Animal Welfare Science

Empirical knowledge concerning nonhuman animals is essential for any ethical inquiry of interspecific relations: knowledge of the animals' traits, of their experience under human control, and of the characteristics of that control. Yet such knowledge is persistently insufficient in ethical inquiries, as a result of the power gap between nonhuman animals and humans, the exploitation of many animals, and the deep bias that unavoidably marks this reality. Scientific records are the major source of information about most animals, yet science is unsatisfactory as a sole source of morally relevant knowledge, and scientific approaches to nonhuman animals tend to be especially inadequate. Hence seeking knowledge concerning nonhuman animals' interests should be acknowledged as the primary and most important task of any interspecific ethical quest. However, scientific data should be subjected to moral scrutiny, acknowledging the effect of human/nonhuman relations on knowledge, while constantly looking for alternative methods of acquiring knowledge, based on empathic familiarity.

A literature search was performed to identify previously validated equine welfare measures that were relevant in this population. The selected resource- and animal- based measures (17 total questions) were then incorporated into a new smartphone app for easier field assessment. Video footage was recorded of ten rescue horses held at a large equine rescue facility in southern Texas, USA. These horses were selected to represent a range of age, sex, breed, and welfare state. Five trained employees (‘assessors’) at the same facility then performed the welfare assessment of each horse (via video) using the smartphone app. Assessors then filled out a 57-question survey on the ease of assessment, relevance and ability of each welfare measure to capture the welfare states of horses at the rescue facility. The 17 main welfare measures were broken down into 29 measures, for further analysis. Results indicated that 45% of the chosen measures had a moderate to high level of inter-observer agreement, with no significant variation between assessors. Among these measures were social bonds, lameness, and overall welfare. It is recommended that changes be made to the assessor training protocol and definitions of scores and measures be refined to improve inter-observer reliability. With modification, the welfare assessment tool has the potential to 1) provide horse rescue facilities with socially housed horses with the ability to identify and track welfare changes in individual horses; 2) improve human-equine relationships through gentle and non-threatening interaction with horses; and 3) potentially decrease rehabilitation time for rescued horses.

Growing consumer interest in sustainable products, as well as “ethical feeding friction” experienced by pet-owning vegans and vegetarians, are generating demand for alternative proteins instead of conventional animal meat in pet foods. In the human food space, cell-based meat has been posited to reduce the animal meat consumption of those unwilling to switch to plant-based diets. Alice Oven, Co-Author of The Clean Pet Food Revolution discusses how cell-based meat could offer an even more convincing alternative in the pet food space.

The keeping of captive animals in zoos and aquariums has long been controversial. Many take freedom to be a crucial part of animal welfare and, on these grounds, criticise all forms of animal captivity as harmful to animal welfare, regardless of their provisions. Here, we analyse what it might mean for freedom to matter to welfare, distinguishing between the role of freedom as an intrinsic good, valued for its own sake and an instrumental good, its value arising from the increased ability to provide other important resources. Too often, this debate is conducted through trading intuitions about what matters for animals. We argue for the need for the collection of comparative welfare data about wild and captive animals in order to settle the issue. Discovering more about the links between freedom and animal welfare will then allow for more empirically informed ethical decisions regarding captive animals.