How computer vision and image analysis are transforming welfare monitoring across livestock and aquaculture settings.
Computer vision represents one of the most transformative developments in animal welfare monitoring because it addresses the fundamental challenge of scale. Human welfare assessment, however skilled, cannot continuously observe every animal in a large commercial operation. Computer vision systems that analyse video feeds continuously and automatically flag welfare concerns bring the possibility of individual animal monitoring to operations of any size. The welfare benefit is realised through earlier detection — a lame cow identified on day one of lameness rather than after two weeks of deterioration receives earlier treatment and shorter duration of suffering. As these systems become cheaper and more accurate, they have the potential to transform welfare outcomes at population scale.