Dr. Ian Duncan, Professor Emeritus in the Ontario Agricultural College’s (OAC) Department of Animal Biosciences, became the first Director of the Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare (CCSAW) in 1995 following the centre’s creation in 1989.
Ian was pivotal in the early days of the centre’s creation, back when it was simply the Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare (CSAW), by fostering a close relationship with Mona Campbell.
In 1991 following the death of her husband Colonel Ken Campbell, Mona began to donate funding to university programs of importance to them both. She admired Ian’s work and his scientific approach to solving animal welfare problems, and they became lifelong friends. In the 1990’s, Mona led a campaign for a university chair in animal welfare, which was long held by Ian. To recognize her contributions, in 1996 the University of Guelph renamed the Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare to the Col. K.L. Campbell Centre for the Study of Animal Welfare.
When Mona died in 2008, she left a bequest of $7.5 million (the largest ever at the time) to the university, with half directed towards the OVC Animal Welfare Fund and half towards OVC Pet Trust, where the funding was used to create the Mona Campbell Centre for Animal Cancer which opened in 2012.
With Ian’s early stewardship of Mona’s bequest, CCSAW has expanded its welfare-informed courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels focused on animal behaviour, animal biology, environmental physiology, animal housing, animal welfare philosophy, animal production systems and animals and society across colleges at U of G.
“Welfare is all to do with what an animal feels”
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Ian earned his Bachelor of Science in Agriculture and Animal Husbandry at Edinburgh University in 1965. In 1970, he received his doctorate there while studying domestic fowl under condition of drive interaction and goal inaccessibility. Ian worked as Principal Scientific Officer at the AFRC Poultry Research Centre in Edinburgh for 20 years before emigrating to Canada in 1989.
Ian’s largest contribution to welfare science began in the 1970s, when he played a key role in laying theoretical foundations and development of methodology for animal welfare science. He is best known for advocating the use of subjective states of animals to assess their welfare.
In particular, Ian is credited for advancing the idea that welfare is primarily based on what an animal feels, captured in a frequently cited quote: “Welfare is all to do with what an animal feels”. In the 1970s, this line of thinking was still very radical and new, however, is reflective of current thinking in affective and motivational neuroscience.
In short, all organisms have certain basic needs and will react adversely if these needs aren’t met. Evolution has resulted in vertebrates and higher invertebrates having evolved representations of their needs as feelings, emotions or affective subjective states that motivate their behaviour in flexible ways. Welfare has everything to do with these subjective states. As a result, assessing animal welfare should be based on an animals feelings or emotions separate from their environments or physical condition.
In 1989, Ian was appointed Associate Professor in Applied Ethology at the University of Guelph (promoted to Professor in 1994) and he taught and carried out research into various aspects of welfare at the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) until 2006 when the regulations then in operation forced him to retire. He has, however, kept up his teaching and currently teaches two graduate courses, “Animals in Society” in the Fall and “Scientific Assessment of Affective States” in the Winter. Both these courses have been popular in recent years with 12-16 graduate students registered for each course.
Contributions to poultry welfare science, research and teaching
Ian’s primary research has been on poultry welfare with his work helping to understand the issues affecting their welfare and encouraging dialogue on this issue that have resulted in commercial changes to farming practices.
His advocacy work on the Burger King Animal Welfare Advisory Board helped to persuade them to use cage-free eggs in their operations, starting at two percent and gradually increasing each year by a further two percent. He has also advocated for restaurants like IHOP, a popular U.S. restaurant, to move to a similar cage-free egg model.
Ian is considered one of the world’s leading experts on poultry behaviour, and has also published work on cattle, pigs, and most recently, fish. His scholarship is illustrated by the large number of keynote lectures and plenary papers he has been invited to deliver at scientific societies and international conferences in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. His expertise is solicited by groups with diverse interests, ranging from animal advocacy organizations, through government agencies, to industry stakeholders, and he has spoken frankly and objectively on a number of controversial farm animal welfare issues over the years. The value of his contributions has been acknowledged though a number of important awards given by scientific societies and humane groups around the world.
Ian is also a highly respected teacher, even after his retirement. He teaches broadly across the Colleges at U of G and has received countless college and university teaching awards. His contribution to teaching was acknowledged outside of the university when he was given the inaugural award for the best course dealing with animals in society established in North America by the Humane Society of the United States. Over the last 18 years, he has inspired and motivated over 3,000 animal science and veterinary students to recognise animal welfare issues. A number of his former graduate students now hold key positions shaping animal welfare policy.
