Evidence for positive emotions in pigs and how to create conditions that promote them.
Positive pig welfare science represents one of the most exciting frontiers in animal welfare, moving beyond the absence of suffering to actively measuring and promoting positive states. Pigs are demonstrably capable of a rich emotional life including anticipatory excitement, play, social bonding, and what appears to be satisfaction following exploration and foraging. Production environments that allow expression of these positive states represent genuine welfare improvement beyond minimum harm prevention. The practical implications are that enriched environments producing positive behavioral indicators should be the target of welfare certification, not merely the absence of documented negative states.