Animal welfare matters

Animal Welfare

Animal agriculture in North America has undergone a revolution since World War II. Productivity has increased enormously through the use of animal confinement, genetic selection, scientific feed formulation, and productivity-enhancing pharmaceuticals. There has been a shift to larger production units taking advantage of economies of scale. Critics contend that these changes have reduced the wel...

Animal Consciousness: What Matters

x\.RE animals conscious? The way we are? Which species, and why? What is it like to be a bat, a rat, a vulture, a whale? But perhaps we really do not want to know the answers to these questions. We should not despise the desire to be kept in ignorance—are there not many facts about yourself and your loved ones that you would wisely choose not to know? Speaking for myself, I am sure that I would...

Zoo animal welfare.

The history of zoo animal welfare legislation extends back to 1876, and is often tied to general animal welfare regulations. As knowledge and societal values have changed, so have the focus of zoos and the regulations governing them. Today, the issues involved in zoo animal welfare are complex and broad-based. Building on the basic welfare tenets of adequate feed, water, shelter, sanitation and...

Evolution and animal welfare.

Animal welfare is a topic often thought to reside outside mainstream biology. The complexity of the methods used to assess welfare (such as health, physiology, immunological state, and behavior) require an understanding of a wide range of biological phenomena. Furthermore, the "welfare" of an animal provides a framework in which a diversity of its responses can be understood as fitness-enhancin...

Focus on animal welfare.