Create Beautiful DesignsThere are many different approaches to describing and defining animal welfare.
Conditions provided by humans. Providing good animal welfare is sometimes defined by a list of positive conditions which should be provided to the animal. This approach is taken by the Five Freedoms and the three principles of Professor John Webster. The Five Freedoms are:
Production by animals In the past, many have seen farm animal welfare chiefly in terms of whether the animal is producing well. The argument is that an animal in poor welfare would not be producing well, however, many farmed animals will remain highly productive despite being in conditions where good welfare is almost certainly compromised, e.g., layer hens in battery cages. Feelings of animals: Emotion in animals. Others in the field, such as Professor Ian Duncan and Professor Marian Dawkins, focus more on the feelings of the animal. This approach indicates the belief that animals should be considered as sentient beings. Duncan wrote, "Animal welfare is to do with the feelings experienced by animals: the absence of strong negative feelings, usually called suffering, and (probably) the presence of positive feelings, usually called pleasure. In any assessment of welfare, it is these feelings that should be assessed." Dawkins wrote, "Let us not mince words: Animal welfare involves the subjective feelings of animals." Yew-Kwang Ng defines animal welfare in terms of welfare economics: "Welfare biology is the study of living things and their environment with respect to their welfare (defined as net happiness, or enjoyment minus suffering). Despite difficulties of ascertaining and measuring welfare and relevancy to normative issues, welfare biology is a positive science." Dictionary definition In the Saunders Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary, animal welfare is defined as "the avoidance of abuse and exploitation of animals by humans by maintaining appropriate standards of accommodation, feeding and general care, the prevention and treatment of disease and the assurance of freedom from harassment, and unnecessary discomfort and pain." Veterinary profession[edit]The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) has defined animal welfare as: "An animal is in a good state of welfare if (as indicated by scientific evidence) it is healthy, comfortable, well nourished, safe, able to express innate behavior, and if it is not suffering from unpleasant states such as pain, fear, and distress." They have offered the following eight principles for developing and evaluating animal welfare policies.
Coping Professor Donald Broom defines the welfare of an animal as "Its state as regards its attempts to cope with its environment. This state includes how much it is having to do to cope, the extent to which it is succeeding in or failing to cope, and its associated feelings." He states that "welfare will vary over a continuum from very good to very poor and studies of welfare will be most effective if a wide range of measures is used." John Webster criticized this definition for making "no attempt to say what constitutes good or bad welfare." Attitudes Animal welfare often refers to a utilitarian attitude towards the well-being of nonhuman animals. It believes the animals can be exploited if the animal suffering and the costs of use is less than the benefits to humans. This attitude is also known simply as welfarism. An example of welfarist thought is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's meat manifesto. Point three of eight is: Think about the animals that the meat you eat comes from. Are you at all concerned about how they have been treated? Have they lived well as your Westie Puppies? Have they been fed on safe, appropriate foods? Have they been car_ed for by someone who respects them and enjoys contact with them? Would you like to be sure of that? Perhaps it's time to find out a bit more about where the meat you eat comes from. Or to buy from a source that reassures you about these points. Robert Garner describes the welfarist position as the most widely held in modern society. He states that one of the best attempts to clarify this position is given by Robert Nozick: Consider the following (too minimal) position about the treatment of animals. So that we can easily refer to it, let us label this position "utilitarianism for animals, Kantianism for people." It says: (1) maximize the total happiness of all living beings; (2) place stringent side constraints on what one may do to human beings. Human beings may not be used or sacrificed for the benefit of others; animals may be used or sacrificed for the benefit of other people or animals only if those benefits are greater than the loss inflicted. Welfarism is often contrasted with the animal rights and animal liberation positions, which hold that animals should not be used by humans and should not be regarded as human property. However, it has been argued that both welfarism and animal liberation only make sense if it is assumed that animals have "subjective welfare". New welfarism New welfarism was coined by Gary L. Francione in 1996. It is a view that the best way to prevent animal suffering is to abolish the causes of animal suffering, but advancing animal welfare is a goal to pursue in the short term. Thus, for instance, new welfarists want to phase out fur farms and animal experiments but in the short-term they try to improve conditions for the animals in these systems, so they lobby to make cages less constrictive and to reduce