0:00:19.640,0:00:26.000 Right. Hello everyone. Thank you all so much  for taking the time to come here and participate 0:00:26.000,0:00:31.520 in this discussion with me on fish welfare.   As Dave introduced me earlier, my name is Tim 0:00:31.520,0:00:36.640 Wiese and I am a postdoctoral researcher at  the Institute of Aquaculture all the way back 0:00:36.640,0:00:43.000 in Scotland at the University of Stirling. Now my  research has entirely revolved around all things 0:00:43.000,0:00:50.920 regarding fish welfare and today I'd like to have  a nice little dive into various concepts and 0:00:50.920,0:00:57.640 principles, all things relating to fish welfare   so that we can perhaps help better understand what 0:00:57.640,0:01:06.360 approaches we can take towards taking on welfare  in a scientific context. So in the interest of 0:01:06.360,0:01:11.760 time, I am starting with the assumption that  most of us, at least on some level here, can 0:01:11.760,0:01:18.200 agree that there's growing surmounting evidence  for varying levels of fish sentience or other 0:01:18.200,0:01:24.440 animal welfare sentience that's become apparent  within our scientific community. And because of 0:01:24.440,0:01:30.040 that there's the oneness on us, the importance  of taking some responsibilities and learning 0:01:30.040,0:01:35.800 to nurture and protect that welfare to the best of  our abilities. The question that I would instead like 0:01:35.800,0:01:43.840 to really dive into here is what I believe a lot  of questions that pop into all of our minds when 0:01:43.840,0:01:49.600 we first hear that word welfare. And those sorts  of questions are well what do we actually mean 0:01:49.600,0:01:55.000 when we say welfare? What's the difference  between welfare and health? If there's not 0:01:55.000,0:01:59.480 really much of a difference, do we really need  to use that term or should we try and expand 0:01:59.480,0:02:05.720 other ways? So it it sounds like a very obvious  straightforward question, but it's an essential 0:02:05.720,0:02:13.040 question to ask, because how do you define welfare  to yourself will completely determine how you then 0:02:13.040,0:02:18.680 assess welfare, or incorporate it into your  research. And it's not an easy question to ask 0:02:18.680,0:02:23.920 by any means, and a lot of people fail to ask  themselves that question properly or even avoid 0:02:23.920,0:02:30.360 it entirely and for good reason. So whether  you use the phrase animal welfare, well-being 0:02:30.360,0:02:38.240 or quality of life, what we're talking about here  is something that goes beyond the notion of just the 0:02:38.240,0:02:46.080 animal's health. It's something that is ultimately  concerned with the experiences that the animal has 0:02:46.080,0:02:52.360 from the perspective of the animal themselves.  Now I'm sure anyone here that has spent most of 0:02:52.360,0:02:57.080 their lives dealing with plastic veterinary or  biological functioning and health-wise 0:02:57.080,0:03:00.400 realises the massive challenge that comes  with trying to tackle something like that 0:03:00.400,0:03:07.320 in a scientific context. And it's not just  pertaining to that alone, you can have the 0:03:07.320,0:03:12.760 same issue if you try to speak to a friend, or  even with any human 0:03:12.760,0:03:17.920 conversation where you're trying to figure out  how their well-being is. They might provide 0:03:17.920,0:03:21.480 some valuable insights. They might be honest  and share their feelings with you, say yeah, 0:03:21.480,0:03:26.200 I've had a terrible week or whatever, or they say the feeling that in some way or another. 0:03:26.200,0:03:31.640 You could be the best psychologist or psychiatrist  in the world, you will not walk away from that 0:03:31.640,0:03:37.960 conversation with a measured objective score of that person's well-being. So that's the same 0:03:37.960,0:03:45.760 challenge that we're facing with animals now.  So while we can appreciate that welfare is 0:03:45.760,0:03:52.480 something that is actually real, these subjective  experiences that we ultimately care about are also 0:03:52.480,0:03:57.720 something that's quite inaccessible to us and  that's what the ultimate goal of welfare is 0:03:57.720,0:04:03.040 anyway. So it's dealing with something that can't  be measured and certainly not measured in the same 0:04:03.040,0:04:11.320 way as say versus height or blood pressure or any  of these other physiological parameters. And so 0:04:11.320,0:04:16.720 us as a scientific community, we're faced with  the fascinating challenge of trying to keep as 0:04:16.720,0:04:21.920 close as we can to this subjective experience  while never being able to actually capture it 0:04:21.920,0:04:28.440 in the first place. So when when we're dealing  with something like animal welfare that can't 0:04:28.440,0:04:35.280 be directly quantified, we're inevitably forced  to tackle something that is a human concept. 