Collar-worn deterrents reduce predation by cats while collar-mounted ID enhances return of lost animals. A perception that collars are hazardous limits their use. We defined cases as ‘collar incidents’ (cat snagged its collar or caught a paw), ‘collar injuries’ (veterinary treatment needed for a collar incident), and ‘collar deaths’ (cat died), before integrating data from veterinarians, owners from the general public and owners from a welfare society. Despite biases associated with each of these groups, taken together, the results from these indicated that collar injuries or deaths are rare. Interviews with one hundred and seven veterinarians indicated an average rate of one collar injury observed per 2.3 years of veterinary practice. At one practice, over three years, only 0.33% of 4,460 cat cases were collar injuries, while 180 cat cases at four clinics during August and November 2011 included none. The 63 owners from the general public reported only one collar injury and no deaths in a lifetime of ownership, although 27% experienced collar incidents. In contrast, 22% reported cats needing treatment following road accidents, 53% reported cats needing treatment for fighting injuries and 62% had owned cats killed on the road. Most (62%) of the 55 respondents from a cat welfare society had experienced a collar incident, but only two cats needed treatment. One died. In contrast, 31 and 58% reported cats needing treatment for road accidents and fighting, respectively, and 41% had owned cats killed on the road. Fighting and road accidents are greater hazards to roaming cats than collars, which offer the compensatory benefits of mounting predation deterrents and ID tags.

Science forms a vital part of animal welfare assessment. However, many animal welfare issues are more influenced by public perception and political pressure than they are by science. The discipline of epidemiology has had an important role to play in examining the effects that management, environment and infrastructure have on animal-based measures of welfare. Standard multifactorial analyses have been used to investigate the effects of these various inputs on outcomes such as lameness. Such research has thereby established estimates of the probability of occurrence of these adverse welfare outcomes (AWOs) and given exposure to particular management inputs (welfare challenges). Welfare science has established various measures of the consequences of challenges to welfare. In this paper, a method is proposed for comparing the likely impact of different welfare challenges, incorporating both the probability of AWOs resulting from that welfare challenge, and their impacts or consequences if they do, using risk assessment principles. The rationale of this framework is explained. Its scope lies within a science-based risk assessment framework. This method does not provide objective measures or score of welfare without some context of comparison and does not provide new welfare measures but only provides a framework enabling objective comparison. Possible applications of this method include comparing the effects of specific management inputs, assigning priority to welfare challenges in order to inform allocation of resources for addressing those challenges, and comparisons of the lifetime welfare effects of management inputs or systems. The use of risk assessment methods in the animal welfare field can facilitate objective comparisons of situations that are currently assessed with some level of subjectivity. This methodology will require significant validation to determine its most productive use. The risk assessment approach could have a productive role in advancing quantitative assessment in animal welfare science.

It has been suggested that providing multiple computers with automatic reward dispensers as enrichment to captive orangutans (Pongo spp) (as opposed to a single computer, with a care-staff person delivering reinforcers) might help improve behavioural outcomes. The purpose of the current study was to test this hypothesis by providing two computers with automatic reward dispensers to eight orangutans housed in four male-female pairs at Zoo Atlanta, USA. Subjects were observed for ten days during each of three phases: a baseline phase (during which, no computer was provided); immediately followed by Phase 1 (during which, one computer system was provided to each pair of subjects); immediately followed by Phase 2 (during which, two computer systems were provided to each pair). Data were collected in 1-h sessions using instantaneous scan sampling. There was no habituation to the computer system, nor were there any significant increases in aggression, rough scratching, and abnormal behaviours in either computer phase, which indicates that computer-joystick systems are effective as enrichment for captive orangutans. However, a high level of interest in the computer was shown by only a few individuals, which highlights a need to take into consideration individual differences when providing computerised enrichment to captive non-human primates. It would also be advisable to provide other forms of enrichment to increase activity levels for individuals which are not interested in interacting with a computer, as well as to help increase the diversity of behaviours being stimulated by the enrichment.

The prevention of unnecessary suffering at slaughter is considered to be an imperative and, as such, the majority of animals slaughtered under industrial conditions are stunned prior to slaughter by mechanical, electrical or gas inhalation means. However, many Orthodox Jewish and Muslim communities do not accept pre-slaughter stunning. Those Jewish and Muslim communities that do accept pre-slaughter stunning require that any such stun is fully reversible in order to meet the requirements of their religious laws. Head-only electrical stunning is widely used in sheep, as it is a reversible method of stunning, but in cattle, the stun duration can be so short that the animal may regain consciousness during exsanguination. The concept of using electromagnetic radiation to induce insensibility has been proposed. Early attempts to induce insensibility and death in laboratory species were successful, but the technology to apply the technique to larger animals was not available at that time. More recently, however, technological advances have led to new work in the areas of transcranial magnetic stimulation and microwave irradiation, both of which are potential methods of inducing a recoverable stun in larger species.

Stunning prior to slaughter is commonly used to render the animal insensible to pain. However, for certain markets, stunning is disallowed, unless the animal can fully recover if not slaughtered. There are very few available methods of inducing a fully recoverable stun. This preliminary study investigates the potential for microwave energy application to be used to induce a recoverable stun in sheep. Cadaver heads were used to demonstrate that brain temperature could be raised to a point at which insensibility would be expected to occur (44°C). Trials on four anaesthetised sheep confirmed this finding in a live animal model where brain temperatures between 43 and 48°C were achieved with 20 s of microwave energy application. Although the applicator and process variables require some further development, this technology seems eminently suitable for use as an alternative method of inducing a recoverable stun.

Subsistence whale hunting dates back to 400AD (Perrin et al 2009). Large-scale industrialised whaling to provide whale oil commenced in the late nineteenth century. Hunts escalated in the early 20th century and reports to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) show that over two million great whales were killed in hunts in the Southern Ocean between 1925 and 1985 and that unreported ‘pirate’ whaling was also widespread (Clapham & Ivashenko 2009). In 1982, as several whale species neared extinction, the IWC agreed an international moratorium on commercial whaling, which took effect in 1986.

Whale watching is defined as tours by air, sea or land to view any of the 86 reported species of whales, dolphins and porpoises in their natural habitat where a commercial aspect exists (IFAW 1999). Whale-watching platforms include small boats, sailboats, cruise ships, inflatables, kayaks, helicopters and airplanes, and the activity can also include observation from land-based sites and approaches made by swimmers. In addition to being non-disruptive to the cetacean population, ‘responsible whale watching’ has many potential educational, environmental, scientific and socioeconomic benefits for human communities (Hoyt & Iñíguez 2008). As a result, tourism of this kind can have a positive effect on nature through the promotion of a general interest and awareness in cetaceans, sustainable economic growth for local economies (which are often otherwise struggling), therefore providing multiple benefits, including improved motivation to preserve marine wildlife.

The goals of this paper are to: define terms relevant to industrially induced, but unintentional, trauma to whales; place the issue in a context of the prevalence of such mortalities in North American east coast waters; examine pertinent case studies; summarise the resultant pathobiology; and from this infer likely welfare concerns.