A Systems Approach to Wild Animal Welfare
Institute Seminar by Becca Franks
- Date: Oct 31, 2023
- Time: 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM (Local Time Germany)
- Speaker: Becca Franks
- Becca Franks is Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at New York University. After earning a BA in Anthropology from New York University and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Columbia University, she was a Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Animal Welfare Program at the University of British Columbia, where she was awarded the Killam Research Prize. Specializing in animal behavior, human-animal relationships, aquatic animal welfare, and quantitative methods, her research and teaching lie at the intersection of environmental and animal protection. The core question driving her work is: How can we advance our understanding of animals to address the urgent demands of the Anthropocene?
- Host: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior
- Contact: zgoldsborough@ab.mpg.de
Wild animals face mounting threats from a variety of human-driven crises: climate extremes, habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, and pollution. While conservation biology has a strong track record of protecting animal populations and species, individual animal welfare is generally understood to be outside the scope of its historical mandate. In this talk, I will discuss the newly emerging field of wild animal welfare, focusing on some of the work my collaborators and I have conducted, including projects ranging from (i) estimating the welfare implications of shark tourism in the US to (ii) international efforts to bring animal voices into decision-making spaces.
The MPI-AB Seminar Series is open to members of MPI and Uni Konstanz. The zoom link is published each week in the MPI-AB newsletter.