0:04:35.280,0:04:44.160 It's an idea and it was real, it's still this  matter of us somehow trying to find a methodical, 0:04:44.160,0:04:51.720 robust, scientific way of assessing something that  is unavoidably influenced by every single one of 0:04:51.720,0:04:58.200 our own moral frameworks, our own value systems  and what each of us might think matters the 0:04:58.200,0:05:03.520 most for an animal's well-being. And that could  be either the same for a lot of people or it 0:05:03.520,0:05:08.880 could differ. And it doesn't matter whether it's  the welfare of a human being, a fish, a bird or 0:05:08.880,0:05:13.960 whichever animal. It's a incredible challenge that  we all have to try and find a way of coming to an 0:05:13.960,0:05:23.040 agreement on. And so that's one of the interesting  points with this matter of tackling welfare in a 0:05:23.040,0:05:30.280 scientific context is that we as a human and  as a species, hasn't always been great at agreeing 0:05:30.280,0:05:37.800 on what matters most to things, much less with  welfare. So in understanding broadly what matters 0:05:37.800,0:05:43.640 the most for welfare, there are three different  but overlapping views of welfare that have been 0:05:43.640,0:05:48.880 established within the scientific community. Now  I'm assuming these will all sound relatively 0:05:48.880,0:05:54.840 familiar once I start speaking about them, so I'll  quickly outline them and give some reasons for why 0:05:54.840,0:06:00.240 there's some overlap, as well as why there's some  issues with just dealing with any single view in 0:06:00.240,0:06:06.840 isolation. So the first one we have here is this  functions based view. And this is all surrounding 0:06:06.840,0:06:13.800 the view that what you're solely concerned with  is the biological functioning of the animal. And 0:06:13.800,0:06:18.960 that's essentially its physical health. And this  tends to form a large part of what most people 0:06:18.960,0:06:25.320 around the world conceptualise and understand  welfare to be. And it's not surprising that that's 0:06:25.320,0:06:31.120 the case because a large part of what what welfare  concerns tend to revolve around are directly 0:06:31.120,0:06:39.240 measurable variables like disease injuries, or mortalities.  Now this strict definition of... Assuming that 0:06:39.240,0:06:45.680 you take a strict definition where you only  view welfare within this concept, it focuses 0:06:45.680,0:06:49.520 on concerns that ultimately have very little to  do with whether or not the animal is actually 0:06:49.520,0:06:54.760 suffering, whether there's any perceived pain  or pleasure or hunger or any of those matters, 0:06:54.760,0:06:59.640 it is solely focusing on the functional state of  the animal and and whether or not you can continue 0:06:59.640,0:07:07.120 to live and reproduce. One of the challenges  with adopting that solely functions based view 0:07:07.120,0:07:11.920 that we're talking about here is that there have  been many examples in scientific literature where 0:07:11.920,0:07:18.240 animals can be in perfectly good health but still  be perceived to have some aspects of suffering. 0:07:18.240,0:07:23.640 And a good example for that is when you have  animals that spend their entire life being 0:07:23.640,0:07:29.560 well looked after, well fed, but are in certain  situations either because of their encloses or 0:07:29.560,0:07:35.000 because of husbandry practices where they  are restrained and prevented from performing 0:07:35.000,0:07:40.680 innate behaviours like escape behaviours or evasive behaviours when they believe to perceive 0:07:40.680,0:07:46.160 a predator. And so there's a lot of situations  where even though the animal's quite fit healthy 0:07:46.160,0:07:50.840 and even if the there isn't a predator that is  causing risk, the animal would might still be 0:07:50.840,0:07:57.720 perceived to be suffering because of that  fear. And that sort of brings on to the second 0:07:57.720,0:08:05.000 view here which is this feelings based approach.  