Topic 21: Deciding What Matters Most to Animals PDF

 Topic 21: Deciding What Matters Most to Animals farmer who works with confined sows may insist When you have completed this topic, you that these animals have good welfare because should:...

 Topic 21: Deciding What Matters Most to Animals farmer who works with confined sows may insist When you have completed this topic, you that these animals have good welfare because should: otherwise they would not keep having piglets. Someone else might argue against this claim on Be able to define the term ‘welfare’ the basis that reproductive performance, Be familiar with the ‘five freedoms’ particularly in the age of artificial insemination and ‘nature of the species’ and hormone manipulation, does not tell us approaches to welfare much about whether a pig has good welfare or Feel confident discussing the not. Someone else might argue that free-range strengths and limitations of these pigs have poorer welfare than caged pigs, two approaches because they are subject to predation, weather extremes, dirt, and disease. But what would the pigs say? That’s the million-dollar question! After completing the last few topics, you should realise that, regardless of your preferred approach to moral reasoning, a total lack of concern for all animals is not defensible. We know too much about animals to pretend that at least some of them do not experience their lives or feel pain and suffering when their interests are ignored. Therefore, if these capacities are the reason we feel compelled to care about other humans, then, logically, we must extend this concern to animals. The way we treat animals is a morally significant issue – what we do to the animals in our society counts in a moral sense. This does not necessarily mean that humans and other animals are equal, or that all animals are equal, or even that we cannot use animals at all for our own purposes (remember some people would claim otherwise). But what it does mean is that, when we need to make decisions about what practices our society will accept, we need to base these not only on our own needs and desires, but also on what we know about animals – we need to know and pay attention to what is important to them. This is not so easy to do in practice and there What is welfare? are widely divergent views amongst different To better understand how difficult it can be to community groups about what good treatment measure the welfare of an animal, imagine for of animals entails and how one might assess the the moment that you are a social scientist, and welfare of different species. For example, a pig that you have been asked to investigate the level of ‘hagsil’ in a certain community group. good fortune, health, happiness, What is the first thing you would have to do? prosperity, etc. I’m guessing that it would be finding out what well-being the term hagsil means. You might do this by financial or other assistance to an talking to other people, reading relevant books individual or family from a city, state, or or doing an online search. If hagsil turned out to national government be something concrete, like ‘height’, your task Most of these definitions are not too helpful for might be easy. Almost everyone you consulted us, but the first one is probably the most useful, about the topic would give a similar definition provided the words ‘prosperity’ and ‘good and all you would have to decide is what tools fortune’ are removed. It seems reasonable to say to use and what units of measurement were that an animal has good welfare when it is in a most appropriate. contented state of being happy and healthy, and On the other hand, if hagsil turned out to be poor welfare otherwise. something more abstract and multidimensional, If we take this as being our working definition, such as ‘intelligence’, your task would be more it is clear that a wide range of different factors difficult. Different people might define this term might contribute to whether an animal’s welfare in different ways and the available measurement is good or poor. In addition, things that improve tools might vary accordingly. In addition, the welfare of one species of animal might not different indicators of hagsil might be relevant be in the best interests of another. Imagine in different sectors of your community and you walking down a forest path after a heavy rain would need to find some way of reconciling and coming across a large puddle, in which you these things in your study. It might be observe a fish and a kitten, both surrounded by ‘intelligent’ for a person interested in music to mud and water. While you might improve the live close to the entertainment centre of town. welfare of the fish by throwing it into a nearby For persons who enjoy peace and quiet, river, rescuing the kitten in the same way would however, it might be more ‘intelligent’ to live be disastrous. Things that improve welfare one elsewhere. Simply measuring where a person day might also not work on the next day. Sheep lives, then, will tell you little about their might ordinarily dislike spending time in a shed, intelligence. You also need to know what the preferring to be out in the open field, but they person likes and dislikes, and also what might might prefer being inside if the weather is be in that person’s best interests. The same particularly hot or particularly cold or if a limitations apply to measurement of hagsil. predator is lurking nearby. Factors such as this make it very difficult to specify how the welfare of animals should be assessed and promoted, although scientists have tried out several different ideas. The five freedoms approach to animal welfare In 1965, when the welfare of intensively farmed animals was first attracting community attention, the British government commissioned something called the Brambell Report. This report was highly critical of farming systems that did not allow animals to engage in basic As you might expect, the concept of welfare falls behaviours, and it recommended a set of into the abstract and multidimensional group. minimal standards. These stated that each Try looking up welfare in on-line dictionaries animal should possess the freedom to: and see what you find. When we looked at www.dictionary.com the results included: stand up  sit down that the animals in our care experience an acceptable level of well-being. The revised