UFAW 2024 conference stats

last updated: 2024-07-21 by Amanda Matthes

goal

I was interested in analysing what types of animals were represented at the UFAW animal welfare conference 2024 in Porto. This repo includes both the raw data and the code used for this analysis.

repo structure

• the data folder includes the data used
  • talks.csv list all the talks
  • posters.csv list all the posters
• analysis.py includes all the code used to produce the figures
• the output folder includes all the generated figures

notes on data collection

• the talks and posters were taken from the official programme, archived here: https://web.archive.org/web/20240704133721/https://www.ufaw.org.uk/downloads/ufaw-2024-prog-book-final.pdf
• I do not distinguish between full length (20 min) talks, key notes (40 min), and short talks (5 min)
• potentially controversial talk classifications
  • I classified the talk on "Serendipity, sentience, and science: do crustaceans feel pain?" as being about farmed animals - the talk explicitly mentions the food industry but never refers to wild crustaceans
  • I classified "Zoophilia and animal welfare in Europe: Legal challenges and welfare concerns" as being about companion animals - they are the most commonly affected
  • I classified "What do we owe feral animals?" as being about wild animals instead of starting a category for feral animals
  • I gave "Open science for animal welfare and applied ethology" the label "none" as the talk was about open science for the entire field and did not focus on any particular group of animals
• potentially controversial poster classifications
  • "An assessment of behavioural and physiological indicators of arousal in captive species" includes data on farmed, working and companion animals, so I gave it the label "mixed"
  • "A retrospective study of the suspensory ligament and flexor tendon" is about dancing horses which I classified as being about working animals
  • "Enhancing diabetes mellitus research through the application of the 3Rs principles" included work on diabetic pets, but most work was done on laboratory animals, so I gave it the label "labs"
  • "Cinereous vulture’s (Aegypius monachus) welfare in a breeding centre: Activity budget, behaviour analysis and use of space" was about captive vultures, specifically bred for release into the wile - I classified it as being about zoo animals
  • "Locomotion and mobility assessment for brown bears (Ursus arctos) under human care" was about bears in a sanctuary which I classified as a zoo
  • Similarly, "Investigating behaviour and faecal cortisol metabolite levels in harbour (phoca vitulina) and grey seals (halichoerus grypus) in rehabilitation" was about seals in a rehabilitation centre which I classified as a zoo

results

Here is how different types of animals were represented in the talks

and in here is the same data for the posters