And this is what we touched on a bit earlier on. 0:08:05.000,0:08:11.200 This is to do with what many considered the  ultimate matter of concern for animal welfare. 0:08:11.200,0:08:19.280 And many symptoms of poor welfare through this  view, that fall under this category, is then 0:08:19.280,0:08:25.280 that includes things like pain, fear, hunger,  they've been suggested to have evolved 0:08:25.280,0:08:29.920 naturally over time because they're valuable  defense mechanisms that prevent the animal 0:08:29.920,0:08:37.840 from dying or from actually coming into severe  risks. So, because they're useful, 0:08:37.840,0:08:42.960 there's a relatively safe assumption that at some  level a large number of these animals that we're 0:08:42.960,0:08:51.160 dealing with are capable of experiencing all of  these effective states. So in the same way that 0:08:51.160,0:08:57.400 adopting a solely functions based view presents  some issues, adopting a solely feelings based view 0:08:57.400,0:09:03.120 also presents some issues. The number one thing  which touched on before is there is no empirical 0:09:03.120,0:09:08.600 information that we are able to capture that will  provide information on this matter because it is 0:09:08.600,0:09:16.080 such a hidden variable in terms  of what we are able to directly capture and measure. 0:09:16.080,0:09:21.600 And we also have to recognise how closely  linked this idea of these subjective experiences 0:09:21.600,0:09:26.600 are to the biological functioning view as well.  There's a lot of the times they tend to do an 0:09:26.600,0:09:32.960 agreement with each other. If if an animal has  suffered a severe injury, most people would likely 0:09:32.960,0:09:37.880 agree that it's biologically functioning and  being compromised. And in terms of its suffering, 0:09:37.880,0:09:45.040 if it's lost a limb or a pin or a a major part of  its body, it's probably also a pain. Now there are 0:09:45.040,0:09:49.160 some interesting ones where those views are  conflict with each other. And we had a good 0:09:49.160,0:09:53.560 example here where I'll take it out of aquaculture  and just think of someone you know that might be a 0:09:53.560,0:10:00.920 habitual smoker. Now adopting a solely feelings  based view, you would take this view of well, 0:10:00.920,0:10:08.040 smoking causes pleasure, relieves some distress  and the immediate lung damage caused by smoking 0:10:08.040,0:10:14.840 is not that bad and then then you could even make  the argument that solely on the feelings base that 0:10:14.840,0:10:20.840 the pleasure that is gathered over time outweighs the  pleasure or the suffering that happens 0:10:20.840,0:10:26.600 later on, irrespective of the immense  damage that's caused. So some people that adopt 0:10:26.600,0:10:32.160 a solely feelings-based view may actually  say, well cigarettes are a bonus for my welfare. 0:10:32.160,0:10:40.640 And hopefully you can understand where that might  be a pitfall. So then we go to the final 0:10:40.640,0:10:46.920 view here, which is this nature-based view and  this brings forward this notion that whatever is 0:10:46.920,0:10:53.760 natural is inherently good. And this  brings forward this idea that again, even if 0:10:53.760,0:10:59.400 the animal's health is perfect, its welfare  could be compromised if it isn't fulfilling the 0:10:59.400,0:11:05.080 natural life that it ought to live. Now a common  concern here is a similar one to the previous 0:11:05.080,0:11:11.280 example outlined, which is this idea of an animal that can be well kept and well looked 0:11:11.280,0:11:19.400 after but has evolved in innate drive to migrate  somewhere or fly somewhere or swim somewhere, and even 0:11:19.400,0:11:25.200 though it is far healthier and it has a much  higher survival rate than its wild counterparts 0:11:25.200,0:11:31.080 that are allowed to migrate and are free to move,  in some ways many would view that as a compromised 0:11:31.080,0:11:37.480 welfare because it is able to fulfil that desire  and especially if that occurs throughout its 0:11:37.480,0:11:45.520 entire life. So obviously again one of the issues  here is the inherent biological nature of an 0:11:45.520,0:11:51.600 animal is of course an important consideration for  any animal's welfare. But living a natural life by 0:11:51.600,0:11:58.280 no means guarantees that you are going to fulfil  a whole range of other ethical concerns. Because