Criteria and methods for the assessment of animal welfare - Preface

When the issue of animal welfare is under consideration, two opposing views have recently been in contrast with each other: 1) The first can be expressed with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi (cited by Appleby and Hughes, 1997): The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. Similar, but more direct, is the statement by Dawkins (1980) to define welfare: Absence of suffering. Suffering understood to be an unpleasant emotional state induced by fear, pain, frustration, exhaustion, loss of social companions; 2) The second is otherwise explained by Blosser (1987): as long as the animal is growing normally, performing well, is properly nourished and free from diseases, and suffers no physical mistreatment, there is no cause of concern. The first statement can be understood in an ethical approach that considers animals as part of nature, thus similar to a “goddess”. The second one can be also understood, but only if the animals are considered exclusively as a useful tool. Although they are quite far from each other, some area of compromise is possible. On the contrary, provocative suggestions like A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy; they’re all equal (PETA, cit. Kertz, 1996) or the assumption that animals possess objective rights and must be free to freely choose what they want, would render completely impossible any attempt to breed them (not only for profit, but also as pets). A promising approach can be seen in Appleby’s (1996) definition of welfare: The state of well-being brought about by meeting their physical, environmental, nutritional, behavioural and social needs of the animal or groups of animals under the supervision or influence of people. Another positive contribution toward a possible agreement among the aforementioned attitudes is a more sound interpretation of “5 freedoms” as required by Webster (1994): Absolute attainment of all five freedoms is unrealistic, indeed they are to some extent incompatible. Complete behavioural freedom, for example, is unhygienic for all us animals! In fact, all commercial husbandry systems have their strengths and weaknesses; therefore the five freedoms make more it difficult to sustain a sense of absolute outrage against any particular breeding system.