This is part of a series of articles written for the Western Producer by veterinarian Ernest Miciak on a conference he attended on animal sentience held in London, England, March 17-18.
Most farmers and animal caregivers in this country take animal welfare for granted.
We take care of our animals, feed, water and bed them and protect them from the elements. It’s called good animal husbandry. When they’re sick or hurting we do what is necessary to make them better and if we can’t make them better or, in the case of food animals that are ready to fulfil their purpose in life, we send them to their end as humanely and with as much dignity as possible.
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Unfortunately there are those who, for various reasons, don’t treat animals properly. That is why we need rules and definitions, so policy makers and legislators can differentiate ethical animal husbandry from that which isn’t.
The rules and definitions have to be spelled out locally, nationally and globally. They have to cross political, cultural and religious borders. Increasingly, political forces in places such as Paris, France, and Geneva, Switzerland, are governing prairie farm livestock sales. The axiom to “act locally but think globally” regarding animal welfare rings true more than ever.
The field of animal welfare science, according to University of British Columbia professor David Fraser, deals with animal behaviour and problems that arise in human-designed environments. In addition to solving practical problems, it also helps the industry respond constructively to criticism over animal-rearing methods.
“Up to a point, animal welfare science is a lot like conventional animal production research, covering the topics of behaviour, housing and management,” he wrote in a recent research report for UBC’s Dairy Education and Research Centre.
“There is, however, one important difference. Animal production research sees production efficiency as the main goal, and uses knowledge about animals to achieve it. In animal welfare research, the primary goal is to better understand and meet the needs of the animals themselves, and thereby, indirectly, improve productivity.”
Defining animal rights is not quite so straightforward. At the recent Compassion in World Farming conference on animal sentience in London, England, animal rights law pioneer Steven Wise said the novelty has worn off the idea that basic legal rights should be acknowledged for at least some nonhuman animals. As animal rights arguments develop, he added, they are becoming more nuanced, both as to which animals should have rights and which rights they should have.
“Recognizing the large number and stunning diversity of animal species, proponents are not arguing that all should be given legal rights or be treated the same,” he said. “Why should a chimpanzee, a dolphin, a dog and a cockroach be given the same rights? Basic rights protect basic interests. The basic interests of a gorilla may be quite distinct from those of a parrot, a horse or a clam. And because an animal might be entitled to legal rights doesn’t necessarily mean (it) should gain rights beyond the most fundamental. A chimpanzee should have the right to bodily integrity, but not the right to vote.”
Wise said animal rights arguments don’t demand new legal approaches.
“The strongest argument is that they should be entitled to rights for some of the same reasons that humans are: liberty and equality.”
Of these, Wise said liberty is the more complex argument because “judges have long considered autonomy as sufficient for basic rights … and … any being who is self conscious, has at least some elements of theory of mind, understands symbols, uses language-like communication system and perhaps deceives, pretends, imitates and solves complex problems clearly has practical autonomy and should be entitled to basic rights. These will tend to come from those closest to us on the evolutionary scale, but not necessarily so.”
Even animals that lack this practical autonomy might still be entitled to legal rights as a matter of equality, Wise said.
“If likes should be treated alike, it is difficult to argue that an anencephalic human baby, insentient, unable to feel pain, who possesses the right to bodily integrity, should be treated so vastly better than many … animals.”
Wise has developed a four-category scale of autonomy with Category 1 being those closest to humans on the evolutionary scale: chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans and Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins. Wise said these animals , along with Category 2 animals such as African Grey parrots and African elephants, should have the same legal right to bodily integrity as does a human three-year-old child and therefore cannot be used in biomedical research or as a food source.
Animals in Categories 3 and 4 would not be entitled to legal rights.
“The animals relatively closest to Category 1 should be given legal rights as a reasonable precaution against our committing the grave wrong of violating the bodily integrity of an autonomous being,” Wise said.
