This is part of a series of articles written for the Western Producer by Alberta veterinarian Ernest Miciak, based on a conference he attended on animal sentience in London, England, March 17-18.
Animal sentience, or their ability to feel emotions such as love, joy and grief, has been a topic for moral, philosophical and scientific discussion since animals were first domesticated.
The Compassion in World Farming conference brought together the world’s leading scholars on the subject. There have been two basic schools of thought about what animals feel. The first is best described by the father of philosophy, Rene Descarte (1596Ð1650) who wrote “there is no prejudice to which we are all more accustomed from our earliest years than the belief that dumb animals think.”
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The second line of reasoning, prevalent in most societies today, was best described by Charles Darwin in 1871 when he wrote: “there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties. … The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.”
Marian Dawkins is a professor of animal behaviour at the University of Oxford in England, and a modern day pioneer in the science of sentience.
“We now have a number of well tested ways of asking animals how they themselves see the world,” she said. “They may not have a language as we know it but they can vote with their feet and their beaks and their paws, and, as Darwin recognized, they can express their emotions in a variety of ways particularly through their behaviour.”
Ed Pajor, professor of animal behaviour and welfare at Indiana’s Purdue University, uses these methods in his research. It focuses on farm animal behaviour and its relation to animal welfare in different husbandry conditions.
“Welfare of farm animals should be assessed by an animal’s function, its ability to perform natural behaviour and most importantly by its feelings and emotions,” he said.
“The study of animal motivation provides a promising approach in understanding the requirements of farm animals.”
He has used preference tests, such as allowing the animal to choose one thing over another, to identify flooring requirements in swine and poultry and pen design requirements for cows and sows about to give birth.
Evaluation of various handling practices involving sheep, swine, poultry and dairy cows using aversion techniques have proved informative. These research methods measure an animal’s response to negative situations.
“Although the emotional states of animals are hard to assess, there can be little doubt that farmed animals experience a range of emotions … and that these … play an important role in the causation of behaviour,” Pajor said.
Why should we allow natural behaviour in farm animals? According to Marek Spinka, an ethologist at the Research Institute of Animal Production in Prague, speaking at the same conference, there are three reasons.
“First, some behaviours such as nest building in mother sows, dust bathing in hens, or sucking in young calves are behavioural needs. The animals are highly motivated to perform them even if their physiological needs are satisfied.
“If the housing environment does not provide conditions for the natural run of these behaviours, the animals will perform them anyway, albeit in a distorted and sometimes damaging form.
“Second, some natural behaviours are not needs in the strict sense, but their performance substantially improves the quality of the animals’ lives.”
He used the example of play behaviour, which “brings fun, improves animals’ abilities to cope with adversities in life, and builds an extra dimension to the personalities of animals.
“Third, allowing farm animals to behave naturally is often a more sustainable option to husbandry techniques based on costly equipment, high energy inputs, and-or labour intensive management. For example, natural (cuddling) in piglets, combined with sufficient amounts of straw, can secure as good thermal comfort as artificial heating.”
Spinka cautioned that not all natural behaviours enhance the welfare of animals. He described how aggression is not a need but rather a behaviour triggered by environment.
“We have a responsibility to manage the spatial and social environment of captive animals in such a way that it does not instigate damaging or distressing behavioural patterns.”
Dawkins summed up the feeling of the conference by saying that, if we really want to improve animal welfare instead of just making ourselves feel better, “we have to go beyond what people think animals want, to finding out what animals really do want, which may not always be the same thing.
“True progress in animal welfare will come from a judicious balance between what improves animal health and what gives animals more of what they want. An animal-centred view of animal welfare, based on evidence, is a greater mark of true respect for other species than thinking we know, without consultation, what is best for them.”
