Results of a national survey of US veterinary college faculty regarding attitudes toward farm animal welfare

OBJECTIVE: To examine attitudes toward farm animal welfare among veterinary college faculty. DESIGN: E-mail survey. STUDY POPULATION: 157 US veterinary college faculty with large animal or food animal emphasis. PROCEDURE: Veterinarians from 27 US veterinary colleges were contacted via e-mail and asked to complete a 7-page survey relating to farm animal welfare issues. Thirty-one percent of those contacted responded. RESULTS: 71% of respondents self-characterized their attitude toward farm animal welfare as "we can use animals for the greater human good but have an obligation to provide for the majority of the animals' physiologic and behavioral needs." An additional 19% of respondents were more concerned about animal welfare than was indicated by that statement, and 10% were less concerned about farm animal welfare than was indicated by that statement. Significant relationships among demographic variables and attitude scores were observed, including more concerned attitudes among females, those with more liberal political views, and those who cited lower religiosity. No relationship between attitude and age was observed. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Veterinary college faculty have the opportunity to impact many stakeholders within the animal agriculture industries (eg, future veterinarians and policy makers looking for a veterinary science perspective). Results indicated that a considerable level of concern toward farm animal welfare is present in this population. Although the process of change may not be rapid, it is likely that the influence of these respondents will factor heavily into enhancing farm animal welfare.     

Board-invited review: the ethical and behavioral bases for farm animal welfare legislation

Concerns about farm animal welfare vary among individuals and societies. As people increasingly consider the values underlying current farm animal production methods, farm animal welfare policy debates have escalated. Recent food animal protection policies enacted in the European Union have fueled highly contentious discussions about the need for similar legislative activity in the United States. Policymakers and scientists in the United States are apprehensive about the scientific assessment, validation, and monitoring of animal welfare, as well as the unforeseen consequences of moving too hastily toward legislating farm animal welfare. The potential impact of such legislation on producers, food prices, animals, and concerned citizens must also be considered. Balancing the interests of all stakeholders has therefore presented a considerable challenge that has stymied US policymaking. In this review, we examine the roles of ethics and science in policy decisions, discuss how scientific knowledge relative to animal behavior has been incorporated into animal welfare policy, and identify opportunities for additional refinement of animal welfare science that may facilitate ethical and policy decisions about animal care.     

Free-roaming dogs and cats in central Italy: public perceptions of the problem

A cross-sectional telephone survey of randomly selected households examined the extent and types of problems associated with free-roaming dogs and cats in the Teramo province of Italy. The households were sampled randomly within each municipality; municipalities were combined into coastal, central hills and mountain regions for analysis. The survey was conducted in May and June of 2004 with a response rate of 74% (397/536). Ninety percent of respondents (N=356) believed that free-roaming dogs and cats were a problem. They were most commonly concerned about personal safety, followed by animal welfare, public health and environmental sanitation. Sixty-nine percent of respondents (274) actually saw free-roaming dogs or cats where they live. While dogs were most commonly seen, cats were seen in greater numbers. Overall, 10% (39/297) and 5% (21/397) of respondents cared for free-roaming cats and dogs, respectively. Two-thirds of the respondents (251/397) believed that animals were abandoned because the owners lost interest. About 2/3 of respondents (251/397) reported that the community government should have the responsibility for dealing with free-roaming dogs and cats. The respondents supported the idea of building more shelters and controlling the birth rate as control measures rather than euthanizing dogs and cats. The results suggest that free-roaming dogs and cats are a very common sight in this part of Italy with substantial concerns by the residents. However, concerns about the animals' welfare were clearly raised, supporting the laws that make it illegal to euthanize a healthy dog or cat in Italy. Using the information from this study, research on the underlying causes of abandonment of dogs and cats or failing to sterilize them should be undertaken to begin to address this problem. Further, national and regional funding must be provided to support existing laws which should help protect and eventually decrease the numbers of free-roaming and homeless dogs and cats.     

Animal behavior and well-being symposium: Farm animal welfare assurance: science and application

Public and consumer pressure for assurances that farm animals are raised humanely has led to a range of private and public animal welfare standards, and for methods to assess compliance with these standards. The standards usually claim to be science based, but even though researchers have developed measures of animal welfare and have tested the effects of housing and management variables on welfare within controlled laboratory settings, there are challenges in extending this research to develop on-site animal welfare standards. The standards need to be validated against a definition of welfare that has broad support and which is amenable to scientific investigation. Ensuring that such standards acknowledge scientific uncertainty is also challenging, and balanced input from all scientific disciplines dealing with animal welfare is needed. Agencies providing animal welfare audit services need to integrate these scientific standards and legal requirements into successful programs that effectively measure and objectively report compliance. On-farm assessment of animal welfare requires a combination of animal-based measures to assess the actual state of welfare and resource-based measures to identify risk factors. We illustrate this by referring to a method of assessing welfare in broiler flocks. Compliance with animal welfare standards requires buy-in from all stakeholders, and this will be best achieved by a process of inclusion in the development of pragmatic assessment methods and the development of audit programs verifying the conditions and continuous improvement of farm animal welfare.     