Five groom itself Freedoms read as follows: turn around Freedom from thirst, hunger and malnutrition by stretch its legs ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigor. Freedom from discomfort by providing a suitable environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area. Freedom from pain, injury and disease by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment. Freedom to express normal behaviour by providing sufficient space, proper facilities, and company of the animal’s own kind. Freedom from fear and distress by ensuring Even though many captive animals still do not conditions which avoid mental suffering. possess these freedoms, the Brambell Report shocked many people, drawing public attention Whether animals should experience the Five to the poor standards of animal care being Freedoms is a moral issue rather than a scientific practiced in some parts of the agricultural one but, as a scientist, would you feel community at that time. It also provided, for the comfortable using these criteria to assess the first time, recognition that behavioural needs welfare of animals in your care? Many scientists should be added to basic physiological needs, argue that the Five Freedoms approach to like food and water, and assessed by those who welfare is not sufficient for their needs, for wish to ascertain the welfare of an individual several reasons. animal. Prior to this, people tended to equate welfare with productivity. Animals that grew fat quickly or that provided good quality products, such as eggs and milk, were assumed to be physically healthy. Physically healthy animals, furthermore, were assumed to have good welfare. This assumption still exists in many parts of our community, but it has been challenged by other people, who argue that even very productive, physically healthy animals may have poor welfare. As the concept of animal welfare evolved, the initial criteria developed in the Brambell Report First, think about how you might tell whether an were revised by the Farm Animal Welfare animal is hungry or thirsty or uncomfortable or Council (FAWC), an organisation that was set up afraid. What would you look for? Behaviour is primarily to write welfare codes for farm animals one good indicator, especially if we are talking in Britain. The FAWC adopted a revised set of about animals we know fairly well, but it is far five freedoms that place less emphasis on space from perfect. How might you spot a hungry cat requirements and more emphasis on other or dog? Would this work with a Labrador? things that might also contribute to an animal’s Would it work with a fish? Can lobsters feel welfare. The Five Freedoms also specify what we hunger and, if so, how do we identify this state? can do, our responsibilities if you like, to ensure Scientists all over the world are working on these measurement issues, but it is probably The point of telling you about Gabby is to help going to take a long time to figure everything you realise that, as much as we may wish we out. And behaviour certainly is not going to give never felt pain, complete lack of pain is far us all the answers. Think about what it is like worse. There are also experiments done with when you are hungry? Do you always behave in rats that have the part of their brain removed the same way? Hunger and thirst (and pain and that normally signals hunger. These rats starve discomfort) are not so much about behaviour as to death even if provided with food because they are about mental or psychological feelings. they do not bother eating. Hence, while access We will talk about these more in the next topic, to appropriate foods might be a good thing, but they are notoriously difficult to measure. total freedom from hunger is not so desirable. Third, imagine that you are some kind of welfare inspector and that you are sent to observe some animals, along with a checklist that looks something like the following. Your task is to simply cross out the ‘freedoms’ achieved by the animals you observe, so that you can report back on their welfare state. Second, think about your own experiences and whether you would really want to be entirely free of feelings like hunger and thirst and pain. Some people are born lacking the capacity to feel pain and their lives are generally greatly disrupted by this because they do not receive warnings to avoid nasty situations. They might not know that they are leaning on a hot plate until they start to smell burning flesh. If you do an internet search using the term ‘Gabby Gingras’ you’ll find a heap of information on a Look at the table above and try to tick the boxes woman who is unable to feel pain. Here is a according to the welfare of your favourite pet, video of Gabby as a young child, here is one of another animal that you can think of, or even her as bit older, and an update on her as a one of your human family members. Can you young adult is featured here. honestly say that this ‘subject’ is completely free As a child, Gabby experienced many major from discomfort or fear? medical emergencies. She broke several bones How would you rate a pet animal that is never without her parents knowing it and had to have hungry, but that tips over its water container her eyes stitched shut for a period of time, from time to time and, as a result, is thirsty for because she virtually scratched them out of their relatively short periods of time? sockets when they itched.  