On
her last visit to Europe as the JMICAWE Centre Director, Prof Nat was asked to
present on 'Is it possible for Horses to be Happy Athletes'? alongside
equitation science colleague Dr Katalijner Visser, who talked about welfare
assessment protocol development for horses transported long distances for
slaughter.
The
afternoon seminar was well attended by staff and students at the Swedish
Agricultural University who had turned out to see the external experts
establish their credibility in equine welfare prior to Sofie Viksten's
successful PhD defence.
Under
the Swedish system, as the 'opponent' it was Nat's task to question Sofie
about her work in order for the assessment panel to decide if she was worthy of
her PhD. The thesis described a horse welfare assessment system Sofie had developed
and tested for use in the Swedish Equine Industry, and the impact that the
results of her assessments had on the attitudes and behaviours of the horse
owners given feedback. Interestingly she found that horse owners, despite being
provided with a large amount of individual feedback, were not particularly
open to change and welfare improvements were minimal. There's clearly a lot to
be understood about human behaviour change if we are to improve animal welfare,
and this is something Sofie plans to develop further now that her PhD studies
are behind her.
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