Displaying 601 - 610 of 2664
At present, there is limited (and in many cases no) integrated database that supports the registration and movement of managed and farmed Cervids and Camelids. The aims for this project are to understand the key industry structures and operations for Cervids and Camelids, including off-farm structures; to develop, with industry stakeholders, an identification, registration and movements system for these species; to collate and analyse representative data from the industry to model what a tracing system could look like; and lastly to run potential disease scenarios through these new data
To maintain and improve animal welfare despite the UK's EU Exit, we will analyse how lower welfare standards from importing countries could impact farm sustainability, provide evidence on welfare issues relating to relevant standards, inform welfare aspects of CAP replacement, and develop welfare assessment methods (informed by emerging international standards). A selection of topical case studies will be produced and guided by policy developments.
With the phase-out of remaining cages by 2025, we address welfare solutions for egg-laying hens housed in barns or free-range. We investigate breeding for duller beaks or diet changes to reduce feather pecking, develop evidence-based advice for producers to reduce keel-bone fractures, and investigate the feasibility of alternative house designs (e.g. verandas) to address welfare concerns when free range birds must be confined for biosecurity.
Changing human behaviour is central to achieve the highest possible standards of welfare. This project is addressing this by enhancing our understanding of behaviour, and by developing human behaviour change interventions to improve animal welfare.
Agricultural practice is plagued by intractable and challenging welfare issues, which are increasingly the focus of consumer attention and legislative restrictions, such as separation of mothers and offspring, use of painful procedures, chronic disease issues and the confinement of animals in limited space or with limited opportunities to express natural behaviour. This work seeks to resolve these chronic issues through adoption of new techniques, novel approaches and implementation of innovative technology.
Providing environmental enrichment (EE) aims to allow animals to gain positive experiences by engaging in and completing rewarding behaviours. However uncertainties exist surrounding EE use for farmed species including how to assess use of EE in practice and whether EE has other benefits such as promoting greater resilience including decreasing disease susceptibility. This project seeks to address these uncertainties. Engaging with stakeholders and using welfare assessment tools, such as qualitative behavioural assessment (an animal-centric welfare indicator) we are determining levels and
We are delivering a comprehensive body of research that integrates cutting-edge mapping, artificial intelligence, genomics, experimental, and modelling techniques to quantify the abundance, diversity, and spatiotemporal dynamics of key Scottish crop pests and pathogens, as well as the ecology of pest and pathogen-host-environment-management interactions and potential impacts of climate change.
The Tarland Burn Catchment (~70 km 2) has been studied since the year 2000 making it one of the longest running comprehensive catchment management case studies in the UK. Critically there has been core funding support through cycles of Scottish Government strategic research programmes in turn, enabling integration with UK and European projects. As, the uppermost tributary of the River Dee, (NE Scotland) and under intensive land management, the Tarland Catchment has several pressures associated with diffuse pollution, alteration of river morphology, flood risk and a rural community with a high
Biodiversity has never been under more pressure, with over a million species – around a quarter of the world’s mammals, one in seven birds and 40 percent of amphibians and plants – currently threatened with extinction. Land-use change, direct exploitation and climate change are the leading causes of what’s been dubbed the ‘sixth mass extinction event’ in the Earth’s history. This makes the upcoming fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (known more succinctly as COP15) a crucial meeting, at which a new Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework must
The global food system is thought to account for around one third of global greenhouse emissions which contribute to climate change. It is estimated that food production, which includes growing, transport and processing, contributes to 15-30% of total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the UK. In 2020 the UK imported 46% of the food consumed, specifically with 84% of fresh fruit and 46% vegetables being imported from outside the UK. This food system is environmentally unstainable and poses a threat to national food security. Furthermore, this unequitable food system creates damage at a societal