the numbers of animals used in laboratories. Laws punishing cruelty to animals tend to not just be based on welfare concerns but the belief that such behavior has repercussions toward the treatment of other humans by the animal abusers. Another argument against animal cruelty is based on aesthetics. Within the context of animal research, many scientific organisations believe that improved animal welfare will provide improved scientific outcomes. If an animal in a laboratory is suffering stress or pain it could negatively affect the results of the research. Increased affluence in many regions for the past few decades afforded consumers the disposable income to purchase products from high welfare systems. The adaptation of more economically efficient farming systems in these regions were at the expense of animal welfare and to the financial benefit of consumers, both of which were factors in driving the demand for higher welfare for farm animals.A 2006 survey concluded that a majority (63%) of EU citizens "show some willingness to change their usual place of shopping in order to be able to purchase more animal welfare-friendly products." Interest in animal welfare continues to grow, with increasing attention being paid to it by the media, governmental and non-governmental organizations. The volume of scientific research on animal welfare has also increased significantly in some countries. History, principles, practice Systematic concern for the well-being of other animals probably arose in the Indus Valley Civilization as religious ancestors were believed to return in animal form; therefore animals must be treated with respect. This belief is exemplified in the existing religion, Jainism, and in varieties of other Indian religions. Other religions, especially those with roots in the Abrahamic religions, treat animals as the property of their owners, codifying rules for their care and slaughter intended to limit the distress, pain, and fear animals experience under human control. Early legislation which formed the impetus for assessing animal welfare and the subsequent development of animal welfare science include the Ireland Parliament (Thomas Wentworth) "An Act against Plowing by the Tayle, and pulling the Wooll off living Sheep", 1635, and the Massachusetts Colony (Nathaniel Ward) "Off the Bruite Creatures" Liberty 92 and 93 in the "Massachusetts Body of Liberties" of 1641. Since 1822, when Irish MP Richard Martin brought the "Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822" through Parliament offering protection from cruelty to cattle, horses, and sheep, the welfare approach has had human morality and humane behavior as its central concerns. Martin was among the founders of the world's first animal welfare organization, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or SPCA, in 1824. In 1840,Queen Victoria gave the society her blessing, and it became the RSPCA. The society used members' donations to employ a growing network of inspectors, whose job was to identify abusers, gather evidence, and report them to the authorities. One of the first national laws to protect animals was the UK "Cruelty to Animals Act 1835" followed by the "Protection of Animals Act 1911". In the US it was many years until there was a national law to protect animals—the "Animal Welfare Act of 1966"—although there were a number of states that passed anti-cruelty laws between 1828 and 1898.[39] In India, animals are protected by the "Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960". Significant progress in animal welfare did not take place until the late 20th century.[40] In 1965, the UK government commissioned an investigation—led by Professor Roger Brambell—into the welfare of intensively farmed animals, partly in response to concerns raised in Ruth Harrison's 1964 book, Animal Machines. On the basis of Professor Brambell's report, the UK government set up the Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Committee in 1967, which became the Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1979. The committee's first guidelines recommended that animals require the freedoms to "stand up, lie down, turn around, groom themselves and stretch their limbs." The guidelines have since been elaborated upon to become known as the Five Freedoms. In the UK, the "Animal Welfare Act 2006" consolidated many different forms of animal welfare legislation. A number of animal welfare organisations are campaigning to achieve a Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare (UDAW) at the United Nations. In principle, the Universal Declaration would call on the United Nations to recognise animals as sentient beings, capable of experiencing pain and suffering, and to recognise that animal welfare is an issue of importance as part of the social development of nations worldwide. The campaign to achieve the UDAW is being co-ordinated by World Animal Protection, with a core working group including Compassion in World Farming, the RSPCA, and the Humane Society International (the international branch of HSUS). T Animal welfare science Main article: Animal welfare science. Animal welfare science is an emerging field that seeks to answer questions raised by the keeping and use of animals, such as whether hens are frustrated when confined in cages,[44] whether the psychological well-being of animals in laboratories can be maintained and whether zoo animals are stressed by the transport required for international conservation. Animal welfare issues
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