The Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare (CCSAW) was established in 1989 as a university wide centre. Its mission is to promote the welfare of animals through research and education. The centre has over forty Associated Faculty members, drawn from animal and veterinary sciences, humanities and social sciences. Areas of research include: Assessing and improving welfare of farm, laboratory, companion, zoo and wild animals; Investigating practical alternative housing systems for livestock and poultry that promote good welfare and are economically sustainable; Validating traditional and automated indicators of well-being in both the laboratory and in practical settings; Measuring states of pain, fear and distress during housing, transport and slaughter and developing ways to mitigate those states; Identifying risk factors associated with aspects of early experience, temperament and genotype that predispose animals to good or poor well-being; Conducting fundamental research into the motivational and neurobiological bases of abnormal behaviours and applying that research to alleviate these problems in practice.
The Behaviour and Welfare faculty members in Animal Biosciences are core CCSAW faculty who focus their teaching and research on animal welfare science.