Evaluating Potential Cetacean Welfare Indicators from Video of Live Stranded Long-Finned Pilot Whales (Globicephala melas edwardii).

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 l

SUBMITTER: Boys RM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9312325 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature