Introduction to Animal Welfare Flashcards
Animal Welfare
it means how animal is coping with the condition to which it lives.
What is welfare?
Desire to prevent unnecessary animal suffering.
State of an animal as it attempts to cope with environmental change.
Animal may go through difficult periods but may succeed in coping without long-term effects.
Attempts to cope via:
* Body repair system
* Immunological defense mechanism
* Emergency physiological response
* Variety of behavioral response
Sentience
The capacity to have feelings – sensation or emotion.
Suffering
one or more bad feelings continuing for more than a short period.
Anthropomorphism
attribution of human qualities to animals – giving human characteristics to a non-human entity
Three approaches when considering animal welfare:
- Physical - status of the animal’s body.
- Mental - animals’ feelings.
- Natural Behavior - nurturing and fulfillment of the animal’s nature.
Five freedoms (Animal Welfare Council, 1992)
- Freedom from hunger and thirst
- Freedom from discomfort
- Freedom from pain, injury, and disease
- Freedom from fear and distress
- Freedom to express normal behavior
measured by behavior, disease, production, physiology; restrict freedom to move around, nest build.
Severity
An animal is in a satisfactory state of well-being when it is:
- healthy,
- comfortable
- well nourished
- safe
- able to express its innate behavior,
- not suffering from unpleasant states such as pain, fear, and distress.
An animal is in poor welfare when:
- Reduced life expectancy
- Reduced growth or breeding
- Body damage
- Disease
- Immunosuppression
- Physical and behavioral attempts to cope
- Behavioral pathology
- Self-narcotisation
- Extent of behavioral aversion shown
- Extent of suppression of normal behavior
- Extend to which normal physiological processes and anatomical development are prevented.
measures the effect on animals of different situations and environments from the animal’s point of view
Welfare Science
Welfare Ethics
concerns human action towards animals – what we do and what we should do
Welfare legislation
concerns how humans must treat animals
Ahimsa
do not cause injury to any living being – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism.
Bishnoi tribe in Rajasthan
ecological philosophy – do not eat anything animal, and give 10% of the harvest to the wildlife. They are eco-warriors that are willing to sacrifice themselves to protect animals and trees.
Confucianism
Because of one-ness with all beings, the suffering of animals is a source of distress in humans.
Pythagoras
not eating of animals
Stoic
animals aren’t rational, therefore we don’t need to worry about whether we ate treating them fairly
Plutarch
animals may not be rational, but we should still be kind to them
Porphyry
animals deserve moral consideration because they can feel distress
he passed the very first formal Animal Protection Law in 1822
Jeremy Bentham
(same state)steady, internal state that is necessary for the basic life processes
Physiological set points – e.g. maintain blood pressure, maintain blood pH
Homeostasis
(the other state) – stability through change – changes is physiological and behavior enable adaptation to the milking parlour
Allostasis
