Improving the lives of people through improving the welfare of their working equids.

对于世界上许多最贫困的人来说，超过1亿只工作马匹为生计、获得医疗保健、教育和基本必需品提供了重要支持。日常生活中对工作马匹的依赖使它们成为人们最重要的牲畜，对妇女来说尤其有价值。尽管如此，工作马匹的福利标准往往很低，热暴露和昆虫的挑战被认为是工作马匹面临的两个最大问题。改善工作马的福利将提高马的生产力，并凭借工作马和它们的主人之间的相互依赖关系，将为主人提供社会，经济和福利利益。这个多学科项目将使用心理学，社会科学和动物行为的研究方法，以了解工作马匹的福利需求，马匹与其所有者之间的关系以及良好的工作马匹福利所面临的实际挑战。将对炎热气候下健康的马科动物使用自然庇护所进行研究，这将为确定良好的福利标准提供基础。将通过热损失和毛发密度分析来研究气候的生理影响。将与马的主人进行访谈，以评估改善工作马福利对人类的影响。最终，该项目将制定一项实用的、以研究为主导的倡议，并将实施该倡议，以改善工作马匹的福利。该项目将采用整体方法，将人类福祉与马的福利放在一起考虑，旨在改善人和动物的生活。

For many of the world's poorest people, over 100 million working equids provide vital support for livelihoods, access to healthcare, education and basic necessities. The reliance on working equids for everyday life makes them people's most important livestock and they can be especially valuable to women. Despite this, the welfare standards of working equids are often low with heat exposure and insect challenge considered to be two of the biggest problems facing working equids. Improving the welfare of working equids will enhance equid productivity and by virtue of the interdependent relationship between working equids and their owners, will provide owners with social, economic and welfare benefits. This multidisciplinary project will use research methods from psychology, social sciences and animal behaviour to provide an understanding of the welfare needs of working equids, the relationship between equids and their owners and the practical challenges that exist to good working equid welfare. Research will be conducted into natural shelter use by healthy equids in hot climates which will provide a basis for defining good welfare standards. The physiological effects of climate will be investigated through heat loss and hair density analysis. Interviews will be conducted with equid owners to assess the human impacts that improved working equid welfare would have. Ultimately the project will develop a practical, research-led initiative that will be implemented to improve working equid welfare. The project will use a holistic approach that considers human wellbeing alongside equid welfare and aims to improve the lives of both people and animals.