PART 2: Lecture 1: Introduction Animal Welfare Flashcards
Components of animal welfare
- Welfare Science > what animals need; human impact on welfare (L1 - L3)
- Ethics > how humans should treat & care for animals (L4)
- Legislation > how humans must treat & care for animals (L1 & L4)
3 Animal Welfare Concepts
3 overlapping concepts of animal welfare (Fraser 2008), from WSAVA Animal Welfare Guidelines:
- Physical state and functioning: ability to perform essential functions e.g. eating, drinking, resting, socialising.
- Physiological or mental (affective = emotional experience) state: animals have emotional experiences e.g. pain, pleasure, fear, stress.
- Ability to perform natural behaviours and live according to its natural state: take into account natural habitat, social structure.
The Five Freedoms
- Animal welfare is multifaceted (multiple components), with links to animal health, feelings, behaviour.
- ‘Five Freedoms’ (FAWC, 1979) define good welfare as freedom:
i) from hunger and thirst
ii) from discomfort
iii) from pain, injury, or disease
iv) to express normal behaviour
v) from fear and distress
The Five Provisions
The original Five Freedoms and Five Provisions for promoting farm animal welfare. Mellor, 2016
Freedom > Provision
- Freedom from thirst, hunger and malnutrition > by providing ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.
- Freedom from discomfort and exposure > by providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area
- Freedom from pain, injury, disease > by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment
- Freedom from fear and distress > by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering
- Freedom to express normal behaviour > by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animals own kind.
Aligned Welfare Aims
Provisions > Animal Welfare Aims
- Good nutrition: Provide ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour > Minimise thirst and hunger and enable eating to be a pleasurable experience.
- Good environment: Provide shade/shelter or suitable housing, good air quality and comfortable resting areas > Minimise discomfort and exposure and promote thermal, physical and other comforts.
- Good health: Prevent or rapidly diagnose and treat disease + injury, + foster good muscle tone, posture + cardiorespiratory function > Minimise breathlessness, nausea, pain, + other aversive experiences + promote pleasures of robustness, vigour, strength, + well co-ordinated physical activity.
- Appropriate behaviour: Provide sufficient space, proper facilities, congenial (pleasant/friendly/compatible) company, appropriately varied conditions > Minimise threats + unpleasant restrictions on behaviour + promote engagement in rewarding activities.
- Positive mental experiences: Provide safe, congenial + species-appropriate opportunities to have pleasurable experiences > Promote various forms of comfort, pleasure, interest, confidence, a sense of control.
- first 4 Animal Welfare Aims refer both to minimising negative experiences/situations + promoting positive ones.
- 5th Aim entirely directed to promoting positive experiences.
- in keeping with now accepted objective of giving greater attention to promotion of positive welfare states.
Hunger & Thirst
- feeding + drinking have major effect on fitness.
- hunger & thirst (motivational states that lead to feeding & drinking) feature in most animal welfare recommendations.
- severe deprivation of food & water = illness, poor welfare, death
- unrestricted access to high quality food = weight gain, obesity
Freedom = avoid negative health + welfare consequences of ‘overfeeding’ if animals have free access to high-quality food + minimise hunger potentially associated with feeding restrictions.
Hunger & Feeding
- Normal feeding behaviour - structured in bouts or meals.
- Continous access to high-quality feed can lead to overweight/obesity
- Quantitative & qualitative food restriction & behaviour.
- effects of severe food restriction/undernutrition = ill thrift (poor growth, weight loss), poor reproductive output, severe deterioration of health + eventual death.
- malnutrition (diet lacks necessary nutrients for growth, developemnt) is food that is inappropriately balanced
Thirst & drinking
- water intake to meet physiological requirements (e.g. temp regulation, mineral-homeostasis, excretion of end products of digestion etc)
- even short term restriction will lead to deterioration in health & welfare
Water restrictions:
A) intentionally imposed (e.g. water restriction programmes; learning experiments)
B) unintentional as a result of physical, environmental & social factors (failure of water supply, water quality, competition)
Pain
“Animal pain is an aversive sensory & emotional experience representing an awareness by the animal of damage or threat to the integrity of its tissues; it changes the animal’s physiology & behaviour to reduce or avoid the damage, to reduce the likelihood of recurrence and to promote recovery.” (Molony, 1997)
- pain is significant welfare concern e.g. as result of housing or husbandry or following surgical procedures or disease
Occurrence of pain
Farm animals:
- e.g. mulesing of sheep, dehorning + branding of cattle (heated iron to apply permanent mark), beak or bill trimming of poultry, + castration + tail docking of pigs; all of these are often performed without anaesthetics or analgesics so can be painful.
Laboratory animals:
- national legislation in many countries requires that painful procedures involve use of anaesthesia and analgesia (unless there is sound reason not to); focus often in post-procedure pain; animal models of pain research (e.g. develop new treatments, test pain-relieving medications).
Occurrence of pain
Companion animals:
- painful surgeries on cats + dogs are normally performed under anaesthesia.
- management of chronic pain (e.g. non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for treating pain due to osteoarthritis in cats).
Wild animals:
- little research on pain in wildlife with some exceptions e.g. painful procedures performed on captive wildlife, pain associated with hunting or angling (fishing with hook)
- pain perception in fish & decapod crustaceans (crabs, lobsters, shrimp) are increasingly studied.
Recognition of pain
Methods of pain assessment remain limited:
-
Physiological responses:
- elevation in heart rate or blood pressure + endocrine responses (indirect measures of pain)
- neurophysiological + electrophysiological responses (e.g. stimulation of production of biomarkers, changes in peripheral + central nervous system) -
Behavioural assessment:
- avoidance responses (fleeing, hiding, freezing)
- vocalisations (e.g. distress calls) (by young dependent animals, e.g. during piglet castration)
- responses directed towards the site of injury (e.g. calves licking the tail area after tail docking, rubbing heads after disbudding)
- reduced locomotion & feeding
- self medication (e.g. some birds known to use specific types of ants to rid themselves of feather mites by rubbing ants on feathers)
Fear / Negative emotions
Fear = complex concept; a negative emotion determining how humans & other animals respond to physical & social challenge; ideally adaptive, with fear behaviour serving to protect animal from injury
Fear / Negative emotions
Fear-eliciting events
E.g.
- loud noises
- movement / sudden movement
- predators
- novelty e.g. unfamiliar environment or object
- association with previous experience
- social signals & emotional contagion (emotions of one animal in group spreads to others)
- social isolation
- intensity, duration, proximity.
Fear / Negative emotions
Fear-related behaviours
E.g.
- active defence (attack, threat)
- active avoidance (flight, hiding, escape)
- passive avoidance (immobility)
- head/ear postures, facial expressions, alarm calls/odours/pheromones.
