Be more attentive to pigs.
With animal welfare in mind, European researchers have developed a tool to decode the feelings expressed by pigs through their various grunts.
Biologists from several countries have studied more than 7,000 recordings of 411 pigs, from the brief squeal of satisfaction at suckling to the desperate cries at slaughter.
All of these sounds have been categorized into 19 different categories.
"We show that it is possible to determine the emotions of pigs according to their vocalizations", summed up the project manager, Elodie Briefer.
A tool to help breeders?
A study on the subject was published in the journal
Nature
.
These results offer a new avenue for improving animal welfare.
“We also use a machine learning algorithm that produces a spectrogram and trains itself to recognize negative and positive contexts,” explains Elodie Briefer.
Once developed, this type of tool could allow breeders to ensure the well-being of their animals.
“If the percentage of negative sounds increases, then the farmer knows that something is probably wrong and can go and check the pigs,” explains the Danish researcher.
Short noises for positive emotions
For the Danish Board of Agriculture (where 13.2 million pigs are raised), the implications of the study are promising.
This tool could improve “the work of monitoring the health and well-being of pigs”, estimates Trine Vig, a spokeswoman for the Council.
According to the study, positive feelings are expressed in short sounds and negative thoughts are often expressed at length.
The researchers were interested in the pig (rather than the calf or the rabbit) because this animal is known for its various squeaks and noises and was therefore the perfect stallion.
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