WIREDGOV

A report by the Scottish Animal Welfare Commission providing recommendations on animal welfare indicators which could form part of measures in future iterations of the Good Food Nation Plan.

Introduction

SAWC defines animal welfare as: ‘the mental and physical state of an individual as it experiences and engages with its environment’. This definition can be applied to any sentient animal (currently this includes all vertebrate species, decapod crustacea and cephalopod molluscs) and takes account of the relatively recent widespread recognition of the importance of sentience to the individual.

The first definition of animal welfare, based on the Brambell report (1965), was the Five Freedoms, which considered that welfare was affected by five areas: nutrition, environment, health, fear and distress, and behaviour. Following the opinions of the Brambell Committee, the Five Freedoms are mainly focused on the animal’s experience (e.g. freedom from hunger and thirst, the emotions associated with not being given sufficient food or water), rather than the physical or physiological condition induced by not meeting the freedom. The Five Freedoms also make it clear that there is no one single dimension that encompasses animal welfare. Although the Five Freedoms is the most widely used definition of animal welfare, it has been criticised in more recent years. It is considered to be too idealised and unrealistic (for example, an animal that is never hungry would never show food seeking behaviour) and to be too focused on negative emotional states (e.g. pain, fear, discomfort). In 2009 the Farm Animal Welfare Council (FAWC) published another report on animal welfare, and suggested that animal welfare should be considered on a continuum from very poor (suggested to be ‘a life not worth living’) through neutral (where all the negative aspects of an animal’s life may have been removed, labelled ‘a life worth living’) to a very good state of welfare where animals experience positive emotions, such as contentment, satisfaction and comfort, labelled ‘a good life’.

In 1994, in developing a framework to assess welfare in laboratory animals, Mellor and Reid suggested an alternative conception of animal welfare they called the Five Domains. Several iterations of this concept have occurred, considering, for example, the need to include positive emotional states, to derive the current version of this model. This model considers that animals are affected by three physical and survival critical domains (nutrition, environment and health) and one situational domain (behavioural interactions, which can include interactions with conspecifics, with humans and with the environment), all of which can have both positive and negative impacts on the fifth domain (mental state). It is the integration of these different impacts on mental state that leads to the animal’s welfare state. The Five Domains model still considers the same multidimensions encompassed in the Five Freedoms (nutrition, environment, health, behaviour) and similarly locates animal welfare as what the animal experiences but provides more of a framework that can lead to the assessment or measurement of animal welfare. It is this framework, and the need to consider positive and negative aspects of animal welfare that has guided our thinking here.

Animal welfare can be assessed by considering the resources or inputs provided to the animal (such as the space available, the amount and types of food or bedding provided, the numbers of other animals with which it can interact, etc). These measures are known as ‘resource-based indicators’ and assess the risks of poor welfare: for example, when feeding places are limited it is likely that there will be increased food competition and some animals may get to eat less than they would want, or may have to eat at less preferred times or eat less preferred foods: e.g.). Not all animals may experience the hunger, fear, pain or frustration that may arise from this situation, and some animals may be unaffected, but the hazard of reduced feeding spaces increases the risks that some or more animals will experience the negative consequences of increased food competition. Similarly, resource-based measures can allow us to assess the opportunities for animals to have positive experiences. For example, assessment of the presence of important resources that have been shown to be valued by animals increases the probability that animals may show highly motivated behaviours that may be associated with positive emotions.

Alternatively, animal welfare can be assessed at the animal level or assessed as outputs. These are known as ‘animal-based measures’. This reflects that welfare is a property of the individual animal and emphasises the animal’s own perception and ability to adapt to its surroundings. As such, animal-based measures provide a more direct indicator of animal experience and quality of life than resource-based measures and have become the preferred method of assessing welfare. However, animal-based measures can be time consuming to record, and inter- and intra-observer reliability can be more difficult to achieve than with resource-based measures, without specific training. For these reasons, most animal welfare assessment schemes in commercial use rely on resource-based indicators, sometimes supplemented by a few key animal-based measures (e.g.). In suggesting indicators in this report, we have tried to provide a mix of both resource-based indicators (which may already be available or can provide a quick overview of welfare) and animal-based indicators, recognising that animal-based measures are superior but may have constraints on data availability and ease of assessment.

Click here for the full press release