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T22: Animal Welfare Transect Walk/Participatory Welfare Needs Assessment
An adaptation of a traditional transect walk [48], this animal welfare transect walk can be used as part of a participatory animal welfare needs assessment of the welfare status of animals. It encourages participants to make direct observations of the animals themselves by looking at the animals, the resources in their environment and the owner’s, user’s, carer’s handling and management practices. This is a useful tool for exploring animal welfare conditions and the realities of resources available to animals within a community.
The findings from this exercise, coupled with analysis from the contributing root causes for any welfare problems (T21, T25 and/or T26) can be used to prepare animal welfare improvement plans for individual or groups of animals. It can also be used to monitor changes in animal welfare over time if conducted at different points in time, and recorded observations compared to assess change.
| Tool purpose: | Time needed: |
| • To identify which animals are in the best/worst condition and have the best/worst welfare. • To identify the most common animal welfare problems within the community • To understand which welfare issues owners, users, carers prioritize. • To inform community action planning and target capacity building activities to address community-identified priority welfare issues. • To identify which owners, users, carers may be good candidates to target as animal welfare champions in the community, when used in conjunction with the results from T1. Using these two tools together should identify individuals with the highest potential to be exemplary champions and potential mentors to others. | 5-10 minutes for each animal in the walk + 1 hour for discussion |
| Materials needed: | |
| Sheets of paper, pen, coloured markers (red, yellow, green) |
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase:
Planning Phase, Implementation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B):
Behaviour Change Diagnosis and Planning, Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change:
Pre-contemplation Stage, Contemplation Stage, Preparation Stage, Action Stage, Maintenance Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings, and Needs, Animal Husbandry and Management; Community Change Agentsnts / Resilience
Animal welfare transect walk
The animal welfare transect walk gives a more complete and detailed view of animal welfare because the animals are present for the group to examine, whereas the previous animal welfare mapping exercise (T1) or body mapping exercise (T20), only gives an overall ‘bird’s-eye’ view of the animal conditions in a community, as described by their owners without the animals present. In this way, the transect walk can strengthen or triangulate the information from these mapping exercises.
An animal-owning community carried out an animal welfare transect walk using a green, yellow, red traffic light system to score 25 animal welfare indicators that they had identified during their previous discussions and exercises, including 5 that directly relate to owner and carer behaviour (environmental factors). In this example, environmental factors were included because participants’ had a good understanding of animal welfare issues at the activity was carried out. However, it is also possible to modify this tool by using only animal condition indicators, which may be helpful in when participants have not yet gained a good understanding of factors contributing to good animal welfare.
Figure T22a Animal welfare transect walk recording sheet using traffic light signals
After the walk, the owners sat down together and analysed the score for each individual animal by summarizing the vertical columns on their recording sheet. In this example, Ahmad’s animal was found to be in the worst condition, with 11 red (‘bad’) and 2 amber (‘medium’) marks, followed by Walia’s animal which had 6 red and 2 amber welfare issues. After looking at all the individual animals, the group then summarized the horizontal rows to find out which welfare issues were most common in their village. Shelter cleanliness was the biggest issue in the community, with five of eight animals marked red. The group followed this exercise with a root cause analysis (consider using T25 andT26) and inserted the results in the community action plan for action by individual owners and collectively.
