Ensuring Animal Welfare Weighing the Options and Understanding Choices

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Ensuring Animal WelfareWeighing the Options and
Understanding Choices

• Gail C. Golab, PhD, DVM, MACVSc (Animal Welfare)
• Director, Animal Welfare Division

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• Sowere smart people.
• How difficult can making recommendations on
  animal welfare really be?

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Example 1Dog in Three Different Environments

• Eats whatevers on sale, frequent table scraps
• Free roam of home, outside for walks
• Annual veterinary examination
• Toys available, occasional game of fetch
• Only dog, no social interaction with other dogs
• Controlled, nutritionally complete diet
• Confined to kennel, outside for walks
• Evaluation by caretaker each day, monthly exam by
  veterinarian
• Toys available, daily training by familiar
  caretakers
• Able to see and hear, but not interact with other
  dogs

Home
Laboratory
Laboratory
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Dog in Three Different Environments

• Donated diet
• Initial veterinary exam, daily observation
• Communal housing, able to interact with other
  dogs
• Human interactions variable and inconsistent
• High mortality rate (euthanasia)

Shelter
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Which Environment is Most Welfare Friendly?
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Example 2Housing Laying Hens

• Caged at 72 in2/hen, movement restricted
• No nest box or litter for dust bathing
• Easy access to feed trough and water
• Aggressive interactions infrequent, cannibalism
  minimal
• Individual birds easily observed
• Eggs protected and easily collected

• Floor-raised in barn
• Nest boxes, litter for dust bathing
• Evidence of aggression, cannibalism, flighty
  (easily startled)
• Nest box gregariousness, floor laying
• Old bone breaks evident at end of lay

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Housing Laying Hens

• Large space, freedom of movement
• Enclosures for sleeping and nesting
• Natural substrates, multiple opportunities for
  expression of natural behaviors
• Aggression and cannibalism moderate
• Exposed to elements, pests, predators, and
  soil-borne disease

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Which Environment Is Most Welfare Friendly?

• Which would these people choose?
• Those in business to produce animals and their
  products
• Your neighbor
• Animal protection activists
• Veterinarians

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Why You Chose As You Did(Why We Dont All Think
Alike)
Quantitative and qualitative comparisons to wild
or free-living counterparts
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• Butour choices are also conditioned by our
  experiences

• Those in the animal use industries
• Members of the public
• Animal protection activists
• Veterinarians

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Understanding Their ViewpointExperiences
Animal Use Industries

• After WWII
• Production/use costs ? (esp wages)
• Prices ? (market forces)
• Pressures on those involved in
• animal use ? intensification
• ? efficiency, emphasis on business
• management
• Specialization, few multiply-faceted
• operations, contract operators
• Economy of scale/type
• Animal welfare important to successwhat is
• emphasized influenced by business goals
• But
• Respond to consumer purchasing behavior
• (desired attributes vs cost)

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Understanding Their ViewpointExperiences Public

• Urbanization
• Social shifts in family units
• Animals move from utility food/fiber/research
  to companions
• Increase in disposable income
• Public vision of animals reflects CA experience
• What is thought about as good welfare has
  potential for direct conflict with views of
  animal use businesses
• But
• Concern for food and drug/device availability and
  security/safety

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Understanding Their ViewpointExperiences Animal
Protection Activists

• Come from all walks of life with all kinds of
  experiences
• Many are not familiar with the animal use
  industries and animal care practices
• Most driven by a genuine desire to do the right
  thing
• Buttheir organizations need to survive
• Therefore
• Have to create a platform and craft a message
  that meets the needs of their supporters
• Resonate
• Not excessively complex
• Supporters
• Those members of the public who are particularly
  interested in animal issues
• Some who are not supportive of animal use

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Understanding Their ViewpointsExperiences
Veterinarians
Different Practices Different Focus

• Companion animalindividual animal focus care
  decisions framed by owner attachment and ability
  to pay, and generally not by market value
  advanced procedures in demand
• Equinefocus is mixture of pleasure and function
  care decisions often framed by use advanced
  procedures available, but return on investment
  can be an important consideration
• Food Supplyherd focus care decisions framed by
  goal of bringing product to market advanced
  procedures limited by market value procedural
  outsourcing

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Understanding Their Viewpoints--ExperiencesVeteri
narians

• Laboratory Animalgroup focus care decisions
  affected by demands of research and regulation
  advanced procedures limited by value to and
  affect on research programs
• Public practicemultiple stakeholder demands and
  factors
• Advocacyanimal industry or humane groups
  expected to fully support the missions and aims
  of their particular group
• And all these differences are compounded by
• Age and gender effects

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So

• Those in the animal use industries depend on the
  welfare of their animalsbut have to live with
  business practicalities.
• Members of the public want to protect animal
  welfarebut arent always sure what that means.
• Animal protection activists either have passion
  about making sure animals are used appropriately
  or passion about ensuring they are not usedand
  they have to make sure their message resonates
  with their donors.
• Veterinarians may have different concepts about
  animal welfaredepending on how they and animal
  owners think about the animals they treat.
• Whos Right????

