THL
Though critics argue that advocating for animal welfare only cements animals’ exploitation in laboratories, on farms, and in other industrial situations, strengthening welfare standards makes these animals' lives more bearable.
The term “animal welfare” can evoke a sense of calm or well-being for the conscious consumer, especially when it appears on a carton of eggs or a jug of milk proclaiming that animals were treated humanely during the creation of these products. But these claims often obscure the dark realities of where and how these products were made—on factory farms that systematically condemn animals to lives of extreme confinement, stress, pain, and even torture.
This article will explore what animal welfare means, why it matters, and how welfare standards are too-often violated.
What is animal welfare?
Animal welfare pertains to the living conditions of animals who are kept in captivity or are otherwise under human control. In this way, animal welfare is synonymous with human control of animals.
As a guiding philosophy for legislation and regulations, animal welfare attempts to mitigate the suffering of human-controlled animals and to ensure a minimum standard of living conditions and treatment. Welfare standards can be applied to farms, laboratories, pet stores, horse ranches, and entertainment facilities, although standards differ widely based on the species and how animals are used.
What's the difference between animal rights and animal welfare?
While both animal rights and animal welfare are oriented towards the well-being of individual animals, they differ significantly. Animal rights advocates believe that every animal deserves the right to live a life free from human control. Veganism—refraining from using or consuming animal products—is a lifestyle commonly adopted by proponents of this philosophy.
Conversely, animal welfare implicitly reinforces human use of animals, because welfare is applied to situations where animals are under the control of humans. These include facilities such as farms, where animals are being used (and/or killed) to create products or food for humans.
Notably, some argue that a person can be both an animal rights advocate and an animal welfare advocate. For example, if one's ultimate goal is to achieve animal rights, they may work in the meantime to advance animal welfare.
What is the Animal Welfare Act?
Signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) is federal legislation in the United States designed to prevent animal cruelty and abuse within laboratories, the entertainment industry (e.g., zoos, circuses), and captive breeding. The act provides the legal framework for dealing with unnecessary cruelty and is enforced by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Despite the progressive underpinnings of the AWA, it leaves much to be desired by not protecting many animals who do not fall beneath its purview. For example, rats and mice who are used extensively in laboratories and subjected to extremely painful procedures like vivisection—or the dissection of living animals—are not protected by the act.
Farmed animals of all kinds are also excluded from the AWA, despite the fact that these animals account for the greatest numbers of animals who routinely endure cruelty and abuse on factory farms and in slaughterhouses. Farmed chickens, turkeys, cows, and pigs would arguably benefit the most from the legislation, yet they remain unprotected.
The Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare
The Five Freedoms of Animal Welfare, which were written by Irish medical scientist Francis Brambell in 1965 and codified by the UK's Farm Animal Welfare Council in 1979, represent the bare minimum of living standards that animals in captivity should have:
- Freedom from thirst and hunger
- Freedom from discomfort by providing adequate shelter
- Freedom from disease, pain, or injury
- Freedom from distress and fear
- Freedom to engage in natural behaviors
Unfortunately, there is room for interpretation in these guidelines that often disadvantages animals. For example, if animals are allowed to engage in some natural behaviors—such as chickens being allowed to perch and spread their wings, as opposed to being locked in battery cages where they can do neither of these things—this is seen as sufficiently maintaining their welfare. However, perching in a factory farm still means birds are confined to one indoor room for the duration of their drastically shortened lives.
On factory farms, animals are denied most if not all of the natural behaviors they would otherwise engage in. This has serious consequences for their physical and psychological health.
Animal welfare issues
Animal welfare issues can arise in any situation where animals are being used by humans, whether for food, entertainment, or experimentation. Below are a few examples of human activities that often impinge on animal welfare.
Animal testing
The US animal testing industry subjects 25 million animals to cruel tests each year. Rabbits, mice, guinea pigs, and other animals regularly undergo stressful operations and experiments. Some are restrained in devices while substances are dripped into their eyes, while others are force-fed or endure painful operations. Laboratory animals are often kept within stainless steel enclosures for much of their lives.
Lack of behavioral enrichment
Behavioral enrichment refers to the features added to animals’ living spaces meant to provide mental stimulation. Boredom is a common cause of mental distress for captive animals. In zoos, items such as tires, barrels stuffed with food, or artificial rocks or trees are meant to simulate wild environments and provide relief from restlessness. However, these additions still do not approximate a natural life, which is defined by choice, exploration, and variety. Zoos and aquariums may not seem as horrific as factory farms, but they remain problematic.
Animals on factory farms often live without any behavioral enrichment whatsoever. This extreme trauma triggers stress-induced behaviors such as chewing on the bars of their cages, attacking other animals, and even cannibalism.
