Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment
There is a growing scientific and legislative consensus that fish are sentient, and therefore have the capacity to experience pain and suffering. The assessment of the welfare of farmed fish is challenging due to the aquatic environment and the number of animals housed together. However, with increa...
Published in: | Frontiers in Veterinary Science |
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Main Authors: | , , , , |
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Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
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Frontiers Media
2021
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Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1893/33249 https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/33249/1/fvets-08-702783.pdf |
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ftunivstirling:oai:dspace.stir.ac.uk:1893/33249 |
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record_format |
openpolar |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
University of Stirling: Stirling Digital Research Repository |
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ftunivstirling |
language |
English |
topic |
Qualitative behavioural assessment fish Salmon Aquaculture welfare |
spellingShingle |
Qualitative behavioural assessment fish Salmon Aquaculture welfare Jarvis, Susan Ellis, Maureen A Turnbull, James Rey Planellas, Sonia Wemelsfelder, Francoise Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment |
topic_facet |
Qualitative behavioural assessment fish Salmon Aquaculture welfare |
description |
There is a growing scientific and legislative consensus that fish are sentient, and therefore have the capacity to experience pain and suffering. The assessment of the welfare of farmed fish is challenging due to the aquatic environment and the number of animals housed together. However, with increasing global production and intensification of aquaculture comes greater impetus for developing effective tools which are suitable for the aquatic environment to assess the emotional experience and welfare of farmed fish. This study therefore aimed to investigate the use of Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA), originally developed for terrestrial farmed animals, in farmed salmon and evaluate its potential for use as a welfare monitoring tool. QBA is a ‘whole animal’ approach based on the description and quantification of the expressive qualities of an animal’s dynamic style of behaving, using descriptors such as relaxed, agitated, lethargic, or confident. A list of twenty qualitative descriptors was generated by fish farmers after viewing video-footage showing behaviour expressions representative of the full repertoire of salmon in this context. A separate, non-experienced group of ten observers subsequently watched twenty-five video clips of farmed salmon, and scored the twenty descriptors for each clip using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). To assess intra-observer reliability each observer viewed the same twenty-five video clips twice, in two sessions 10 days apart, with the second clip set presented in different order. The observers were unaware that the two sets of video clips were identical. Data were analysed using Principal Component (PC) Analysis (correlation matrix, no rotation), revealing four dimensions that together explained 79% of the variation between video clips, with PC1 (tense/anxious/skittish – calm/mellow/relaxed) explaining the greatest percentage of variation (56%). PC1 was the only dimension to show acceptable inter- and intra-observer reliability, and mean PC1 scores correlated significantly ... |
author2 |
Scotland's Rural College University of Edinburgh Institute of Aquaculture Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) orcid:0000-0002-3939-3230 orcid:0000-0003-0741-9747 orcid:0000-0002-3406-3291 |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jarvis, Susan Ellis, Maureen A Turnbull, James Rey Planellas, Sonia Wemelsfelder, Francoise |
author_facet |
Jarvis, Susan Ellis, Maureen A Turnbull, James Rey Planellas, Sonia Wemelsfelder, Francoise |
author_sort |
Jarvis, Susan |
title |
Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment |
title_short |
Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment |
title_full |
Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment |
title_fullStr |
Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment |
title_full_unstemmed |
Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment |
title_sort |
qualitative behavioral assessment in juvenile farmed atlantic salmon (salmo salar): potential for on-farm welfare assessment |
publisher |
Frontiers Media |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/1893/33249 https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/33249/1/fvets-08-702783.pdf |
genre |
Atlantic salmon Salmo salar |
genre_facet |
Atlantic salmon Salmo salar |
op_relation |
Jarvis S, Ellis MA, Turnbull J, Rey Planellas S & Wemelsfelder F (2021) Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8, Art. No.: 702783. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 702783 http://hdl.handle.net/1893/33249 doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 34557541 WOS:000703243200001 2-s2.0-85115416161 1747336 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/33249/1/fvets-08-702783.pdf |
op_rights |
© 2021 Jarvis, Ellis, Turnbull, Rey Planellas and Wemelsfelder. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 |
container_title |
Frontiers in Veterinary Science |
container_volume |
8 |
_version_ |
1766363460435705856 |
spelling |
ftunivstirling:oai:dspace.stir.ac.uk:1893/33249 2023-05-15T15:32:59+02:00 Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment Jarvis, Susan Ellis, Maureen A Turnbull, James Rey Planellas, Sonia Wemelsfelder, Francoise Scotland's Rural College University of Edinburgh Institute of Aquaculture Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) orcid:0000-0002-3939-3230 orcid:0000-0003-0741-9747 orcid:0000-0002-3406-3291 2021 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/1893/33249 https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/33249/1/fvets-08-702783.pdf en eng Frontiers Media Jarvis S, Ellis MA, Turnbull J, Rey Planellas S & Wemelsfelder F (2021) Qualitative Behavioral Assessment in Juvenile Farmed Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar): Potential for On-Farm Welfare Assessment. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8, Art. No.: 702783. https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 702783 http://hdl.handle.net/1893/33249 doi:10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 34557541 WOS:000703243200001 2-s2.0-85115416161 1747336 http://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/33249/1/fvets-08-702783.pdf © 2021 Jarvis, Ellis, Turnbull, Rey Planellas and Wemelsfelder. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ CC-BY Qualitative behavioural assessment fish Salmon Aquaculture welfare Journal Article VoR - Version of Record 2021 ftunivstirling https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.702783 2022-06-13T18:42:05Z There is a growing scientific and legislative consensus that fish are sentient, and therefore have the capacity to experience pain and suffering. The assessment of the welfare of farmed fish is challenging due to the aquatic environment and the number of animals housed together. However, with increasing global production and intensification of aquaculture comes greater impetus for developing effective tools which are suitable for the aquatic environment to assess the emotional experience and welfare of farmed fish. This study therefore aimed to investigate the use of Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA), originally developed for terrestrial farmed animals, in farmed salmon and evaluate its potential for use as a welfare monitoring tool. QBA is a ‘whole animal’ approach based on the description and quantification of the expressive qualities of an animal’s dynamic style of behaving, using descriptors such as relaxed, agitated, lethargic, or confident. A list of twenty qualitative descriptors was generated by fish farmers after viewing video-footage showing behaviour expressions representative of the full repertoire of salmon in this context. A separate, non-experienced group of ten observers subsequently watched twenty-five video clips of farmed salmon, and scored the twenty descriptors for each clip using a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS). To assess intra-observer reliability each observer viewed the same twenty-five video clips twice, in two sessions 10 days apart, with the second clip set presented in different order. The observers were unaware that the two sets of video clips were identical. Data were analysed using Principal Component (PC) Analysis (correlation matrix, no rotation), revealing four dimensions that together explained 79% of the variation between video clips, with PC1 (tense/anxious/skittish – calm/mellow/relaxed) explaining the greatest percentage of variation (56%). PC1 was the only dimension to show acceptable inter- and intra-observer reliability, and mean PC1 scores correlated significantly ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Atlantic salmon Salmo salar University of Stirling: Stirling Digital Research Repository Frontiers in Veterinary Science 8 |