In a recent study at Linköping University, researchers have taken a closer look at how play can improve the well-being of chickens in the breeding process.
The researchers argue that play, especially with objects, should be part of the animals’ short lives in order to maximize their well-being. They also suggest that chickens should have access to some sort of artificial mother hen.
In Sweden, around 100 million chickens are slaughtered each year and as costs become cheaper, along with increased demand, breeding is expanding. Today, one million chickens can be raised in the same house and tens of thousands of them are crowded on the floors where there are about 25 chickens per square meter, often slaughtered when they are about 35 days old.
Per Jensen, a professor of ethology at Linköping University, has recently completed a study on how play can make industrial chickens express their natural behavior, according to Forskning.nu.
The researchers placed the chickens in a large, bright area with various worm-like ‘toys’ such as pieces of string, straw and straps. Fourteen different play behaviors were observed in the chickens, the most common being playing with an object, but they also engaged in social play with each other and movement games.
– They ran around with the objects and the other chickens followed and tried to take it away from them. It reminded me of how dogs play with balls, Jensen says to Forskning.nu.
It is difficult for chickens to express their natural behaviors in the harsh industrial environment, even though the Animal Welfare Act states that all animals should have this opportunity.
A chicken can also have problems because they are bred to grow as fast as possible and the skeleton does not always keep up. This means that the legs are not always able to hold them up which, in addition to causing disease, can also hamper their natural play behavior. It is not uncommon to find dead chickens in the stables.
It is also important for the natural behavior of the chicken to be able to meet its mother, says Jensen. However, industrial chickens are never allowed to meet a hen because the eggs are hatched in a machine. Despite this basic need, there is hardly any research on how to provide chickens with a mother substitute, although researchers at SLU and other universities are now working to develop various solutions.
Being outdoors is also something most chickens never get to experience. Organic chickens are allowed outside in the summer, but those born in the winter are not.
The egg industry operates in a similar fashion, and although hens are free-range, they are also often crowded indoors with tens of thousands of other hens. This year alone, Sweden’s largest egg producer CA Cedergren had two outbreaks of salmonella, resulting in thousands of healthy hens being culled and eggs being recalled from stores. The outbreaks were most likely due to the large number of hens crowded together, which facilitates the spread of disease. Egg producers have also become increasingly critical of larger farms, for example Botulf Bernhard of Solmarka Farm believes that there should be fewer hens but more farms. As consumers become more aware, more egg producers are starting to keep free-range hens outdoors, which is also stated on the egg carton if this is the case.
Jensen adds to Forskning.nu that it is possible to give chickens and hens a better life, if the consumer is willing to pay a bit extra for it.
– It is possible to improve the environment if we produce knowledge that consumers absorb – and thus become willing to pay some extra money for chicken meat or eggs.
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A new type of sandbox has been installed in Kupittaa Park in Turku, Finland. Instead of regular sand, it contains soil from the forest floor filled with microorganisms that, according to research, strengthen children’s immune systems.
The city of Turku is now taking a unique step to counteract health problems in children growing up in urban environments. In Kupittaa Park, the country’s first sandbox has been built that mixes traditional play sand with humus and microbes from the forest.
The initiative is based on research from the Natural Resources Institute Finland, the University of Helsinki, and Tampere University, which shows that exposure to forest microbes improves the regulation of children’s immune systems.
The study showed that children who played in sand enriched with forest soil exhibited improved immune regulation. The discovery is particularly important because urban children are increasingly affected by immune-related diseases such as allergies, asthma, atopy, and type 1 diabetes.
The cause is linked to the fact that city children have limited contact with the diversity of microorganisms found in nature.
Follow-up will determine the future
The new play box is constructed from logs – naturally fallen trees – and filled with a mixture of sand and humus from the forest floor. The design is deliberately simple so it can be replicated if the concept proves successful.
— I became enthusiastic about the Natural Resources Institute’s research showing that sand mixed with soil containing microbes from the forest improved children’s resistance. I thought the box would be easy to test at a playground in the city. Based on user experiences, we will assess whether such a play box could be implemented on a larger scale, says Anna-Kaisa Hatakka, responsible project manager at the City of Turku, in a press release.
The city will now monitor how popular the new play box becomes among children and parents. If the project succeeds, it could mean a new direction for Turku’s playgrounds, where in recent years rubber mats have increasingly been chosen over natural surfaces such as grass and gravel.
Bans on dangerous PFAS substances have shown results in Sweden’s major lakes. However, levels still remain above limit values in Lake Vättern.
PFAS are environmental toxins often called “forever chemicals” because they break down very slowly and therefore accumulate in soil, water, animals and even humans.
Certain PFAS substances can be harmful to humans, with several studies having pointed to their potential to cause cancer, liver damage, impaired reproductive ability, intestinal diseases and thyroid disorders, among other health issues.
It was recently discovered that Swedish wild animals have unusually high levels of these substances, with forest voles among others likely suffering liver damage due to the forever chemicals.