Farmed animals
The most prevalent source of animal welfare violations in the US, based on the sheer number of animals affected, are farmed animals. Life within the industrial agricultural system means undergoing routine mutilations without anesthetics. Cows, pigs, and sheep have their tails removed, and portions of chickens’ beaks are often sliced off at a young age. These animals live in dark, crowded, unsanitary enclosures that are largely if not entirely indoors. Generally speaking, factory farms prioritize cost-efficiency and profits over animal welfare.
Blood sport
In blood sports—such as bullfighting or dogfighting—it is often the pain of an animal that provides the attraction for human audiences, leading to many welfare concerns. Dogfighting and cockfighting involve raising animals in tight confines, conducting invasive breeding activities, and forcing two animals to fight until they reach the point of serious injury or death. In bullfighting, bulls are stabbed repeatedly while being goaded around a ring in a stadium filled with cheering people. Blood sports offer the opposite of quick, painless deaths.
Sport hunting
Sport hunting is the killing of animals for fun, rather than food, and is usually carried out without regard for animal welfare. Species such as deer, rabbits, ducks, and bears are common targets of sport hunting in North America, where they're killed with weapons such as guns or crossbows. While hunters often try to kill animals with one shot, the animals are often grievously wounded instead. Many escape their hunter(s) only to die later from their wounds, slowly and painfully.
Poaching
While game hunting usually refers to the legal hunting of animals, poaching usually means hunting outside the law. It's another form of vicious exploitation that's generally conducted without any regard for animal welfare. The lucrative trade in pangolins, for example, sees nearly 3 million of these animals caught from the wild each year and shipped over great distances, sometimes for weeks at a time. (They're then killed for their scales or meat.) Elephants, rhinoceroses, tigers, and gorillas are also heavily poached. Elephants and rhinos often have their tusks and horns cut away from their faces while the animals are still alive.
Whaling
It's difficult to kill a whale quickly, which is among the many reasons why the hunting of whales is rife with welfare issues. Particularly in larger whales, it can take a long time—sometimes minutes, sometimes hours—for a whale to finally succumb to a harpoon. A variety of weapons have been devised over the years to hasten the demise of whales, including explosive harpoons that detonate inside a whale’s body. But even these can take up to 25 minutes.
To make matters worse, whales are often in full view of their family members as they die.
Overpopulation in companion animals
When companion animals like dogs and cats aren’t spayed or neutered, they can inadvertently contribute to America's overpopulation problem, where there aren’t enough people willing to adopt the number of animals available. In these cases, animals are either abandoned to fend for themselves, or dropped at shelters. Life at a shelter can be stressful for animals because they're usually kept in cages where they don't have much room to move around.
While many shelters adopt policies to never kill animals (these are known as no-kill shelters), others euthanize animals who are deemed unadoptable. Euthanization at shelters typically meets the highest welfare standards, but it's still a tragic and avoidable outcome. The ASPCA estimates that 1.5 million dogs and cats are put down at US shelters every year.
Puppy mills
Puppy mills, unlike more legitimate dog breeders, present serious welfare concerns for the many animals in their care. Pregnant dogs in puppy mills can be locked within cages for the duration of their lives, made to churn out puppies until their bodies give out. Their offspring are taken from them soon after birth, only to endure their own traumatic experiences of crowding, malnutrition, and unsanitary conditions before being shipped to pet stores or other sellers and sold to an often unsuspecting public.
Puppies born in puppy mills can also have psychological and physical disorders that make them difficult to cohabitate with, and which sometimes lead to premature death.
Why is animal welfare important?
Though some critics argue that animal welfare only cements animals’ exploitation on farms, in laboratories, and in other industrial situations, welfare standards are effective in making the lives of animals more bearable. The Humane League and our supporters have succeeded in convincing some slaughterhouses to stop using killing methods that cause prolonged pain for chickens, and in persuading some factory farms to end extreme confinement of chickens. These are major milestones in the movement to end the abuse of animals raised for food.
While these changes may seem incremental in the face of a powerful industry that largely regards animals as inanimate objects rather than intelligent and sensitive beings, without welfare advocates, these animals' lives would be even more tortured and painful. A chicken who is allowed to grow at a less rapid rate, who is able to stand up without breaking any bones, who has room to spread their wings and move around, and who will be spared the horrors of live-shackle slaughter represents a very real, tangible improvement over the alternative.
Conclusion
It's a tragic reality that the intersection of human and animal lives so often results in pain and suffering for animals. Strengthening welfare standards not only improves the lives of animals; it can also educate the public about the harsh conditions animals face in places like factory farms and laboratories.
The conversation around animal welfare is constantly evolving, and it features many different viewpoints even from advocates with the same ultimate goals. Still, this ongoing dialogue and the actions it inspires continue to pull our society toward better conditions for animals. One day, progress in our movement ideally will result in all animals' liberation from the worst of human treatment.
