Equine Welfare Assessment

Dear Colleagues,

In the past, concerns relating to equine welfare have focused on working animals. However, more recently, the spotlight has been on the millions of equines kept worldwide for sporting and leisure purposes. The criteria on which equine welfare assessments are based have changed from being predominantly physical indicators of health and resource provision, to including signs indicative of equine positive and negative mental state. The search for validated approaches to assessing equine welfare has been precipitated by the increasing public scrutiny of equestrian sports, as well as the growing body of evidence that the needs of many equines (for friends, freedom, and forage) are currently not being fulfilled. A good quality of life can only be attained if, over time, positive experiences outweigh negative ones. One major challenge to improving equine quality of life is to identify signs on which assessments of equine mental state (both positive and negative) can be based, and how the interpretation of such signs may be context-specific. Only by devising and applying such measures can we move towards a better quality of life for all equines.  

We invite original research papers that address the methodological aspects of evaluating equine welfare, mental state and/or quality of life in general, or as applied to a specific context. They may include behavioural and/or physiological measures of mental state (arousal and valence) and/or quality of life per se, or focus on specific states such as fear, anxiety, and positive or negative anticipation. Additionally, we invite comparative assessments from across other species that may inform measures of equine welfare in future work.

Dr. Gemma Pearson
Dr. Carol Hall
Guest Editors

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