• Question: what made you interested in animal welfare

    Asked by coxhc02 to Ben on 14 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Ben Brilot

      Ben Brilot answered on 14 Mar 2013:


      Actually it was a bit of an accident. I did my Ph.D. in animal behaviour, looking at how baby birds communicate with their parents when they’re asking for food. It was really interesting but I found it a bit unsatisfying, it felt a bit distant from the real world and like my work didn’t really make much of a difference to anything. After my Ph.D. I went and worked for a company that did field surveys for other companies: describing the plant and animal life of an area where people might want to change the land (build houses for example). When I decided I wanted to come back to science I was lucky enough to land a job with my current boss (who’s amazing). I was very, very lucky that the subject was one where you can apply animal behaviour (what I studied) to a really good cause: understanding the mental health of animals (how happy, depressed or anxious they might be) and trying to improve their welfare. As I got into things I started to realise how important the field of animal welfare science is and how varied it can be. It can be looking at very simple things like “does the size of an animal’s pen make a difference to the animal” to really complex things like “do animals have feelings, can they be depressed?”. So really it was a very happy accident because I love what I’m doing.

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