Animal Welfare and Animals

¶ … Welfare in Captive Wild Animals The Holy Bible gets the relationship between humankind and wild animals out of the way early on in Genesis 1:26 when God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." Humanity clearly took this divine gift seriously, and the relationship between humankind and wild animals has been largely one-sided since people climbed to the top of the food chain.

Since the second half of the 20th century, though, there have been growing calls for improving the manner in which humans treat animals in general and wild animals maintained in captivity in particular. The recent closure of Ringling and Barnum and Bailey's "Greatest Show on Earth" due to protests over the mistreatment of their elephants and the discontinuance of the use of killer whales in performances at Sea World are two recent high-profile examples of these trends.

Nevertheless, captive breeding and species survival programs represent the last best chance for many endangered species today. Moreover, scientists continue to rely on knockout mice and rats and other species to evaluate the efficacy of new drugs, so it is clear that wild animals will continue to be kept in captivity for the foreseeable future.

This outcome calls into question how best to assess the welfare of captive wild animals across various animal industries such as farming and laboratory settings, and an evaluation of the relevance of using these assessment methods for the welfare of wild animals maintained in zoological and pet contexts. Finally, a summary of the research and important findings concerning the assessment of welfare in captive wild animals are provided in the conclusion.

Review and Analysis Current available animal welfare assessment methods used across various animal industries While it is not possible to fully comprehend how animals feel, they do engage in certain behaviors that can help assess their welfare (Sejian and Laktritz 2011). In this context, animal welfare is defined by the scientific community as "the ability of an animal to cope physiologically, behaviorally, cognitively and emotionally with its physiochemical and social life environment" (Seijan and Laktriz 2001, p. 301).

Ethical considerations aside, given the economic importance of animals to human society, it is not surprising that there has been growing interest in identify optimal approaches to assessing their welfare. Although there is no universally accepted method for assessing animal welfare using these behavioral and other clues, there are three general approaches that are used today as follows: 1) naturalistic; 2) functional; and 3) subjective (Sejian and Lakritz 2011). In addition, there are four indicators that reflect the welfare status of farm animals: 1) behavioral; 2) physical; 3) physiological; and 4) production oriented (Sejian and Lakritz 2011).

At present, these three general approaches and four indicators are used in various ways by different producers (Sejian and Lakritz 2011). Notwithstanding the lack of a universally accepted method, assessing the welfare of farm animals has become far more standardized in recent years and the so-called "five freedoms" are used to evaluate whether farm animals live in a stress-free environment as follows: 1. Freedom from hunger, thirst or malnutrition; 2. Freedom from thermal or physical distress; 3. Freedom from disease or injury; 4. Freedom from fear; and, 5.

Freedom to express most normal behavior (Sejian and Laktriz 2011, p. 302). The efficacy of these five fundamental freedoms in promoting the welfare of farm animals is gauged by their respective production levels. With respect to cows, for example, Sejian and Lakritz (2011, p. 302) characterize the general concepts of animal welfare that involve adaptations to normal behavior and physiology that contribute to improved animal health and productivity as shown in Figure 1 below. Figure 1. General concept of farm animal welfare Source: Sejian and Lakritz, 2011, p.

302 The majority of laboratories in the United States must conform to two primary sources that mandate animal welfare today: 1) the Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966 (AWA) and 2) the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals (PHS Policy) (Huerkamp 2016). The AWA was originally focused primarily on canine species in response to increased dog trafficking in the U.S., with only tangential reference to other species. According to Carbone (2004, p.

89), though, "The 1980s expansion of the Animal Welfare Act into the research laboratory, and calls for inclusion of rats and mice under its coverage, required the development of philosophical and political movements focused on animal rights." Likewise, the PHS Policy codified federal policies concerning the treatment of most types of laboratory animals used in the U.S. in 1985.

According to the National Institutes of Health's PHS Policy, institutions receiving federal funding are required to "establish and maintain proper measures to ensure the appropriate care and use of all animals involved in research, research training, and biological testing activities" (PHS Policy, 2015, p. 3). The assessment of animal welfare in laboratory settings, however, is a far more subjective and difficult analysis compared to farm animals, however, that includes a consideration concerning the potential benefits of using the experimental animals.

For example, Carbone (2004) reports that despite a general consensus in the scientific community that laboratory animals are justifiable and ethically permissible, there have also been growing calls for some acceptable method for assessing laboratory animal welfare that also includes the amount of suffering that these animals will experience. In this regard, Carbone (2004, p.

