Advances in Pig Welfare

Irene Camerlink Dr Irene Camerlink is a researcher in animal behaviour and welfare, with a focus on the social behaviour of pigs. She conducted her PhD at Wageningen University (Netherlands) and thereafter worked as postdoctoral researcher at SRUC (Edinburgh, UK) and Vetmeduni, Vienna (Austria) before taking a position as Associate Professor (Hab.) at the Institute of Genetics and Animal Biotechnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Poland. She has over 65 peer-reviewed publications and is Editor-in-chief of the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science. She is editor of the books 'Animal Welfare in Practice: Pigs' and ‘Bridging Research Disciplines to Advance Animal Welfare Science’. Throughout her career she has studied pig behaviour and welfare by combining multiple disciplines such as genetics, ethology, behavioural ecology and social sciences.

Part One: Pig Welfare Hotspots 1. Overview of commercial pig production systems and their main welfare challenges 2. Sow welfare in the farrowing crate and alternatives. 3. Piglet mortality and morbidity: inevitable or unacceptable? 4. Lifetime consequences of the early physical and social environment of piglets 5. Tail biting 6. Chains as proper enrichment for intensively-farmed pigs? 7. Mitigating hunger in pregnant sows 8. Aggression in group housed sows and fattening pigs 9. Transport of pigs to slaughter and associated handling  10. Slaughter of pigs Part Two: Pig Welfare Emerging Topics 11. Pain in pigs: Characterisation, mechanisms and indicators 12. On-farm and post-mortem health assessment 13. Pig-human interactions: Creating a positive perception of humans to ensure pig welfare 14. Breeding for pig welfare; opportunities and challenges 15. Positive welfare: What does it add to the debate over pig welfare  16. Pigs as laboratory animals