Animal welfare

• There are over 70 billion farm animals reared for food worldwide. 2 out of 3 are farmed intensively (C.I.W.F., 2013).
• There roughly 525 million dogs worldwide, similar numbers of cats. Not to mention other pets (e.g. 191m birds in Brazil)
• There are over 100 million mice and rats used in research in the US per year. Approximately 5 million animals in the UK.
• There are approximately 200 million working animals worldwide
• We have been shaping the environment for thousands of years. We also need to consider our responsibilities and the rights of wild animals
• Human population has grown from 1 billion in 1800 to over 7 billion.
• Livestock systems occupy 30% of ice-free land. Record levels of habitat destruction.
• Animal Rights


  the rights of animals to live free from human exploitation and abuse
• Animal Rights


  The idea that some or all non-human animals are entitled to possession of their own lives and that their most basic interests, such as the need to avoid suffering, should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings
• Animal Rights is a moral (psychology) and philosophical question. Do animals have a right to a free and "good" life? Can use scientific knowledge and comparative psychology to back up arguments.
• Animal Welfare


  The welfare of an animal refers to its quality of life, and this involves many different elements such as health, happiness, and longevity, to which different people attach different degrees of importance
• What constitutes a "good" life? A value judgement. For captive animals, animal welfare research concerns how they should be kept. Can use scientific knowledge and comparative psychology to back up arguments.
• Animal Welfare is the state of wellbeing an animal is in, whether captive or wild. It is not what we 'do' to animals. Can vary along a continuum from excellent welfare to awful welfare.
• The answer to what constitutes "good" welfare is not solely scientific and objective. Based on value judgements, what factors are important in quality of life?
• 3 main schools of thought on animal welfare

  • The Subjective Experience Approach
  • The Biological Functioning Approach
  • The "Natural Behaviour" Approach
• Once we agree of a set of standards for animal welfare we should use objective, scientific methods to assess welfare.
• The Biological Functioning Approach

  Good welfare requires normal (or satisfactory) biological functioning. Internal mental states of "wellbeing" too difficult to define scientifically, or less important. Measures include indices of health, disease, injury, longevity, growth rate. Link between the measures and welfare sometimes not clear.
• The "Natural Behaviour" Approach

  Welfare is compromised if can't display full range of behaviours - may show chronic stress, ill health, stereotypies, depression. Role of comparative psychology and animal behaviour to determine what is the species 'nature'? EU welfare laws consider behavioural needs of species (to some extent).
• Animals are motivated to perform behaviours. If correct opportunities are not available these behaviours can not be performed. Instead the animal may perform a different behaviour: Conflict, Displacement, Redirected, stereotypies, Ambivalence, "depression".
• Captive animals benefit from environmental enrichment. Problems with the climate, Con or co-specifics, Predictability, Control over their environment, improves welfare.
• The "Natural Behaviour" Approach has been criticised - lots of the 'natural' behaviour of animals is detrimental to welfare. "Wild behaviour… most often represents a life and death struggle for survival".
• Most people accept that ("higher") animals experience emotions. Reducing subjective experience of suffering and increasing experience of positive emotions is central to improving animal welfare.
• The Psychological Approach


  The welfare of an individual is it's state in regard to its attempts to cope with it's environment. This state includes how much it is having to do to cope, the extent to which it is succeeding or failing to cope, and its associated feelings.
• Neither health nor lack of stress nor fitness is necessary and / or sufficient to conclude that an animal has good welfare. Welfare is dependent on what animals feel.
• How do we know whether an animal is experiencing good or poor welfare? We cannot observe directly or ask them. We use neurophysiological, behavioural and cognitive indicators, but the link between these and subjective experience is not always clear.
• Cognitive bias in animals - initial evidence that animals in a more negative affective state are more likely to judge ambiguous cues as if they predict the negative event (pessimistic response). Lateralisation - dominance of right hemisphere suggested stressed, negative state or longer term bias. Left hemisphere dominance suggests a more relaxed state or longer term bias.
• Measuring Animal Needs


  Preference tests (short-term and long-term), Strength of motivation (what will I pay/sacrifice to achieve or avoid), Consequences of denial (short-term and long-term)
• The UK government introduced the Animal Welfare Act 2007, which sets minimum standards of care and penalties for cruelty and neglect. Pet owners and farmers have a "duty of care" to provide for basic needs.
• Dogs, cats and horses get special protection in animal welfare laws - not based on biology, science or capacity to suffer but because we like them. Rats, mice and birds bred for biomedical research are not covered by the US Animal Welfare Act essentially not animals (legal state).
• Fish, reptiles and amphibians often excluded from Animal Welfare law, or have lower standards. There is lots of recent research looking at pain in fish and arguing that they need better welfare protection. Questions around insect welfare are now arising due to proposed farms.
• The question of whether some mammals have a greater capacity for suffering than others due to "advanced" cognitive abilities (e.g. mental time travel, episodic memory) is debated.
• The idea of animal rights is that some or all non-human animals are entitled to possession of their own lives and that their most basic interests, such as the need to avoid suffering, should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings.
• Historically certain groups of humans were considered "chattel" (property), like slaves, married women, other races. Animals are also considered property.
• Philosophers like Descartes, Kant and Darwin have influenced attitudes towards animal rights, proposing that those who can reason, have autonomy, experience emotions, or are more similar to humans deserve rights.
• Public concern for animal welfare and rights is primarily based on attribution of mental states, attribution of emotional states, and seeing animals as more similar to us than previously thought. Our impact on animals is increasing and so is our knowledge of their mental lives and biology.
• Jeremy Bentham: '"The question is not can they reason, nor can they talk, but can they suffer"'
• Kant (1724-1804)


  Acting morally towards animals means you will act morally towards humans (agent-centred view)
• In 19th Century attitudes towards other species (and other races, women) began to change
• Darwin (1809-1882)


  Theory of evolution most important factor
• Darwin (1809-1882)


  Proposes mental continuity