57) advocates the use of a three-dimensional decision model that includes "potential benefits (the value of the hoped-for outcome), likelihood of achieving those benefits in a particular laboratory or experiment, and animal suffering represented on its three axes." Assessing laboratory animal suffering is an enormously challenging enterprise, though, and the potential for researcher bias to influence this type of subject analysis is severe.

After all, it is reasonable to suggest that many if not most research scientists believe that the suffering experienced by laboratory animals -- even severe suffering -- justifies their end, but it is clear that laboratory animals were on the short end of the stick compared to welfare assessment methods for farm animals whose five freedoms make their lives sound like paradise compared to knockout rats, for example.

In response to the increased use of laboratory animals and the growing recognition of the suffering they endure, a number of sanctuaries have sprung up across the country that provide life-long "forever home" rehabilitative care for chimpanzees, rabbits, pigeons and other former laboratory animals -- except mice and rats (Spallone 2014). Moreover, although the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has mandated that scientific researchers receiving federal funding provide assessments concerning the degree of pain that is experienced by laboratory animals in their experiments according to pain categories (i.e., (those experiments which cause no pain and distress, those that cause pain and distress but which are relieved by drugs, and those causing pain and distress which cannot be relieved by drugs) (Yarri 2005).

The FDA, however, has not published institutional guidelines concerning the use of these categories and mice and rats are not included in the assessment requirements meaning that most of the animals used in laboratory settings are excluded from the data analysis (Yarri 2005). Taken together, it is reasonable to suggest that despite the growth of laboratory animal sanctuaries in the U.S. in recent years, millions of laboratory animals will continue to be sacrificed at the scientific altar until a viable alternative is identified or developed.

Indeed, there appears to be a certain "so what?" quality to the assessment of suffering in laboratory animals on the part of some researchers, and this perception is likely reinforced over time as scientists become increasingly jaded to the suffering their laboratory animals experience.

These issues together with the constraints that are involved in accurately assessing animal welfare in the first place make the application of the methods used for farm and laboratory animals less than optimal for wild captive animals within the zoological/exotic pet context and these issues are discussed further below.

Discussion concerning the relevance and evaluation of the applicability of these methods to the assessment of welfare of wild animals in captivity, including the limitations of applying these methods within the zoo/exotic pet context Although the "five freedoms" provide a useful framework for assessing the welfare of farm animals and the three-axes evaluation method advocated for assessing the welfare of laboratory animals is likewise a useful approach, these methods generally lack relevance and applicability for wild animals in captivity except with respect their behaviors.

When wild animals are removed from their natural environments, it is impossible for humans to fully comprehend their mental reaction, and assessment methods for these animals typically includes observation of their behaviors to determine if interventions such as habitat enhancement are needed (Bekoff and Meaney 1998). While zoo dietitians and veterinarians go to extreme lengths to ensure that their specimens are physically healthy, habitat enhancement can only go so far in alleviating the psychological impact of confinement.

In addition, in the case of larger specimens, zoo veterinarians must anesthetize the animal to draw blood and other samples, a process that is inherently traumatic (Wise 2000). Despite the modest success enjoyed by some captive breeding programs, some species such as the duckbill platypus, pandas and cheetahs are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, and it is reasonable to suggest that this lack of reproductive success is attributable to their removal from their natural environments.

Different types of zoological specimens tend to manifest these negative reactions is various ways, but many types of unhealthy behaviors share some commonalities. For example, certain types of repetitive behaviors in zoological specimens known as stereotypies, for example, are characteristic of diminished animal welfare on some level of the health continuum. Unfortunately, stereotypies may be misinterpreted as normal behaviors by the general public and even zoo keepers. In this regard, Bekoff and Meaney (1998, p.

326) report that, "Stereotypies are sometimes ignored by those who keep animals and may be taken to be normal behavior by those people if they see only disturbed animals." Zoological specimens, though, are not the only animals to engage in stereotypies, and farm animals can also exhibit this type of unhealthy behavior. For instance, Bekoff and Meaney (1998, p.

326) add that, "Zoo keepers may see route tracing by cats or bears, laboratory staff may see twirling around drinkers by rodents, and farmers may see bar biting or sham chewing by stall-housed sows without realizing that these indicate that the welfare of the animals is poor." Given that even trained and experienced zoo keepers may ignore or misinterpret these types of unhealthy behaviors, the likelihood that they will also be ignored or misinterpreted by exotic pet owners who lack this experience and training is even greater.

It is reasonable to posit that most exotic pet owners lack the knowledge of their species that is needed to evaluate its welfare, and most likely rely on guidance from pet store owners or friends who keep similar pets. Furthermore, in the case of exotic species kept as pets such as tropical fish, reptiles or rodents,.