Dear MARMAMers, My co-authors and I are pleased to announce our recent publication in a special issue on Animal Welfare Assessment in the journal Animals which has evaluated the feasibility of assessing various potential welfare indicators from live stranding events.
Boys, R.M.; Beausoleil, N.J.; Pawley, M.D.M.; Betty, E.L.; Stockin, K.A. Evaluating Potential Cetacean Welfare Indicators from Video of Live Stranded Long-Finned Pilot Whales (Globicephala melas edwardii). Animals 2022, 12, 1861. doi: 10.3390/ani12141861 Abstract: Despite the known benefit of considering welfare within wildlife conservation and management, there remains a lack of data to inform such evaluations. To assess animal welfare, relevant information must be captured scientifically and systematically. A key first step is identifying potential indicators of welfare and the practicality of their measurement. We assessed the feasibility of evaluating potential welfare indicators from opportunistically gathered video footage of four stranded odontocete species (n = 53) at 14 stranding events around New Zealand. The first stranded cetacean ethogram was compiled, including 30 different behaviours, 20 of which were observed in all four species. Additionally, thirteen types of human intervention were classified. A subset of 49 live stranded long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas edwardii) were assessed to determine indicator prevalence and to quantify behaviours. Four ‘welfare status’ and six ‘welfare alerting’ non-behavioural indicators could be consistently evaluated from the footage. Additionally, two composite behavioural indicators were feasible. Three human intervention types (present, watering, and touching) and five animal behaviours (tail flutter, dorsal fin flutter, head lift, tail lift, and head side-to-side) were prevalent (>40% of individuals). Our study highlights the potential for non-invasive, remote assessments via video footage and represents an initial step towards developing a systematic, holistic welfare assessment framework for stranded cetaceans. The paper is freely available open access here: https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12141861 Please do contact me if you have any questions. Thank you very much, Rebecca On behalf of all the co-authors ------------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca M Boys Marine Biologist PhD Student Cetacean Ecology Research Group School of Natural Sciences Massey University Auckland New Zealand [cid:b1147bd4-8066-47e6-8688-fd17f0c71c8f]<https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rebecca_Boys> [cid:5f95b20b-7184-4c6a-a2bb-42f550d7f25a] <https://scholar.google.co.nz/citations?hl=en&user=7rHpOpMAAAAJ> [cid:3c467d5c-5459-4925-bacb-3afeffc2e54f] <https://twitter.com/RebeccaMBoys> [cid:d5651aaf-fcfd-463e-a719-e454f19ea81a] <https://www.facebook.com/CetaceanEcologyOrg/?__xts__[0]=68.ARBKlWSLR-YC7KHNrW51KXYC8RqNWn5mtIpZGlhILsMi73gubXw7i0iNq-bMfLim8n7PnUX74GpGPXJqVJBIxqdfqVAvHxEd2En0qyW6mKYd9Q30p8kEFIBWKPFgrh4uEh6ISXy5ihiNbt8H1yEWprZQN4kZDRW8gPSk6TMiyNoF-uJ0o1uPoosrGMKBKGD8sc4K3SJPD2e-mWqDxZOc_aY670ngZVZm6YlpZzvKj_r_vh_aHHeSQuS7lgktu6h7HwKL_pEGombnfjc6z3ekwEF4Szn9mLA-y643tiUxNSQiFyiDyOzrVFqnT34Ctus2d0A9GXJMVBvnw7lCKoNnEq4kbA> [cid:5499a7e7-5ba0-4839-a610-63d0e17c60ea] <https://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/explore/research/animal-veterinary/animal/marine/marine_home.cfm> [cid:ea1adad6-a1c8-48e5-b42b-cd6159fa5812] www.cetaceanecology.org/<https://www.cetaceanecology.org/> Australia and New Zealand Student Chapter SMM Committee member European Cetacean Society National Contact Person for New Zealand
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