| Animal Welfare Transect Walk Using Traffic Light Signals | |
|---|---|
| Step 1 | Explain the purpose of the animal welfare transect walk to the group and involve all participants in the process of decision-making about which indicators of good and poor animal welfare are going to be observed. Create a safe learning environment at the start of this activity if this tool is being used as entry at Initiation phase to nurture positive motivation for further engagement. To facilitate discussion and identification of observable animal welfare indicators, consider referring to the outputs of one or more of the following tools if already conducted: • T17 ‘If I were an animal’ • T19 Animal feelings analysis • T20 Animal body mapping (generated list of animal welfare indictors) • T21 Animal welfare practice gap analysis Depending on participants’ understanding of animal welfare issues at the time this activity is carried out, it may be appropriate to focus only on indicators of animal body condition and consider adding indicators related to environmental/owner practices as the tool is used repeatedly and community participants’ understanding of animal welfare improves. Alternatively, as the facilitator, you have an important role here: to check that the list represents all aspects of animal welfare as sometimes we find that the owners’ checklist only contains signs of physical welfare. If you notice this, it may be helpful to ask probing questions to encourage them to think about observable indicators of their animals’ welfare in terms of the five domains of animal welfare (e.g. nutrition, health, environment, behaviour, and mental state). After the group has finalized their list, sit together with them and check whether all aspects of welfare are covered. Discuss the agreed animal welfare indicators thoroughly with all members of the group as well as the animal owners and carers from each household visited and agree a score for each one. |
| Step 2 | Once the group has decided which observations to make, agree how the observations and discussions will be captured or recorded and who will take responsibility for this. Ask the community to decide what symbols will be used to record the result of each observation. Examples include: • Traffic light signals: good/best animal condition shown with green dot, moderate issues with animal condition with amber/yellow dot, worst condition with a red dot. Sometimes just red and green are used. • A tick/check mark might be used for good and a cross for bad. • Instead of a traffic light system, numerical scores might be assigned. For example: Red/cross = 0, Yellow/amber = 1, Green/tick/check = 2. If only red/green are used, then Red = 0 and Green = 1. |
| Step 3 | Decide whose animals will be visited and the route of the transect walk. Fix a time when the group will go on the walk. It is essential that the owner and family of each animal visited are present when the group is visiting his or her animal and the surroundings. |
| Step 4 | The community group should walk the route together, visiting all the households where animals are kept and the surrounding areas to look at each animal carefully. The group will often wish to make additions and alterations to the agreed observations. Any animal welfare issues which have emerged from other tools and exercises may also be discussed with the group during the walk. |
| Step 5 | After returning from the walk, ask the group to summarize and analyse their record sheets: • Have the participants add up the scores or numbers of red, yellow/amber, and green dots vertically to give a summary of the welfare problems of the animals. This can be used by the group to formulate individual action plans for owners. • Adding up the scores or dots horizontally will give a score for the whole community or group for that welfare parameter and add identified welfare issues to the “issues” column of the Community Action Plan. • Come to a consensus on the animal welfare successes and problems and discuss possible contributing factors. Discussion questions might include: - What welfare indicators are most in need of improvement and which are best performing? What are the reasons? - Why did some participants score higher than others? What are they doing differently than others who had lower scores? - What are the implications of these welfare issues on their animals’ physical and mental state, and on the lives of different household members? For example, do these welfare issues impact women, men, boys, or girls differently? - What could feasibly be done to improve their animals’ current welfare situation and replicate successes? Record any identified ‘actions to be taken’ in the relevant column of the community action plan and have participants agree on a frequency to animal welfare transect walk activity to monitor progress (monthly, quarterly, etc.). |
Facilitation Notes
- If there are large numbers of animals, carry out the same exercise over several days so that all animals or a representative number of animals and households are covered.
- This exercise can take considerable time, so discuss this in advance with the group and agree a suitable time to set aside for doing it.
- If this exercise is planned to be undertaken in the project initiation phase or to support rapport building, it is imperative to create a safe and learning environment and build understanding about why scoring is part of the exercise.
- It is helpful for participants to have a general understanding of animal welfare and related animal husbandry and management best practices prior to conducting this exercise. Consider conducting the following activities to raise awareness of animal welfare, feelings and needs, and help inform the identification of animal welfare related indicators to use during the transect walk:
- T17 ‘If I were an animal’: raises awareness of what animals’ need and how they depend on people experience positive welfare states
- T18 Thriving not surviving: promotes understanding of the five domains of animal welfare
- T19 Animal feelings analysis: helps promote understanding of animal feelings and related physical expressions and behaviours indicative of those feelings.
- T20 Animal body mapping: helps identify animal-based indicators of welfare status which can be used in the transect walk, and can serve as a useful sensitization exercise improve understanding of indicators of good and bad animal welfare.
- Decide with the community in advance whose animals will be visited and the route of the transect walk. Fix a time when the group will go on the walk. It is essential that the owner and family of each animal visited are present when the group is visiting his or her animal and surroundings.
- Animal welfare transect walks may be repeated at regular intervals and the results compared with previous walks. This enables participants to monitor and evaluate changes in the welfare status of individual animals, and changes management practices and availability of animal-related resources.
Next Steps
- Once the participatory animal welfare needs assessment is complete, you can prioritize issues to address using one of the following tools:
- Alternatively or in addition, you can explore the causes and effects of welfare issues by following the transect walk up with one of the following activities