because we have just put it into a new environment, to which it has not had time to adapt. Think of a kitten moving into a house with two very large dogs. Initially, it might be very fearful, but this would be appropriate and necessary to ensure that the kitten learns to respect the dogs, which might make it possible for the kitten to have a very long and very happy life. Short term events that result in poor welfare for a short period of time might not concern us as much as do living conditions that reduce welfare less, but over a very long period. What about a family member who voluntarily works out really hard in the gym, causing themselves pain and the occasional injury? How would this person score in your welfare assessment? One problem with using such a simple table to judge welfare is that it does not allow for sufficient variability. Two animals, one in severe pain and the other moderately uncomfortable, might both rate the same score on this scale. Do you agree that this is appropriate? Would it be easier if you could rate the Five Finally, the Five Freedoms may be impossible to Freedoms out of ten and then calculate an implement effectively in a community where overall score? people demand access to cheap, relatively high- quality animal products. At present, it would be If we use this approach each animal rated would very difficult for welfare scientists to insist that achieve a score out of 50, with 0 representing all animals achieve the Five Freedoms. Doing so very poor welfare and 50 representing total would alienate science from most of the freedom from thirst, hunger, discomfort, pain, community, making it nearly impossible to injury, disease, behavioural restrictions, fear, achieve anything. To be effective, welfare and distress. This would be more informative scientists often pursue smaller, more than the simple checklist approach described manageable goals. The Five Freedoms represent previously, but you would need very clear a simplistic approach to welfare that is useful guidelines about how to rate each scale. What when trying to educate the public about specific level of hunger would rate a 3? How much welfare issues. The approach is too simplistic for discomfort would rate a score of 1? How much the needs of welfare scientists, however, where pain would a score of 5 reflect? a more sophisticated concept of welfare is Another limitation is that the five freedoms do required. not allow us to take context into account, but Nature of the species approach to animal this can be very important. An obese animal may welfare be extremely uncomfortable as a result of a strict diet. However, this might not concern us if it is Some people, who reject the Five Freedoms as deemed necessary to avoid the suffering that a scientific approach to welfare, have argued would result if the animal continued to engage that animals should be raised in natural in its previous eating habits. Similarly, we might environments, where they can behave in natural encounter an animal that is very frightened ways. For such people, welfare depends on an animal being able to express natural behaviour, survive in human communities, and of the which is typically defined as being behaviour difficulties these animals might have if exposed that the animal would have engaged in, had to a more ‘natural’ setting. The little fluffballs humans not interfered with its environment. This would probably not fare very well. is similar to freedom number four in the Five A second problem is that there is no guarantee Freedoms approach, but some people think it is that a natural environment is necessarily better far more important than the other freedoms and than an artificial one. When you look on the web should be given more attention. Bernard Rollin, pages of some of the animal rights groups it is Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State very easy to come away with the idea that all University, has strongly promoted a nature of modern animals live in horrific conditions. Some the species approach to animal welfare. Here is do, of course, but some artificial environments a 5-minute video of him explaining how he came might be far preferable to more natural ones. to be interested in animal welfare issues. Would you want to go back to living in your natural state, complete with caves, goat skins, large hungry predators, and harsh winters? Similarly, do you think it is in the best interests of animals for us to put them in an environment where they will experience drought, starvation, illness, predation, and parasitism, of the kind endured by many animals living in natural conditions? There is some value in saying that animals should, in principle, be able to engage in natural behaviours, but not all natural behaviours are desirable and good welfare is One of his main arguments is based on his more complicated than this. opinion that all animal species have a ‘nature’ or ‘telos’. This is encoded genetically and includes a number of behaviours that must be performed for the animal to have good welfare. This sounds good in theory, but there are two fairly significant problems with the ‘nature of the species’ approach to animal welfare. The first is that it can be extremely difficult to know what is natural for many modern animal species. We might try to observe animals living in a natural or nearly natural state and use these observations to guide our welfare studies, but it Summary is also important that we realise how adaptable The point of this topic was to demonstrate to animals can be, and also how much they have you how difficult it is to define and then evaluate already been altered by domestication. Perhaps animal welfare in a way that satisfies scientific we would not be doing our intensively farmed scrutiny. In the past few decades, welfare pigs or hens any favours by releasing them into science has moved ahead in leaps and bounds, the natural environment that suited their but it is still quite a new field and there is much ancestors. They would not know how to survive more work to be done. Sometimes, the answer and would probably be susceptible to a whole to welfare questions is so obvious that there is range of predators and diseases that they have no controversy. Of course, being well is better been protected from for generations. Think also than having a painful disease or injury. Of of our pet dogs, long selected for their ability to course, being in an environment where you are able to stretch out and lie down comfortably is generalisations. This is the issue we will begin better than being in one where you can’t do exploring in the next topic. these things. In other situations, however, the answer is far less clear. Do we want all of our animals to be completely free from hunger, thirst and discomfort? Do we want our animals to live completely natural lives, even if this reduces their welfare in other ways? The answers to these questions are not immediately obvious, so we need to get better at figuring out what actually counts for individual animals, rather than relying on intuition or gross References and/or supplementary resources Fraser, D. (2008). Understanding animal welfare: The science in its cultural context. Wiley-Blackwell. Rollin, B. (1995). Farm animal welfare: Social, bioethical, and research issues. Iowa State Press.