Animal Behavior and Well-being: Attitudes Toward Animal Welfare and Human Animal-Interaction.

CINCINNATI (Ohio); OHIO

The article presents abstracts of various papers related to animal behavior that were presented during the symposium held on July 28, 2005 in Cincinnati, Ohio, which was organized by the American Dairy Science Association, the American Society of Animal Science, and the Canadian Society of Animal Science. One of the papers discussed is "Human and Animal Interaction and Welfare Issues at the Farm Level," by P. Hemsworth. While the importance of the stockperson in relation to animal welfare is generally acknowledged in industry care guidelines, codes of practice and quality assurance programs for animal welfare, it is debatable whether this sentiment has been fully accepted or adopted by the livestock industries and others. The major human characteristics affecting animal welfare are the stockperson's attitudes and behaviors. Another paper is "Attitudes to Farm Animal Welfare: Survey Results of U.S. Animal Science and Veterinary College Faculty," by C. Heleski, A. Mertig, and A. Zanella. The implementation of new technology or the acceptance of new research findings is at least partially dependent on the attitudes of stakeholders. Regarding farm animal welfare, a great deal of scientific work has been done, but uptake of the information has been slow. The authors decided to assess the attitudes toward farm animal welfare of two fundamentally invested stakeholder groups: animal science faculty and veterinary college faculty with a large animal/food animal emphasis.