UBC Animal Welfare Program

UBC Animal Welfare Program Our Mission: To improve the lives of animals through research, education and outreach. Part of the Faculty of Land and Food Systems at UBC.

In its first decade, the Animal Welfare Program has become one of the largest and most respected animal welfare science centres globally and its research has led to improvements in the lives of animals in British Columbia and around the world.

AWP members Isaac Qi and Sky Sheng recently travelled to Beijing to participate in a two-week program at China Agricultu...
08/23/2026

AWP members Isaac Qi and Sky Sheng recently travelled to Beijing to participate in a two-week program at China Agricultural University (CAU) on Artificial Intelligence-Empowered Animal Welfare.

Hosted by Professor Wu Zhonghong, who recently visited AWP as part of the UBC Animal Welfare Visiting Scholars Initiative, and Assistant Professor Shu Hang, the program provided opportunities for cultural exchange and discussion on how precision livestock technologies and artificial intelligence can support animal welfare within the Chinese context. Professor Lu Luo, who also visited AWP alongside Professor Wu, delivered the program’s opening lecture.

We are grateful to our colleagues at CAU for their generous welcome and look forward to welcoming Assistant Professor Shu Hang to AWP in January!

🎉 Our paper is out in Technology in Society! "Silencing controversial realities through prompt revision: The erasure of ...
07/28/2026

🎉 Our paper is out in Technology in Society!

"Silencing controversial realities through prompt revision: The erasure of intensive livestock farming in text-to-image generative AI”, from Sky (Kehan) Sheng, Frank Tuyttens, and Marina A.G. von Keyserlingk.

For those of you who were at ACM FAccT 2025 in Greece, you have already heard from Sky talking non-stop about this work, specifically that the prompt revision process could erase controversial topics like intensive livestock farming. Prompt revision and the system prompt governing the process are a highly overlooked internal process in AI eval.

📄 Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techsoc.2026.103466

Note: this work was accepted and presented at ACM FAccT 2025. At that time, we opted to make public a non-archival version there; given that journal publication is the standard venue for dissemination in our field, this peer-reviewed publication represents the final version of our work.

Over 100 attendees joined UBC AWP for the 2026 Canine Science Conference in Vancouver! Researchers and practitioners fro...
06/17/2026

Over 100 attendees joined UBC AWP for the 2026 Canine Science Conference in Vancouver!

Researchers and practitioners from eight countries shared insights on dog welfare, behaviour, health, evolution, and human–dog relationships. The conference also featured a special public event celebrating the Coast Salish Woolly Dog through storytelling, film, and discussion with authors, knowledge holders, and researchers. Thank you to all of the speakers, panelists, volunteers, and attendees who made this event possible!

Read more about the 2026 CSC here: https://awp.landfood.ubc.ca/2026/06/14/ubc-awp-hosts-the-2026-canine-science-conference/

Congratulations to AWP Postdoc Dr. Lexis Ly for winning the People's Choice Award for her presentation at the 2026 Canin...
06/15/2026

Congratulations to AWP Postdoc Dr. Lexis Ly for winning the People's Choice Award for her presentation at the 2026 Canine Science Conference! Lexis shared her research about dog data collection in animal shelters.

🎉 Huge congratulations to (Kehan) Sheng for taking second place in the Three Minute Thesis competition during the Respo...
05/28/2026

🎉 Huge congratulations to (Kehan) Sheng for taking second place in the Three Minute Thesis competition during the Responsible AI Track at the 2026 Canadian AI Conference (Vancouver, BC)!
Sky presented work from her PhD thesis exploring how generative AI shapes our perception of livestock farming. What makes this research particularly striking is that the AI model itself is aware of the modern realities of intensive livestock farming, but the prompt revision process erased them from the generated images in favour of more agrarian images.
Congratulations, Sky! We look forward to seeing where your research goes next. 🎊

Here is the link to Sky's paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.19771

05/28/2026

Join the Canine Science Society and the UBC AWP at a special event, "The Woolly Dog: An Evening of Story, Film, and Coast Salish Knowledge," to explore the history, science, and cultural significance of the Coast Salish Woolly Dog.

As part of the 2026 Canine Science Conference, taking place at UBC Robson Square, this evening event includes an author and book presentation, documentary screening, and panel discussion.

🗓️ Thursday, June 4th, 2026 @ 7:00-9:00 pm (PT)
📍 UBC Robson Square, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
🎟️ Tickets available for purchase (non-conference attendees) here: https://www.caninesciencesociety.org/event-details/the-woolly-dog-an-evening-of-story-film-and-coast-salish-knowledge

Recently, David Fraser met with Barry Hughes in Edinburgh, where they had been colleagues in the early 1970s. At that ti...
05/25/2026

Recently, David Fraser met with Barry Hughes in Edinburgh, where they had been colleagues in the early 1970s. At that time, Barry was starting a distinguished career doing some of the earliest research on the welfare of poultry. His first work demonstrated nutrient-specific appetites in chickens and proposed the use of preference-testing as a method to identify better alternatives in animal housing.

New publication from the AWP! In an invited Animal Behaviour and Welfare case study, PhD student Maya Bodnar and colleag...
05/19/2026

New publication from the AWP!
In an invited Animal Behaviour and Welfare case study, PhD student Maya Bodnar and colleagues outline their application of the "drop method" for laboratory mouse isoflurane anesthesia, and discuss the practical and animal welfare considerations associated with this approach. This method can be used as an effective and humane alternative for anesthesia before euthanasia in facilities lacking access to vaporizers. This case study provides guidance on various aspects of implementation, including induction chamber design, dosing calculations, and animal monitoring.

Read the article here: https://www.cabidigitallibrary.org/doi/10.1079/abwcases.2026.0010.

New research from the Animal Welfare Program at UBC explores: Automatic milking systems (AMS) - how much freedom do cows...
04/28/2026

New research from the Animal Welfare Program at UBC explores: Automatic milking systems (AMS) - how much freedom do cows have to choose when they are milked?
In this invited review article published in the Journal of Dairy Science, post doctoral researcher Sarah Kappel and colleagues from the UBC Animal Welfare Program explore cows’ opportunity for agency in AMS. The review highlights that “voluntary” milking still requires cows to be milked at regular intervals, typically incentivized through rewards such as feed. How much control cows have over the milking process is further limited by the factors associated with system design and individual characteristics of the cow.
Read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.2025-27863

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