{"id":172900,"date":"2025-02-19T05:14:03","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T04:14:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/har-du-talt-med-din-gris-i-dag\/"},"modified":"2025-02-19T08:22:26","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T07:22:26","slug":"from-farm-to-screen-how-a-tv-documentary-funded-pig-emotion-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/from-farm-to-screen-how-a-tv-documentary-funded-pig-emotion-research\/","title":{"rendered":"From farm to screen: How a TV documentary funded pig emotion research"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can animals have emotions, and do they actually express them?<\/p>\n

These are the questions that have preoccupied Associate Professor Elodie Briefer at the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) ever since 2010.<\/p>\n

Researchers are now in agreement that animals do have emotions. But this recognition only took root in science about 30 years ago \u2014 primarily driven by research into animal welfare and through the use of animal models in developing medication for people with mental disorders.<\/p>\n

Elodie Briefer recently took on a collaboration with a company within the media industry to advance her recent research on pigs’ emotions and welfare.<\/p>\n

The production company Snowman Productions planned a documentary on pig welfare focusing on facial recognition and pig vocalisations. The agreement was that the production company would cover the costs of translating pigs\u2019 grunts and squeals into emotions using the research by Elodie Briefer and her team over recent years.<\/p>\n

Snowman Productions covered about half of the expenses for the research group\u2019s work, which involved collecting data from nine different locations with slaughter pigs in Denmark and Germany, and conducting one and a half years of research at the department. In return, Snowman Productions got the research that is the basis of a highly debated documentary on the Danish public service medium DR called If Pigs Could Talk<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Basic research versus film production<\/h4>\n

Elodie Briefer\u2019s collaboration with Snowman Productions came about when documentary filmmaker Miki Mistrati contacted her in September 2022.<\/p>\n

\n

Where the pigs came from<\/p>\n

The pigs in the documentary\u2019s study were located on four conventional pig farms, three organic farms, and two free-range farms.<\/p>\n

In Denmark, sound recordings were made on two free-range farms and one organic farm, while the rest took place in Germany, as no conventional pig farms in Denmark would permit TV recordings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Miki Mistrati had read about Elodie Briefer\u2019s participation in a major EU project<\/a> from 2016, which focused specifically on pigs\u2019 emotions. She had developed a database of pig grunts and squeals<\/a> that, combined with a machine learning model, allowed researchers to interpret pigs\u2019 emotions. These emotions could be identified in situations such as when the animals received food or toys, or when they were isolated.<\/p>\n

Both the TV crew and Elodie Briefer were keen to work scientifically with pig emotions, but for the researchers, the differences between conducting fundamental research and producing a documentary proved to be a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u00bbSnowman Productions required the documentary to be completed within a specific timeframe, as media companies must adhere to strict production schedules. But research doesn\u2019t work that way, and the timeframe was a limitation for us,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer. Nonetheless, she has many positive things to say about the collaboration:<\/p>\n

\u00bbWe had a really good, professional relationship with the film crew. We reviewed all the material in advance were able to comment on it. Miki Mistrati changed everything that was an issue in terms of the science, so we are very satisfied with the documentary. It is solidly backed by research,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n

She is also pleased that the documentary explains the researchers\u2019 work, acknowledges that their findings are based on preliminary data, and clarifies that only a relatively small number of pig herds participated in the study.
\n<\/p>\n

Scientific integrity<\/h4>\n

Elodie Briefer and her research team were well aware that they needed to be extra diligent when collaborating with a media company.<\/p>\n

\n

The research group<\/p>\n

Elodie Briefer\u2019s research group at the University of Copenhagen is called The Behavioural Ecology Group<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A 2022 article on Elodie Briefer\u2019s research can be found in the journal Nature.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u00bbMy team and I were very conscious of the fact that the documentary would be seen by a large audience and would therefore have a significant impact on pig welfare. For this reason, it was crucial that everything was accurate when it was broadcast,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n

However, there was one thing they did not manage to do.<\/p>\n

\u00bbOf course, it would have been ideal if we had been able to publish our results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal before the documentary aired, but that takes time. Instead, we did what is typically done in such situations: we presented and discussed our preliminary findings,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n