a 0:11:58.280,0:12:03.200 natural life tends to be full of predators, tends  to be full of starvation, aggressive competition 0:12:03.200,0:12:09.640 from other species, and so there's a lot of those  that are of the previous two views would say is less 0:12:09.640,0:12:17.280 compromised life welfare that's in conflict with that. So  hopefully that gives a good idea of how most 0:12:17.280,0:12:23.560 people here between all of these three views and  conceptions that encompass the whole area of what 0:12:23.560,0:12:30.880 we could possibly see welfare to be. Each of the  views provides some valuable important guidelines, 0:12:30.880,0:12:36.080 but they're not always in agreement with  each other and you certainly 0:12:36.080,0:12:41.240 cannot deal with one in isolation, to provide  enough guidelines for defining, assessing, 0:12:41.240,0:12:52.080 and improving animal welfare. Instead they all  play an important role together. So unfortunately, 0:12:52.080,0:12:58.360 as I said before, not all of us can agree on  how we integrate all three of these together, 0:12:58.360,0:13:04.120 because depending on our backgrounds, where we  grew up, how we value different things, one person 0:13:04.120,0:13:08.720 might believe that functional state is far more  important, other people might believe that what is 0:13:08.720,0:13:15.640 natural is far more important, and that's one of the major conceptual challenges that 0:13:15.640,0:13:23.680 scientists are having to face now when it comes to  welfare. And the question now is how on earth do 0:13:23.680,0:13:32.600 we manage to do a robust balanced way of assessing  the quality of life of another animal when we are 0:13:32.600,0:13:40.880 unable to fully agree on which of these matter  the most? And, as a starting point, 0:13:40.880,0:13:45.440 one of my favourite analogies in that it's a  mental framework here to go about tackling 0:13:45.440,0:13:52.400 something like this, this challenge, comes from a lady named Marianne Dawkins 0:13:52.400,0:13:59.040 and, she brings a wonderful equation  of equating assessing the animal welfare 0:13:59.960,0:14:08.200 to assessing the safety rating of a building  and rather than measuring say its height 0:14:08.200,0:14:14.280 So in other words here, instead of trying to score an  animal's welfare by a single quantitative measure, 0:14:14.280,0:14:19.760 we instead have to use a variety of different  welfare indicators, not measures, indicators, 0:14:19.760,0:14:26.520 to finally arrive at what we believe  will be the safety rating of the animal's welfare. 0:14:26.520,0:14:32.600 And if you're trying to reach a conclusion of the  animal's welfare as a whole at any point, that 0:14:32.600,0:14:38.120 ideally would require physiological, morphological  and behavioural parameters, so that you can cover 0:14:38.120,0:14:43.160 all of those three different views depending on  the context that you are investigating. But 0:14:43.160,0:14:47.920 the challenge we're still faced with here is again  coming to an agreement on how we would use those 0:14:47.920,0:14:53.680 different welfare indicators to arrive at that  safety rating of the animal's welfare. 0:14:53.680,0:14:58.320 And at the very least we know that we need to  use an integrated approach that attempts to 0:14:58.320,0:15:03.520 address all three of those views and the majority  of the time, all three views will be in alignment 0:15:03.520,0:15:08.360 and there won't be any conflict. It's a matter  of finding a balance when they aren't and that's 0:15:08.360,0:15:14.120 the biggest challenge that we're faced with. So  now that we've gone through some important 0:15:14.120,0:15:21.280 principles to help conceptualise how we would  assess welfare, it's I think worth starting to 0:15:21.280,0:15:26.880 talk about some examples of welfare indicators  and how we might use them together. So first 0:15:26.880,0:15:33.960 of all what exactly is a welfare indicator? It's  a unique assessment of either the animal or its 0:15:33.960,0:15:40.080 surrounding environment that provides any valuable  information, qualitative or quantitative, that may 0:15:40.080,0:15:46.240 eventually influence the animal's welfare state.  