Scientists at an international conference recently urged world leaders to recognize for the first time that animals are thinking, feeling beings capable of suffering.
A resolution passed at the conference, which was organized by the Compassion in World Farming Trust, called on the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Animal Health Organization and their member governments to “join us in recognizing that sentient animals are capable of suffering and that we all have a duty to preserve the habitat of wild animals and to end cruel farming systems and other trades and practices which inflict suffering on animals.”
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Animal sentience, or the ability to feel, was first written into law in the 1997 European Treaty. CIWF chief executive Joyce D’Silva said the recent resolution was an attempt to get the rest of the world on board.
“This is a unique and powerful plea from leading authorities in animal welfare, science, agriculture and government from every continent,” she said.
“The evidence presented at the conference about the ability of animals to think, feel and experience emotions has been overwhelming and also humbling. Its time for animals’ status as sentient beings to be accepted in a declaration by the UN, in national and international laws and in regulations in the agricultural and food industries.
She hoped the resolution would hasten the worldwide phasing out of “cruel and damaging factory farming systems” such as veal crates, battery hen cages and farrowing crates.
Marian Dawkins, a professor of zoology at Oxford University and a member of its Food Animal Initiative, opened the conference on a cautionary note.
“It is important that we take animal sentience seriously,” she said.
“Science doesn’t have all the answers but the way forward is to acknowledge the problems, answer the critics and be clear about what you can say with confidence and what is more open to doubt.
“And if we believe that animals are sentient I think it’s terribly important that we don’t assume that we know as humans how other species feel or experience things.”
Much of Dawkins’ contributions to the understanding of animal intelligence and welfare was done through her cage layer research. Oxford’s Food Animal Initiative aims to demonstrate that producers can farm to higher animal standards could still be commercially successful.
Animal behaviourist Jane Goodall took a different approach.
“Even if science can’t always precisely prove something, I think it’s about time that we gave animals the benefit of the doubt,” she said.
“The blurring of the line between us and them raises a whole lot of ethical issues when we think of the ways in which we use animals for so many purposes all around the world.”
Humans are not the only beings on earth that have feelings and emotions, she added.