Finally, there was the matter of securing the necessary legal agreements before filming could begin.<\/p>\n

\u00bbWe did everything we could to ensure that our scientific integrity remained intact. We had a written agreement drafted by lawyers at the University of Copenhagen, which, among other things, ensured that only we could comment on our research findings,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n

Criticism \u2014 but not from pig farmers<\/h4>\n

Elodie Briefer and her team got a lot of attention in both Danish and German media. Some pig producers even called her from Germany to thank her after the documentary aired on German television.<\/p>\n

But there was one thing that surprised her:<\/p>\n

\u00bbTo my surprise, the criticism of our work has only come from colleagues in an animal welfare group. They commented on the broadcast and wrote things online that they believed to be flaws in our work \u2014 without first asking us what it was that we had actually done,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n

\u00bbThe animal welfare group, for example, wrote that it is important where you place the microphones in the barns. That is true. But this is, of course, something we considered carefully. They did not ask us about our choices and preferences, but simply assumed that we had not thought about microphone placement at all,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer, who adds a further point:<\/p>\n

\u00bbSome of them also assumed that our 2016 database (which plays a role in the film project, ed.) consisted only of pigs that were alone when they grunted and squealed, making it useless for decoding pig sounds in barns with many pigs. That is also incorrect because the pigs in that project were recorded both as single pigs, in pairs, and in groups,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n

Is there an app on the way?<\/h4>\n

The funding from Snowman Productions was of significant help to Elodie Briefer\u2019s research group in terms of their work on pig emotions. The question now is how close her team is to developing an app that could, via the pig farmer\u2019s mobile phone, provide insights into the welfare of the herd’s pigs.<\/p>\n

\u00bbUnfortunately, we are still quite a way off,\u00ab says the researcher.<\/p>\n

Currently, her team can identify and classify pig sounds in noisy environments, but they cannot do so based on long-term recordings. This is simply too challenging with the type of artificial intelligence available to them.<\/p>\n