Now operational welfare indicators are a smaller 0:15:46.240,0:15:52.240 branch of that and those are just indicators that  are practical enough for any farmer to use or any 0:15:52.240,0:15:59.120 researcher to use on a routine basis without  coming at much of a cost. Now as we mentioned 0:15:59.120,0:16:04.120 before, the complex nature of welfare and all  of these different conflicting views and how 0:16:04.120,0:16:09.480 everything can be very context specific, species  specific, it necessitates us to use a combination 0:16:09.480,0:16:14.080 of these indicators. There is no such thing as a  golden indicator that will tell you everything 0:16:14.080,0:16:22.080 we need to know. And these indicators  especially might be quite system specific. 0:16:22.080,0:16:26.440 As some presentations earlier just now we're  talking about the importance of transportation 0:16:26.440,0:16:33.360 or those final moments leading up to slaughter or  harvest. The indicators could differ quite greatly 0:16:33.360,0:16:38.920 depending on what you're doing and the context  behind it. Context is always king for this. 0:16:38.920,0:16:44.560 So when determining what indicators to include  for an assessment, they should at the very least 0:16:44.560,0:16:49.520 fulfill the following theoretical and practical  requirements. The first one which we talked a bit 0:16:49.520,0:16:55.040 about already is that your list of O_W_I_s should  be exhaustive. And that means they must cover all 0:16:55.040,0:16:59.920 of those three different views. But on the other  hand, they should also be minimalist. So if you're using 0:16:59.920,0:17:06.200 an indicator, there's no point in adding another  indicator if it tells you something similar. And 0:17:06.200,0:17:11.520 in the same breath, these indicators must not  be reliant on one another. So how you interpret 0:17:11.520,0:17:17.920 one indicator cannot be influenced by the  interpretation of another one in your assessment. 0:17:17.920,0:17:23.320 And as a whole, these OWIs can be classified  in three different groups, and this will depend on 0:17:23.320,0:17:27.600 how directly they are seen to be measuring the  animal. And as you can see on the bottom here, 0:17:27.600,0:17:34.160 that is either an animal-based measure, a  environment-based measure, or a resource-based 0:17:34.160,0:17:40.920 measure. Now, this most obvious group and  class of welfare indicators that are called 0:17:40.920,0:17:47.320 animal-based welfare indicators. They are all  the indicators that involve observations directly 0:17:47.320,0:17:53.880 of the animal that, like I said, physiological,  morphological or behavioural. And for fish, 0:17:53.880,0:17:59.040 this can include anything  from deformities of the gill covers, the mouth, 0:17:59.040,0:18:04.840 or the vertebrae, the conditions of the  fins, skin, eyes, snout, jaw or operculum, 0:18:04.840,0:18:11.680 the scale loss, handling trauma, infestations or diseases,  and then of course behaviours which will of course 0:18:11.680,0:18:19.800 depend on the species that you're involved with. Then we have more of the indirect welfare 0:18:19.800,0:18:24.240 indicators or the environmental based welfare  indicators. And these are observations made on 0:18:24.240,0:18:29.600 the surrounding environment of the animal that can  have influence on the animal's welfare. So even 0:18:29.600,0:18:35.000 though these assessments actually have nothing  directly to do with the animals themselves, 0:18:35.000,0:18:41.880 they are equally important and a lot of the times have  a lot more of a factor in determining the animal's 0:18:41.880,0:18:48.480 welfare, because unlike these  previous indicators with the animal-based, they are 0:18:48.480,0:18:53.160 also called outcome-based because they've already  happened. So if there's been a compromised state 0:18:53.160,0:18:58.720 here that's been captured, it's already too late  in a sense. Whereas these are often regarded as 0:18:59.320,0:19:04.920 preventative measures, they're risk-based  preventative measures. And so 0:19:04.920,0:19:08.920 this can include anything from water  quality parameters, severity of blooms, 0:19:08.920,0:19:15.080 whether it's algae or any other microorganisms,  total suspended solids, turbidity, heavy metals, 0:19:15.080,0:19:22.280 any possible poisoning in the systems or  even lighting. Similar to environmental-based 0:19:22.280,0:19:28.720 are these resource-based indicators. And  resource-based indicators, otherwise known as 0:19:28.720,0:19:34.640 risk-based indicators, are again, not observations  made on the animals. These are observations that 0:19:34.640,0:19:42.360 are made on what might be posed risks posed or mitigated through husbandry practices or what 