Free information and resources regarding the welfare of non-human animals.
I am sure you have sometimes wondered about an animal’s experiences and how an animal is responding to its environment, particularly if it is new to them. Maybe you’ve considered whether the animal is happy or sad, satisfied or dissatisfied, content or miserable. We call that the animals’ welfare, or wellbeing.
This website is designed to help you make up your mind about whether an animal’s welfare is good, reasonable or bad.
My name is Clive Phillips.
I have spent most of my life studying animals’ welfare, initially animals in livestock production systems in Europe and Australia. My early work focused on grazing systems for cattle and sheep, which taught me that access to pasture was important for these animals’ welfare.
I also studied the effects of different nutrient and toxic elements in the environment on the welfare of sheep, with a focus on the dangers of heavy metal contamination of farming land.
Throughout my career, but particularly in the last 20 years, my studies have related mostly to the welfare of farmed animals, zoo animals, racehorses and companion animals. I have also been involved in improving the welfare of captive bred native animals that are endangered in Australia. It’s been a fascinating journey, and I’m grateful to all the animals that have been involved in my studies and to all my team members who have so passionately and skillfully studied the welfare of those animals.
The knowledge gained should help to achieve better welfare conditions for animals, at a time when the pressures to get animals to produce more from fewer resources (especially less land, feed and space in buildings) has never been greater.
These topics and more were investigated through the Centre of Animal Welfare and Ethics, which I established in 2005, following my assuming the position of the first (Foundation) professor of animal welfare in Australia at the University of Queensland in 2003.
