Sheep Senses, Social Cognition and Capacity for Consciousness

Abstract

Sheep are generally held in low regard as far as cognition and social skills are concerned. However, there is now increasing evidence from studies of their be-haviour and brain function that they have highly sophisticated social and emotional recognition skills using faces, voices and smells. They are able to recognize and remember many different sheep and humans for several years or more and appear to have some capacity for forming mental images of the faces of absent individuals. The presence of such social cognition abilities in this species means that we must pay careful attention to welfare factors such as the composition and stability of their social environment as well as the nature of our own interactions with them.