Decreased since the 2000s
In a new study conducted by the Swedish Museum of Natural History, commissioned by the Water Conservation Associations, researchers measured the occurrence of these substances in fish in Swedish lakes. This was done using samples from the museum’s environmental sample bank, which dates back to the early 1970s.
The results show that PFAS levels have generally decreased in Swedish lakes. In Lake Mälaren and Lake Vänern, levels have decreased since the early 2000s, and in Lake Vättern since 2008.
Problems remain
The reason for the decrease is believed to be the international banning of the most well-known PFAS substances. However, Arctic char in Lake Vättern still exceed the Water Framework Directive’s limit value for PFOS, one of the PFAS substances that has been banned.
— Our results show that measures and bans have had an effect, but also that the PFAS problem is far from solved, says Suzanne Faxneld from the Environmental Analysis and Research unit at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, in a press release.
Stricter limit values for these chemicals are now being discussed in the EU. If these are implemented, Faxneld believes that Sweden’s major lakes will exceed the new limit values. The study shows that preparations should be made for stricter regulations from the EU.
— It’s also very important to prevent these substances from entering the environment in the first place, she says.
Restoring nature means letting it return to the wild – releasing control and allowing natural processes to develop. In Denmark, cattle and horses graze freely year-round as part of ambitious rewilding projects to recreate original ecosystems.
However, the method has created a difficult balancing act: while the projects demonstrably benefit biodiversity, they draw strong criticism from animal welfare organizations who argue that the animals are subjected to unnecessary suffering.
Knutshoved Odde is a 30-kilometer-long peninsula located near Vordingborg, about 90 kilometers southwest of Copenhagen, Denmark. The area was formed during the Ice Age and consisted until the 1800s of natural pastures, water holes, and wetlands – as evidenced by historical maps. Since then, large parts have been converted to agricultural land through drainage, stone removal, and filling of natural depressions in the landscape.
The rewilding project LIFE Clima-Bombin, which started in 2019, primarily aimed to restore the natural environment that previously existed, and then preserve it – something they have now succeeded in doing. This was made possible with funding from the EU’s LIFE fund and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency. To restore the natural lands, they began by recreating the landscape from the ground up. Agricultural land has been transformed by replacing large quantities of stones and sowing seeds with wild grassland species.
— We want to recreate what we call ‘The Old Country’. That is, the landscape as it looked before 1800, when the medieval landscape contained water holes, pastures, and large, scattered oaks. Denmark was intensively grazed for 6,000 years until the king sold his land. At the beginning of the 19th century, everything changed to agriculture and dark forests. And then almost all our biodiversity disappeared, said Peer Ravn, who is a partner in the project, to the Danish Society for Nature Conservation in 2023.
The biggest change occurred when they removed the pumps that had drained the land, and now six islands have emerged after restoring the water areas. To create more biodiversity, they also have cattle and horses grazing in the areas year-round.
Now nature has returned to Knutshoved Odde. The area, which was previously poor in plants, now blooms colorfully in summer. Since the wetlands were restored, more and more breeding birds have arrived each year. The area is also an important habitat for all species of Denmark’s endangered amphibians, whose habitats were previously threatened by flooding. Now the frogs have better conditions with the restored water holes.
The agricultural land has now returned to its former state – by recreating the land and letting nature have free rein, it has relatively quickly taken hold again, where biodiversity now flourishes.
At Saksfjed Vildmark, cattle graze freely. Photo: Saksfjed Vildmark/FB
Domesticated grazing animals
The grazing animals are a central part of nature restoration as they perform so-called “natural disturbances” similar to those that existed when more large grazing animals lived freely in Europe. The Knutshoved Odde area is a completed and successful project where grazing animals were used, but far from the only rewilding project in Denmark.
The Saksfjed Vildmark project is an ongoing and relatively new project – started in 2023. It is an 800-hectare area in southern Lolland, which here too was previously agricultural land. There they have restored wetlands, sown wild species, and also introduced grazing livestock and horses.
The area is a Natura 2000 area and is described as one of the largest rewilding projects underway in Denmark. The agricultural land is gone and now the site is rich in species and biodiversity, something they claim has been made possible largely by the grazing animals.
At Saksfjed Vildmark today there are Galloway cattle, Exmoor horses, and Tauros cattle. They graze down the vegetation and thereby prevent overgrowth, trample up soil, and promote biodiversity.
– Even if we don’t see the animals, we can see that they have been here. They have made a path through this former reed sea. The horses have scratched themselves on this birch, they have scraped with their hooves on the ground so that sandy patches have formed, and they have grazed off the green leaves up to over a meter’s height, which creates a semi-open landscape, explains Jens Thorvig Andersen, who is a nature interpreter at the area, for Naturpodden.
