Funding will support studies of animal welfare
Prime Minister Paul Martin awarded U of G its 23rd prestigious Canada Research Chair earlier this month. Martin named Prof. Georgia Mason, Animal and Poultry Science, a Tier 2 chair in Food Animal Behaviour and Welfare during an event in Vancouver Nov. 12.
Tier 2 chairs are considered emerging leaders in their fields and receive $100,000 a year for five years. In all, Martin, along with Industry Minister David Emerson, who oversees the CRC program, announced 194 new chairs and $194 million in support from the CRC and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), which contributed more than $23 million to fund essential research infrastructure.
Mason, who came to U of G from the University of Oxford, says she is “excited and flattered” to be chosen as a CRC. Her research will focus on the welfare of animals kept by humans, such as food animals and wild animals in zoos. She hopes to learn more about animal consciousness and how they experience pleasure and pain.
“Worldwide, billions of animals are kept by humans for food, research and other functions — 190 million in Canada alone,” says Mason. “We need to assess and improve the welfare of these animals for ethical and legal reasons, and often for practical reasons, too.”
Her research plans include looking at why some animal behaviour patterns become abnormal in captivity, as well as how different species vary in their response to captive husbandry and what it reveals about the evolutionary function of behavioural needs, such as the need to forage for food even when food is provided.
She also intends to study how early life experience — particularly in the quality and quantity of maternal care — modifies an animal's long-term responses to challenges inherent in captivity.
“Prof. Mason's area of expertise is as much about human behaviour as it is about animal welfare,” says Prof. Alan Wildeman, vice-president (research). “Her research challenges all of us to think more about the enormous control that we have over the lives of so many animals. We are grateful for the CRC program because, without it, Prof. Mason would not have joined the University of Guelph.”
