About this Research Topic
Animal welfare research has significantly evolved over the years. Currently, there is a comprehensive body of work regarding pet species and farm animals; however, exotic and wildlife species still remain under-researched.
Despite the advancements, significant gaps persist within this domain, such as effective methods for measuring positive welfare and synthesizing diverse emotional and experiential states across an animal's lifespan. The recent introduction of new technologies offers promising avenues for collecting more reliable welfare data, yet the validation of these tools remains scant.
This Research Topic aims to amass a wealth of reviews and original research papers on animal welfare concerning a broad spectrum of species, from pets to wildlife and everything in between.
We are particularly interested in synthesizing the expansive literature to delineate the well-examined areas of animal welfare and spotlight the neglected ones. The ultimate goal is to map out the distribution of scientific focus within the field and uncover underrepresented topics that require further investigation.
We invite contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:
• Methodologies for measuring positive welfare
• Comparative welfare assessments across different species
• Technological innovations in welfare monitoring
• Validation of animal welfare assessment tools
• Longitudinal studies on animal welfare
Keywords: Animal Welfare, Exotic and Wildlife Species, Positive Welfare Measurement, Emotional and Experiential States, New Technologies, Welfare Monitoring
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.