Animal Welfare, Agency, and Animal-Computer Interaction

Recent discussions in animal welfare have emphasised the importance of animal agency-the ability of animals to make choices and exert control over their environment in a way that aligns with their needs and preferences. In this paper, we discuss the importance of animal agency for welfare and examine how use of some types of animal-computer interaction can enable animals to exercise more agency in captive environments through increased choice and control, cognitive challenge, and social interactions; as well as considering some of the potential limitations of such efforts.