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EnterScience

• 1964Ruth Harrison authors Animal Machines, which
  described modern intensive farming practices in
  Great Britain
• Life in the factory farm revolves
• entirely around profits, and animals
• are accessed purely for their ability
• to convert food into flesh or
• saleable products.
• Public/industry conflict
• Science proposed as solution (Brambell Committee)

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ScienceThe Five Freedoms

• Freedom from thirst, hunger, malnutrition
• Freedom from discomfort
• Freedom from pain, injury, disease
• Freedom to express normal behaviors
• Freedom from fear and distress2
• 1Brambell FWR. 1965. Report of the Technical
  Committee to Enquire into the Welfare of Animals
  Kept Under Intensive Livestock Husbandry Systems
  ed. Her Majestys Stationery Office, London.
• 2Webster J. 2005. Limping Towards Eden. Hoboken,
  NJ WileyBlackwell.

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For Dog
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For Laying Hens
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Science as Solution

• The dreamall animal welfare decisions are
  science-based
• We want to look at inputs and outputs and arrive
  at a scientific solution
• Biological functionis homeostasis
• maintained?
• Healthabsence/presence of disease/injury
• Behavioral/social function
• Adaptation
• Emotional states (e.g., distress, suffering)
• Cognition/awareness
• Choices
• We know this is the best way to assure that the
  welfare of the animal is protected

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Science as Solution

• The reality
• Animal welfare decisions are social decisions
• Integration of culture, ethics, and science
• Science didnt even really play a role until
  1950s
• Science isnt black-and-white or value-free
• Science can be used to help resolve disputes
  (sometimes!)
• Science may not exist, may be used selectively,
  or be ignored
• Science is used by both sides in policy debates
• If societal perception is that something is
  wrong then science is unlikely to change that
  perception
• Science can determine what type or level of risk
  exists
• Science cannot determine what type or level of
  risk is acceptable (this is a social question)

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Improving Animal Welfare Decision-Making

• Understand and accept that animal welfare
  decisions are complex
• Social acceptability (the smell test)
• Science
• Sustainability
• Recognize that presentation and interpretation of
  animal welfare questions and the related science
  is not value-free
• Be cognizant of your experts prejudicesand your
  own!
• Insist that ALL the information be brought to the
  table

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Improving Animal Welfare Decision-Making

• Beware the quick fix
• Most animal care systems have advantages and
  disadvantages
• Various components of systems integrate
• If it seems too obvious or too simple, it
  probably is!

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Trade-offs

• Relying too much on one type of measure can
  prejudice decision-making
• Unintended consequences can result from
  standards/policy based on a single criterion

Adapted from the LayWel Report
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Improving Animal Welfare Decision-Making

• Because the advantages and disadvantages of
  animal care systems and practices are
  qualitatively different, objectively ranking them
  for overall welfare can be extremely difficult.
• How much mortality how much behavioral
  freedom?

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Improving Animal Welfare Decision-Making

• Consultative processes support animal welfare
  best
• ? stakeholder engagement better decisions
• Two approaches
• Gold standard (Do it now!)
• Incremental improvement (Well get to where we
  want to go, starting with this improvement)
• Improving animal welfare is a dynamic, not a
  static, process

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Some Resources

• AVMA animal welfare Web section
• www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/default.asp
• AVMA animal welfare policies
• www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/policies.asp
• Animal welfare backgrounders
• www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/backgrounders.a
  sp
• Upcoming meetings/activities
• www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/meetings.asp
• Additional resources
• www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/related_links.a
  sp

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Thank You For Your Time and Attention
Please Let Me Know What We Can Do To Help
You ggolab_at_avma.org
The best public policy is made when you are
listening to people who are going to be impacted.
Then, once policy is determined, you call on them
to help you sell it. --Elizabeth Dole