0:19:42.360,0:19:49.160 staff are doing or what equipment's available, or what the enclosures current conditions are at. 0:19:49.160,0:19:53.560 And in the same way and in the same sense with  what I said just now about the environmental-based 0:19:53.560,0:19:58.840 indicators, a lot of people tend to disregard  these classes because they're not involving 0:19:58.840,0:20:05.880 the animals directly. They are equally if not more  important in many situations because they are what 0:20:05.880,0:20:12.120 we can control by and large. And they are a lot of  the times, the indicators that if we can control 0:20:12.120,0:20:16.360 we don't even need to be concerned with  the the latter stages of the outcome-based 0:20:16.360,0:20:22.360 stages. And this can include anything  from staff training, fish handling, disease control, 0:20:22.360,0:20:27.720 proper record keeping, to equipment  maintenance, what what steps are included 0:20:27.720,0:20:33.040 during transportation to ensure that if something  goes wrong, that it gets dealt with very quickly, 0:20:33.040,0:20:38.880 and just basic treatment and handling  procedures as well. So and there's actually 0:20:38.880,0:20:42.200 what's worth mentioning is these two classes  when I keep interchanging between 0:20:42.200,0:20:48.160 environmental-based and risk-based, is that in  some cases they're the same. So stocking density, 0:20:48.160,0:20:53.200 enclosure maintenance, predation prevention  through nets, these all fall under either 0:20:53.200,0:20:58.760 category. So now that we have some examples  of these indicators, we should probably try to 0:20:58.760,0:21:04.560 figure out how we're going to choose which ones we  want to include in our assessments. Now deciding 0:21:04.560,0:21:09.280 on which welfare indicators or OWIs that you  want to include in your assessment or within your 0:21:09.280,0:21:13.960 research will depend entirely on the stage the  production stage that you're dealing with with 0:21:13.960,0:21:19.960 whatever species you have and the specific goals  that you have with your welfare assessments. So 0:21:19.960,0:21:24.480 is your assessment just the routine monitoring  of the animals to make sure that they're okay? 0:21:24.480,0:21:29.600 Are your assessment during intensive practice like  a crowding event or a grading event or treatment 0:21:29.600,0:21:35.440 event? Or is this something that a certification  scheme like GlobalGAP or ASC is doing when 0:21:35.440,0:21:41.760 they're carrying out an audit? Now each of the  OWIs, which I'll get to a bit more into later, 0:21:41.760,0:21:46.040 they have their own strengths and weaknesses  and those have to be acknowledged before you 0:21:46.040,0:21:52.840 use them. And you remember that every OWI will  only address certain aspects of welfare within 0:21:52.840,0:21:58.720 certain contexts. Of course the assessment still  needs to be practical enough to be carried out. 0:21:58.720,0:22:06.160 And so like I said before, the list cannot be  too exhaustive. So I'll 0:22:06.160,0:22:12.640 finish off here with just saying a final  remark on when you're choosing these 0:22:12.640,0:22:21.280 indicators. If you're trying to come up with a  welfare assessment that you have a score or 0:22:21.280,0:22:27.560 a percentage or a threshold for what you  might deem as acceptable or unacceptable, 0:22:27.560,0:22:31.040 a lot of the times it's unavoidable and it's a  requirement so that you can reach conclusions on 0:22:31.040,0:22:37.240 your projects. But it's important to remember that  the main bulk of what this presentation was about 0:22:37.240,0:22:43.040 was about these three different views between  what people value and what we see as important, 0:22:43.040,0:22:48.280 which is the physical health of the animal, the  feelings or whatever it might be experiencing, and 0:22:48.280,0:22:54.280 then the natural lives of these animals. And any  time that we reach a score that tries to reduce 0:22:54.280,0:22:59.720 all of your assessments down to a single parameter  or a single number, you inevitably are getting to 0:22:59.720,0:23:06.240 that point where you have to make a subjective  decision on what matters more. And the trick is 0:23:06.240,0:23:11.160 making sure that you do that in as much of a very  objective way as possible, minimising any bias and 0:23:11.160,0:23:17.800 try to find a balance when doing that. I  think that's pretty much it. Thank you very 0:23:17.800,0:23:28.440 much.