\u00bbI know many researchers who have the same problem. It is<\/em> a difficult task that would require an additional six months of work, for which we first need to secure financial resources,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Elodie Briefer estimates it would take a further two to three years of research to be absolutely certain they have identified the precise correlation between pigs\u2019 vocal expressions and their welfare before they can develop an app for farmers that accurately reflects the pigs\u2019 well-being.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is another unknown factor that researchers can hardly account for: Poor welfare that does not manifest itself. Pigs, like humans, can indeed have silent emotions, such as in cases of depression.
\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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08:52:55","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":1254,"height":836,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237-480x320.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237.jpg","large-width":1254,"large-height":836,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237.jpg","1536x1536-width":1254,"1536x1536-height":836,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237.jpg","2048x2048-width":1254,"2048x2048-height":836,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237-290x193.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":193,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237-700x467.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":467,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237-990x660.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":660}},"style":"extended","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"The University Post up met with Elodie Briefer, a researcher behind an, in Denmark much-debated, documentary on pig communication."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Standfirst","subject":"Animal welfare","text":"Forskere fra Biologisk Institut fik forskning betalt af et tv-selskab, der st\u00e5r bag en opsigtsv\u00e6kkende dokumentar, og nu kan grisegrynt overs\u00e6ttes til f\u00f8lelser. Samtidig er forskerne t\u00e6ttere p\u00e5 at kunne lave en app, som landm\u00e6nd kan bruge i stalden for at se, om deres dyr er glade eller triste. ","use_post_excerpt":true},{"acf_fc_layout":"Byline","is_author":true,"contributors":false},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<p>Can animals have emotions, and do they actually express them?<\/p>\n<p>These are the questions that have preoccupied Associate Professor Elodie Briefer at the Department of Biology at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH) ever since 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers are now in agreement that animals do have emotions. But this recognition only took root in science about 30 years ago \u2014 primarily driven by research into animal welfare and through the use of animal models in developing medication for people with mental disorders.<\/p>\n<p>Elodie Briefer recently took on a collaboration with a company within the media industry to advance her recent research on pigs’ emotions and welfare.<\/p>\n<p>The production company Snowman Productions planned a documentary on pig welfare focusing on facial recognition and pig vocalisations. The agreement was that the production company would cover the costs of translating pigs\u2019 grunts and squeals into emotions using the research by Elodie Briefer and her team over recent years.<\/p>\n<p>Snowman Productions covered about half of the expenses for the research group\u2019s work, which involved collecting data from nine different locations with slaughter pigs in Denmark and Germany, and conducting one and a half years of research at the department. In return, Snowman Productions got the research that is the basis of a highly debated documentary on the Danish public service medium DR called <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dr.dk\/drtv\/program\/hvis-grise-kunne-tale_470370\"><em>If Pigs Could Talk<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<h4>Basic research versus film production<\/h4>\n<p>Elodie Briefer\u2019s collaboration with Snowman Productions came about when documentary filmmaker Miki Mistrati contacted her in September 2022.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">Where the pigs came from<\/p>\n<p>The pigs in the documentary\u2019s study were located on four conventional pig farms, three organic farms, and two free-range farms.<\/p>\n<p>In Denmark, sound recordings were made on two free-range farms and one organic farm, while the rest took place in Germany, as no conventional pig farms in Denmark would permit TV recordings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Miki Mistrati had read about Elodie Briefer\u2019s participation in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soundwel-project.eu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">major EU project<\/a> from 2016, which focused specifically on pigs\u2019 emotions. She had developed a <a href=\"https:\/\/zenodo.org\/records\/8252482\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">database of pig grunts and squeals<\/a> that, combined with a machine learning model, allowed researchers to interpret pigs\u2019 emotions. These emotions could be identified in situations such as when the animals received food or toys, or when they were isolated.<\/p>\n<p>Both the TV crew and Elodie Briefer were keen to work scientifically with pig emotions, but for the researchers, the differences between conducting fundamental research and producing a documentary proved to be a challenge.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbSnowman Productions required the documentary to be completed within a specific timeframe, as media companies must adhere to strict production schedules. But research doesn\u2019t work that way, and the timeframe was a limitation for us,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer. Nonetheless, she has many positive things to say about the collaboration:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe had a really good, professional relationship with the film crew. We reviewed all the material in advance were able to comment on it. Miki Mistrati changed everything that was an issue in terms of the science, so we are very satisfied with the documentary. It is solidly backed by research,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n<p>She is also pleased that the documentary explains the researchers\u2019 work, acknowledges that their findings are based on preliminary data, and clarifies that only a relatively small number of pig herds participated in the study.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Image","image":{"ID":168213,"id":168213,"title":"Lektor Elodie Briefer n\u00e6r sit kontor i Universitetsparken, forsker i grise01","filename":"dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1.jpg","filesize":610070,"url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1.jpg","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/har-du-talt-med-din-gris-i-dag\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1\/","alt":"","author":"8","description":"","caption":"Lektor Elodie Briefer n\u00e6r sit kontor i Universitetsparken. ","name":"dsc_1726_dxo_web1","status":"inherit","uploaded_to":168110,"date":"2024-10-08 17:21:12","modified":"2025-10-16 