Since ecological conditions have changed over the past hundred years, carbon dioxide and nitrogen emissions have also increased dramatically. This means that larger and faster-growing plants take over the landscape, such as grass, thistles, and nettles. But when large animals graze, it affects the landscape and gives small plants greater advantages to flourish.
Starving animals are shot
There are more ongoing rewilding projects in Denmark where grazing animals are used to promote biodiversity. The animals are allowed to live completely freely within fenced areas and often receive no supplementary feed, which in practice means they must fend for themselves. The animals also don’t have the same supervision requirements normally required and live essentially their lives outside human hands – who only check on them from a distance.
This has sparked strong criticism, particularly against the Mols Laboratory, which is a kind of field laboratory in Mols Bjerge National Park in southeastern Jutland, Denmark. There, since 2016, they have let livestock and horses roam freely year-round in a rewilding project, but it hasn’t gone entirely smoothly.
During 2023, starvation among the animals was reported and that the food available in nature simply wasn’t sufficient. A large part of the vegetation is also toxic to horses and cattle, such as ragwort.
All animals at risk of starving to death were shot instead – a total of 67 percent of the animals between 2019-2020.
– At the Mols Laboratory, the animals never get older than six years, said equine veterinarian Lotte Bøgedal to Djurskyddet (Swedish animal welfare magazine) in 2023.
It is primarily the Mols Laboratory that has received strong criticism regarding its grazing wild-living animals, and it’s unclear whether all rewilding projects have exactly the same conditions for the animals. However, a common component seems to be that the animals take care of themselves, without supplementary feeding, year-round.
Horses grazing freely in August this year at the Mols Laboratory. Photo: Molslaboratoriet/FB
Animal welfare or nature conservation
All these nature restoration projects in Denmark can see clear benefits from the year-round grazing animals in the form of rich and varied nature that has re-emerged – but the animal welfare issue becomes complex and challenging, especially in a society where animal rights carry increasing weight. Risk of starvation and suffering cannot be ruled out when animals live essentially as wild animals, but at the same time they cannot be classified as wild since they are both fenced and domesticated.
It simply becomes an animal welfare law issue, since in practice it would be illegal for, for example, a private person to keep animals in a similar way. Denmark has animal welfare laws, including that animals’ needs must always be met, which includes access to food. However, they passed a new law in 2021 that can allow animals living fenced in national parks to “regulate their population naturally according to food availability.” To implement the law, however, one must apply for an exemption from the animal welfare law. According to Bøgedal, the field laboratory had at least not received such an exemption in 2023.
Morten DD Hansen, who works at the Mols Laboratory, believes the criticism is not “unexpected” but nevertheless points out that it is not illegal to keep animals as they do at the field laboratory.
“Many people feel sorry for the animals, but we prioritize letting the animals live as wildly as possible and interact with the varied nature as unregulated as possible. Research is conducted on the animals’ behavior and when this work is finished it will naturally be published”, he writes to Djurskyddet.
Reintroduction of wild animals
In Sweden and other parts of Europe, work has been done to reintroduce European bison in forests for nature conservation purposes. The idea is that it should benefit biodiversity by, among other things, counteracting overgrowth and creating habitats for many endangered species. In Sweden, the reintroduction is still in a preliminary study phase.
The difference there, however, is that European bison are a wild species that previously existed in Swedish forests, while the animals kept free in Denmark are domesticated animals. Arguments from an animal welfare perspective can therefore be that bison are created for the wild, while the other animals are too domesticated to fend for themselves. Additionally, Sweden is considering supplementary feeding of the bison initially to reduce the risk of starvation.
Despite the criticism, Danish rewilding projects continue to develop successfully. While the results for biodiversity are clearly positive, the challenge remains of how animal welfare should be guaranteed in these semi-wild environments. The debate reflects a larger discussion about where the line is drawn between nature’s own processes and human responsibility for the animals that humans once domesticated.
Finland’s wolf population increased markedly last year – significantly more than in previous years. The largest growth occurred in the western parts of the country.
In March last year, the number of wolves in Finland was estimated at 295 individuals. By March this year, the figure had grown to 430. The numbers are estimates based on recorded observations, DNA monitoring, and data on wolf mortality. The number of wolves could therefore be between 413 and 465 individuals.
— The number of individuals has grown by a full 46 percent compared to last year, so it’s a really dramatic increase, says researcher Mia Valtonen at the Finnish Natural Resources Institute to Yle.
The wolf population has increased mainly in western Finland, particularly in the southwestern parts. However, wolves have been observed in significantly larger areas than before, even in places where they have never been seen previously.
In Scandinavia, the wolf has long been considered threatened and has had strong protection, but in May the EU Parliament approved a downgrading of the wolf’s protection status. This means that population management hunting could now be permitted in Finland, something that Finnish Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Sari Essayah has strongly advocated for.
— Without population management hunting, the number of wolves is calculated to increase to 557 individuals in November and 436 in March next year. With population management hunting, there would of course be fewer, says Samu Mäntyniemi, leading researcher at the Natural Resources Institute.
