How farmed and wild animal welfare researchers can work together

Wild and farmed animals remain closely connected through shared genetic ancestry.

November 22, 2022

Wild animals and farmed animals share much in common. All farmed animals have wild origins, and despite many centuries of artificial selection, these species remain closely connected.

The Humane League is one of three Animal Charity Evaluators Top Charities (the others are Wild Animal Initiative and Faunalytics) that takes an evidence-based approach to helping farmed animals, putting pressure on corporations to reduce harmful practices and enact animal welfare policies. Though their ultimate mission is to end farmed animal suffering, they also pursue interventions that reduce the amount of suffering a farmed animal experiences in their lifetime. 

We’ve partnered with The Humane League to explore three areas where farmed animal welfare science and wild animal welfare research overlap. Scientists who study wild animal welfare can draw from decades of farmed animal welfare science, and as research on wild animal welfare grows, it can inform farmed animal welfare science.

Using wild animal behavior to understand farmed animal welfare

The Humane League’s goal is to end the abuse of animals raised for food, and as part of that work, they challenge companies to improve conditions for farmed animals. To do this, researchers need to know what interventions work, and one approach involves studying the welfare of their wild counterparts. 

For many wild species, there’s little information about their day-to-day challenges or typical behaviors. Understanding the experiences of wild animals could help scientists better assess potential interventions.

Temple Grandin, an animal behaviorist and early proponent of more humane treatment for farmed animals, employs an understanding of wild animal behavior in her assessments of farmed animal welfare. Drawing on her understanding of herding instincts in wild cattle, she found that domesticated cows experience increased stress when separated from other cows. Chickens prefer private nest boxes, Grandin says, possibly because wild chickens hide their nests on the ground.  

Understanding the preferences and behaviors of wild animals can inform management that improves the welfare of farmed animals. Though performing natural behaviors doesn’t necessarily equate to positive welfare, understanding these behaviors can offer valuable insights. The Humane League points to a 2018 review that contrasts wild red junglefowl with domestic chickens. Behaviors that negatively impact quality of life seen in captive domestic chickens, such as feather pecking and cannibalism, are likely explained by the crowded conditions of industrialized settings, given that wild junglefowl live in small groups of mixed sexes. 

This recent paper on social behavior on farmed animals discusses the “evolutionary legacy” that farmed animals carry and that can influence their behavior. Social behaviors that benefited farmed animals’ ancestors, the authors point out, could negatively impact their welfare in captivity. “Understanding the evolutionary origins and ontogeny of behavior, and how behavior is altered or constrained by the farm environment, is therefore central to improving welfare,” the authors write. 

Testing innovative methods to measure and monitor welfare

Measuring and monitoring welfare is an enormous challenge for welfare biologists and farmed animal welfare scientists alike. To study the positive and negative experiences of animals, researchers rely on a wide variety of methods, from observing behavior and collecting hormone samples to assessing body condition and vital signs with tracking devices. Any new and minimally invasive ways to gather this data could help both welfare-related fields.

For example, this 2019 review discusses how researchers might use vocalizations to measure welfare in wild and farmed animals. Animal calls, such as cries or chirps, can provide clues about an animal’s emotional state. Advances in automated bioacoustics have made this approach possible and could be adapted for wild or farmed animals. 

A 2016 article discusses how bird-mounted sensors, routinely used to study wild birds, could inform studies of farmed chickens. In the other direction, farmed animal studies provide certain advantages over wild animal studies — it’s often easier to eliminate variables and take repeated measurements in captivity. Researchers can use what they observe in captive settings to guide studies in the wild. 

Vaccines can protect farmed and wild animals alike.

Exploring interventions that address disease

All animals can suffer from disease. The 2022 avian flu pandemic has led commercial farms to slaughter millions of turkeys and chickens, with documented spread among wild bird populations, as well. Interventions like vaccines stand to benefit both wild and farmed animals, and international stakeholders met in October 2022 to discuss the use of an avian flu vaccine to mitigate the harmful impacts of this disease. 

As The Humane League points out, factory farm conditions present significant risk for disease emergence, which in turn can spread to people and wild animals. Disease transmission between wild and farmed animals isn’t new and can flow in both directions. However, unless we switch to a plant-based food system, disease transmission is likely to increase in the coming years as the number of farmed animals on the planet is projected to grow to meet future food demands. This will create even more opportunities for emerging diseases to infect large numbers of individuals. 

Even if wild birds don’t receive vaccines, eradicating diseases in farmed animals could remove disease reservoirs, preventing infection in wild birds via that pathway.