Animal Welfare Science, Ethics & Law [MSc]

The programme provides a strong grounding in scientific writing and communication, statistical analysis, and experimental design. It is designed for flexibility, to enable you to customise a portfolio of courses suited to your particular interests.

You can choose from a range of specialised options that encompass key skills in:

• Ethics, legislative policy and welfare science – critical for promoting humane treatment of both captive and wild animals.
• Monitoring and assessing biodiversity – critical for understanding the impacts of environmental change
• Quantitative analyses of ecological and epidemiological data – critical for animal health and conservation.

• Key research skills: Scientific communication; Introduction to R; Advanced linear models; Experimental design and power analysis
• Animal ethics
• Animal welfare science
• Legislation related to animal welfare
• Independent research project.

• Enrichment of animals in captive environments
• Care of captive animals
• Biology of suffering
• Assessment of physiological state
• Freshwater sampling techniques
• Marine sampling techniques
• Invertebrate identification
• Vertebrate identification
• Molecular analyses for DNA barcoding and biodiversity measurement
• Phyloinformatics
• Conservation genetics and phylodynamics
• Infectious disease ecology and the dynamics of emerging disease
• Single-species population models
• Multi-species models
• Spatial processes
• Introduction to Bayesian statistics.

Animal Welfare is a very broad and applied field and the programme aims to provide coverage of all the different aspects of the topic which are often treated separately. Science is an essential skill in order to have a good understanding of welfare but we appreciate that applicants may come from diverse backgrounds and therefore the course includes a rigorous training in science communication, experimental design, data analysis and interpretation. The programme also includes teaching by practitioners and visits to organisations with first-hand experience of applied welfare problems. The programme also attempts to cover the entire spectrum of animal welfare, including zoos, farms, laboratory animals and wildlife.