Ep35 Mike Mendl on animal emotions, welfare and cognition

Dr Mendl is a professor of animal behaviour and welfare at the Bristol Veterinary School, University of Bristol. His research focuses on cognition, emotion, development, individuality and social behaviour in domestic animals. 

Mike starts by introducing his background and giving some alternative options to start in the research field of animal behaviour and welfare aside from doing a PhD, postdoc, or fellowship. He then dives into the background of how he is working together with his collaborators studying emotions, welfare and cognition in animals. He presents the methods used to understand what animals are experiencing, and cognitive bias as an indicator of animal emotion and welfare.

Mike talks about his multiple research studies with different species of domestic animals, rats, and even bees, and the challenges of knowing whether emotion and affective states are consciously experienced in other species. Mike shares his results of a study of lateralized behaviour as an indicator of affective states in dairy cows, with the animals in a negative state predicted to be more likely to process novel or unexpected information using the right hemisphere of their brain. This leads Sabrina and Mike to discuss the concept of novelty and environmental enrichment, training with enrichment devices, rewards, and how this might also affect the right hemisphere activity in the brain. 

Mike shares his work studying 'trap and release' effects on the small pig-like animal, the peccary, which is considered a pest animal in Brazil. Using a cognitive bias approach, the aim of this work was to understand the welfare implications and potential negative effects caused by trapping and release on the animals. 

Finally, Mikes discusses his work in understanding how animals live in the present, how their memories may work and how they may plan for the future. He shares how knowing more about this “mental time travel” in animals can have a lot of beneficial captive management implications. 

Find out more about studying Animal Welfare and Behaviour at the University of Bristol

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