08:45:51","menu_order":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","type":"image","subtype":"jpeg","icon":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.png","width":2400,"height":1600,"sizes":{"thumbnail":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-150x150.jpg","thumbnail-width":150,"thumbnail-height":150,"medium":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-480x320.jpg","medium-width":480,"medium-height":320,"medium_large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-768x512.jpg","medium_large-width":768,"medium_large-height":512,"large":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-1280x853.jpg","large-width":1280,"large-height":853,"1536x1536":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-1536x1024.jpg","1536x1536-width":1536,"1536x1536-height":1024,"2048x2048":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-2048x1365.jpg","2048x2048-width":2048,"2048x2048-height":1365,"featured-soft":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-290x193.jpg","featured-soft-width":290,"featured-soft-height":193,"featured-hard":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-290x180.jpg","featured-hard-width":290,"featured-hard-height":180,"narrow":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-700x467.jpg","narrow-width":700,"narrow-height":467,"extended":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/dsc_1726_dxo_web1-1-990x660.jpg","extended-width":990,"extended-height":660}},"style":"narrow","text_placement":"metadata-below","image_link_url":"","image_link_title":"","caption_prefix":"","enable_alternative_caption":true,"alternative_caption":"Associate Professor Elodie Briefer near her office at the University of Copenhagen."},{"acf_fc_layout":"Content","content":"<h4>Scientific integrity<\/h4>\n<p>Elodie Briefer and her research team were well aware that they needed to be extra diligent when collaborating with a media company.<\/p>\n<div class=\"factbox\">\n<p class=\"factbox-header feature-color\">The research group<\/p>\n<p>Elodie Briefer\u2019s research group at the University of Copenhagen is called <strong>The Behavioural Ecology Group<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A 2022 article on Elodie Briefer\u2019s research can be found in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41598-022-07174-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the journal Nature.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\u00bbMy team and I were very conscious of the fact that the documentary would be seen by a large audience and would therefore have a significant impact on pig welfare. For this reason, it was crucial that everything was accurate when it was broadcast,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n<p>However, there was one thing they did not manage to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbOf course, it would have been ideal if we had been able to publish our results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal before the documentary aired, but that takes time. Instead, we did what is typically done in such situations: we presented and discussed our preliminary findings,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, there was the matter of securing the necessary legal agreements before filming could begin.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbWe did everything we could to ensure that our scientific integrity remained intact. We had a written agreement drafted by lawyers at the University of Copenhagen, which, among other things, ensured that only we could comment on our research findings,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n<h4>Criticism \u2014 but not from pig farmers<\/h4>\n<p>Elodie Briefer and her team got a lot of attention in both Danish and German media. Some pig producers even called her from Germany to thank her after the documentary aired on German television.<\/p>\n<p>But there was one thing that surprised her:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbTo my surprise, the criticism of our work has only come from colleagues in an animal welfare group. They commented on the broadcast and wrote things online that they believed to be flaws in our work \u2014 without first asking us what it was that we had actually done,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbThe animal welfare group, for example, wrote that it is important where you place the microphones in the barns. That is true. But this is, of course, something we considered carefully. They did not ask us about our choices and preferences, but simply assumed that we had not thought about microphone placement at all,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer, who adds a further point:<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbSome of them also assumed that our 2016 database (which plays a role in the film project, ed.) consisted only of pigs that were alone when they grunted and squealed, making it useless for decoding pig sounds in barns with many pigs. That is also incorrect because the pigs in that project were recorded both as single pigs, in pairs, and in groups,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n<h4>Is there an app on the way?<\/h4>\n<p>The funding from Snowman Productions was of significant help to Elodie Briefer\u2019s research group in terms of their work on pig emotions. The question now is how close her team is to developing an app that could, via the pig farmer\u2019s mobile phone, provide insights into the welfare of the herd’s pigs.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbUnfortunately, we are still quite a way off,\u00ab says the researcher.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, her team can identify and classify pig sounds in noisy environments, but they cannot do so based on long-term recordings. This is simply too challenging with the type of artificial intelligence available to them.<\/p>\n<p>\u00bbI know many researchers who have the same problem. It <em>is<\/em> a difficult task that would require an additional six months of work, for which we first need to secure financial resources,\u00ab says Elodie Briefer.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Elodie Briefer estimates it would take a further two to three years of research to be absolutely certain they have identified the precise correlation between pigs\u2019 vocal expressions and their welfare before they can develop an app for farmers that accurately reflects the pigs\u2019 well-being.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, there is another unknown factor that researchers can hardly account for: Poor welfare that does not manifest itself. Pigs, like humans, can indeed have silent emotions, such as in cases of depression.<\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"Newsletter","lang_select":"en","identifier":"Newsletter","headline":"Get an email with our top stories","button_text":"Sign up here","class":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":46,"name":"Science","slug":"science","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":46,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":831,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[{"term_id":1092,"name":"Biologisk Institut","slug":"biologisk-institut-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":1092,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":3,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":7483,"name":"dyrevelf\u00e6rd","slug":"dyrevelfaerd-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":7483,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":1,"filter":"raw"}],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":14,"name":"Portrait Article","slug":"portrait_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":14,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":796,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[{"term_id":5468,"name":"Optional","slug":"optional-en","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":5468,"taxonomy":"translation_priority","description":"","parent":0,"count":672,"filter":"raw"}]},"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/istock1268226237.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172900"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172900\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172958,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172900\/revisions\/172958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}