Animal welfare

This article is about the treatment of animals. For the journal, see Animal Welfare (journal). For current laws on animal welfare around the world, see Animal rights by country or territory. For a timeline of animal welfare, see Timeline of animal welfare and rights.

Animal welfare
A four-week-old puppy, found alongside a road after flooding in West Virginia, United States, is fed at an Emergency Animal Rescue Service shelter in the Twin Falls State Park.
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Animal welfare is the well-being of non-human animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics.[1][2][3] Animal welfare science uses measures such as longevity, disease, immunosuppression, behavior, physiology, and reproduction,[4] although there is debate about which of these best indicate animal welfare.

Respect for animal welfare is often based on the belief that nonhuman animals are sentient and that consideration should be given to their well-being or suffering, especially when they are under the care of humans.[5] These concerns can include how animals are slaughtered for food, how they are used in scientific research, how they are kept (as pets, in zoos, farms, circuses, etc.), and how human activities affect the welfare and survival of wild species.

There are two forms of criticism of the concept of animal welfare, coming from diametrically opposite positions. One view, held by some thinkers in history, holds that humans have no duties of any kind to animals. The other view is based on the animal rights position that animals should not be regarded as property and any use of animals by humans is unacceptable. Accordingly, some animal rights proponents argue that the perception of better animal welfare facilitates continued and increased exploitation of animals.[6][7] Some authorities therefore treat animal welfare and animal rights as two opposing positions.[8][page needed][9][10] Others see animal welfare gains as incremental steps towards animal rights.

The predominant view of modern neuroscientists, notwithstanding philosophical problems with the definition of consciousness even in humans, is that consciousness exists in nonhuman animals;[11][12] however, some still maintain that consciousness is a philosophical question that may never be scientifically resolved.[13] Remarkably, a new study has managed to overcome some of the difficulties in testing this question empirically and devised a unique way to dissociate conscious from nonconscious perception in animals.[14] In this study conducted in rhesus monkeys, the researchers built experiments predicting completely opposite behavioral outcomes to consciously vs. non-consciously perceived stimuli. Strikingly, the monkeys' behaviors displayed these exact opposite signatures, just like aware and unaware humans tested in the study.

  1. ^ Grandin, Temple (2013). "Animals are not things: A view on animal welfare based on neurological complexity" (PDF). Trans-Scripts 3: An Interdisciplinary Online Journal in Humanities And Social Sciences at UC Irvine. UC Irvine. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 August 2014. Retrieved 20 December 2013.
  2. ^ Hewson, C.J. (2003). "What is animal welfare? Common definitions and their practical consequences". The Canadian Veterinary Journal. 44 (6): 496–99. PMC 340178. PMID 12839246.
  3. ^ Broom, Donal M (2022). "Animal welfare concepts". Routledge handbook of animal welfare (1st ed.). New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9781003182351. ISBN 9781003182351.
  4. ^ Broom, D. M. (1991). "Animal welfare: concepts and measurement". Journal of Animal Science. 69 (10): 4167–75. doi:10.2527/1991.69104167x. PMID 1778832.
  5. ^ "Draft of the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare" (PDF). media.animalmatter.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 February 2012.
  6. ^ Garner, R. (2005). Animal Ethics. Polity Press.
  7. ^ Regan, T. (1983). The Case for Animal Rights. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-04904-8.
  8. ^ Francione, G.L. (1996). Rain Without Thunder: The Ideology of the Animal Rights Movement. Temple University Press. ISBN 978-1-56639-461-1. Archived from the original on 17 January 2023. Retrieved 3 June 2020.
  9. ^ Francione, G. (1995). Animals, Property, and the Law. Temple University Press.
  10. ^ "What is Animal Welfare and why is it important?". National Animal Interest Alliance. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  11. ^ "The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 November 2013. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  12. ^ "Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings". Archived from the original on 17 January 2023. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  13. ^ "Do animals have consciousness?". 6 March 2015. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  14. ^ Ben-Haim, Moshe Shay; Monte, Olga Dal; Fagan, Nicholas A.; Dunham, Yarrow; Hassin, Ran R.; Chang, Steve W. C.; Santos, Laurie R. (13 April 2021). "Disentangling perceptual awareness from nonconscious processing in rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta)". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 118 (15): e2017543118. Bibcode:2021PNAS..11817543B. doi:10.1073/pnas.2017543118. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 8053918. PMID 33785543.