?

Which animals pass on more genetic material to next gen?

Those with high fitness

What shapes a wild animal’s behavior?

Forces of evolution

Natural selection

Random drift

Mutation

Gene flow b/w populations

What shapes a domestic animal’s behavior?

Forces of evolution

Natural, artificial, relaxed selectionC

Changes seen in domestication:

Losses in fitness

Cognitive mechanisms

Neoteny (The persistence of larval or fetal features in the adult form of an animal.)

Size and coat color differences

Changes NOT seen in domestication:

Behaviors

What impacts animal science?

Knowledge about animals

Public perception

Spectrum of possible views (left to right)

Animal rights, animal welfare, human dominion

Animal Rights

All animals have comparable rights and each individual’s desires should be respected equally

Human Dominion

Animals were put on Earth for us to use in whatever way they can benefit us the most and in the least expensive way possible

Animal Welfare

Using animals for greater human good, but we have an obligation to provide for majority of their physiological and behavioral needsW

here are regulations on minimum animal welfare more strict?

Europe

Animal Welfare is a mix of ___ and ____

science; ethicsC

Can an assessment of animal’s quality of life be entirely objective?

NO! It involves a mix of scientific knowledge and value judgements

How do we measure animal welfare? (5)

Health

Production

Physiology

Behavior

Mental Health

What’re the 5 freedoms?

Freedom from hunger or thirst

Freedom from discomfort

Freedom from pain, injury or disease

Freedom to express normal behavior

Freedom from fear and distress

Who described the Feeling Based Approach?

Duncan

What does the Feeling Based Approach look at?

Subjective experiences of animals (negative and positive feelings)

What sort of testing can the Feeling Based Approach use?

Preference/motivation testing

Who described the Biological Functioning Based Approach?

Broom

What does the Biological Functioning Based Approach look at?

Physiological measures (health, longevity, production)

Who described the Animal’s Nature Based Approach?

Fraser

What are some question used by the Animal’s Nature Based Approach?

How well are we accommodating the animal’s natural behavior?

How many behaviors in its natural repertoire can it still perform?

Is it allowed to perform behaviors that it is strongly motivated to
perform?

What’re the three circles?

Basic Health and Functioning

Natural Living

Affective StatesExa

Examples of measures of poor welfare

Reduced life expectancy

Reduced ability to grow or breed

Body damage

Disease

Immunosuppression

Coping behaviors

Examples of measures of good welfare

Variety of normal behaviors shown

Physiological indicators of pleasure/contentment

Behavioral indicators of pleasure/contentmentF

What can body language show us?

Fear, happiness, etc.

Flight Distance/Zone

The flight zone of an animal is the area surrounding an animal that if encroached upon by a potential predator or threat, including humans, will cause alarm and escape behavior.

Benefits of low stress cattle handling

Less stressed cattle

Loose less weight

Have fewer injuries

Stronger immunity

Better reproduction

Better meat quality

Why should you know the norm for your animal?

Lets us know when the animal is “off”

What is a welfare auditor?

Part of an official organization that inspects animal facilities (IACUC, zoos, quality check-offs, etc.)

What is the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO)?

Created to provide consistent training to auditors nationwide, evaluates and certifies audits, links producers/operations with auditors

3 types of auditing measures:

Outcome-based measure

management-based measure

resource-based measure

What is outcome-based measure?

Info collected directly from the animal

What is management-based measure?

Info collected from records or personnel or directly observing human behavior

What is resource-based measure?

Info collected from the animal’s environment

What is Animal Welfare Judging and Assessment Contest?

Hypothetical scenario utilizing realistic data to assess animals

Types of assessment

Scenarios (individual, computer based, comparing environments, fully hypothetical)

Live Assessment (team, go to facility, one environment, real place but hypothetical data)

Spring contest

For the love of welfare judging (and experience), online - 2 scenarios

Fall contest

for credit and glory, in person, 3 scenarios and 1 live assessment

The Dairy Goat Breed we have on the RU farm is

Alpine

Which of the following are benefits of low stress handling of cattle

The meat quality is better

Cattle have less disease

Cattle loses less weight

Cattle has fewer injuries

Which of the following are physiological indicators that you could use to evaluate animal welfare?

Number of infections in the animal/herd

Heart rate

Cortisol levels

The distance an animal attempts to maintain between itself and other individuals such as those that threaten its wellbeing is called the:

flight distance/zone

How do we measure animal welfare?

Health

Production

Behavior

Physiology

Hyacinth is special because she is a

fisculated cow

heritable change within a population change is

microevolution

______ describe relationships between species

phylogenetic trees

which of these statements are true about genomes?

organized into large and small genomes

Encode information in similar ways

Many units are similar enough between species to be shared

Genomes can tell you something about another genome

Geneticist who came up with the germplasm theory

Weismann