The process of building a new governmental authority based on public demands for improved animal welfare

Sweden has a long history of detailed and progressive legislation related to animal welfare for laboratory, farm and companion animals. Previously, these issues have been the responsibility of the Swedish Board of Agriculture (SBA). As a growing proportion of the public opinion and the political establishment felt that the animal welfare related issues were not given proper attention at the SBA, a political decision was recently made to separate animal housing, management and welfare from the SBA and create an independent Animal Welfare Agency. This Agency was formally launched on January 1st 2004. The government has commissioned the Agency to improve animal welfare by evaluating, enforcing and developing legislation. The agency should consider scientific evidence when writing new legislation. Also, the Agency incorporates an external Animal Welfare Council, which, among other things, discusses ethical aspects in relation to existing or proposed legislature. The new Agency must deal with a diversity of public expectations. Animal rights groups have high expectations regarding new and stricter legislation, for example related to fur animals, while some farmers fear that production aspects may be completely lost in discussions about improving welfare standards for farm animals.     

Assessing attitudes toward farm animal welfare: a national survey of animal science faculty members

A survey to measure attitudes toward farm animal welfare was developed. We targeted animal science faculty because of their influence on animal production in the United States. We initially interviewed 34 faculty members from a large Midwestern public university to assist with questionnaire development. After our written survey was developed, we pilot-tested our questionnaire at this same university. Thereafter, we sent an e-mail advance notice, first survey, and follow-up survey/thank-you to the national population of animal science faculty members. With an n = 446 (response rate = 45%), we observed the following: 51% (for layer birds), 58% (for meat birds), 66% (for swine), 84% (for dairy), 86% (for sheep), and 87% (for beef) of our respondents agreed that the predominant methods used to produce various types of animal products provided appropriate levels of animal welfare. Our findings showed that greater than 90% of respondents support general principles of animal welfare, such as keeping animals free from unnecessary fear and distress. However, specific practices that have been shown to elicit distress (e.g., castration without anesthetic) were deemed a concern by only 32% of the respondents. Various industry practices/outcomes were assessed for level of concern and varied from a high of 83% of respondents agreeing that flooring effects on lameness in intensively farmed animals are a concern, to a low of 16% agreeing that early weaning in pigs is a concern. Summed attitude scores showed significant relationships with the demographic variables of gender (P < 0.01) and political ideology (P < 0.01), with women and those holding more liberal political views being more concerned about farm animal welfare issues. Gaining an awareness of various stakeholders' attitudes (e.g., animal scientists, veterinarians, producers, and consumers) toward farm animal welfare will assist animal welfare scientists in knowing which research topics to emphasize and, perhaps, where critical gaps in accessibility of knowledge exist.     

Integrating practical, regulatory and ethical strategies for enhancing farm animal welfare

OBJECTIVE: To provide an integrated view of relationships between assessment of animal welfare. societal expectations regarding animal welfare standards, the need for regulation, and two ethical strategies for promoting animal welfare, emphasising farm animals. APPROACH: Ideas in relevant papers and key insights were outlined and illustrated, where appropriate, by New Zealand experience with different facets of the welfare management of farm animals. CONCLUSIONS: An animal's welfare is good when its nutritional, environmental, health, behavioural and mental needs are met. Compromise may occur in one or more of these areas and is assessed by scientifically-informed best judgement using parameters validated by directed research and objective analysis in clinical and practical settings. There is a wide range of perceptions of what constitutes good and bad welfare in society, so that animal welfare standards cannot be left to individual preferences to determine. Rather, the promotion of animal welfare is seen as requiring central regulation, but managed in a way that allows for adjustments based on new scientific knowledge of animals' needs and changing societal perceptions of what is acceptable and unacceptable treatment of animals. Concepts of 'minimal welfare', representing the threshold of cruelty, and 'acceptable welfare', representing higher, more acceptable standards than those that merely avoid cruelty, are outlined. They are relevant to economic analyses, which deal with determinants of animal welfare standards based on financial costs and the desire of the public to feel broadly comfortable about the treatment of the animals that are used to serve their needs. Ethical strategies for promoting animal welfare can be divided broadly into the 'gold standard' approach and the 'incremental improvement' approach. The first defines the ideal that is to be required in a particular situation and will accept nothing less than that ideal, whereas the second aims to improve welfare in a step-wise fashion by setting a series of achievable goals, seeing each small advance as worthwhile progress towards the same ideal. 'Incremental improvement' is preferred. This also has application in veterinary practice where the professional commitment to maintain good welfare standards may at times conflict with financial constraints experienced by clients.     

Bioethics Symposium: The ethical food movement: What does it mean for the role of science and scientists in current debates about animal agriculture?

Contemporary animal agriculture is increasingly criticized on ethical grounds. Consequently, current policy and legislative discussions have become highly controversial as decision makers attempt to reconcile concerns about the impacts of animal production on animal welfare, the environment, and on the efficacy of antibiotics required to ensure human health with demands for abundant, affordable, safe food. Clearly, the broad implications for US animal agriculture of what appears to be a burgeoning movement relative to ethical food production must be understood by animal agriculture stakeholders. The potential effects of such developments on animal agricultural practices, corporate marketing strategies, and public perceptions of the ethics of animal production must also be clarified. To that end, it is essential to acknowledge that people's beliefs about which food production practices are appropriate are tied to diverse, latent value systems. Thus, relying solely on scientific information as a means to resolve current debates about animal agriculture is unlikely to be effective. The problem is compounded when scientific information is used inappropriately or strategically to advance a political agenda. Examples of the interface between science and ethics in regards to addressing currently contentious aspects of food animal production (animal welfare, antimicrobial use, and impacts of animal production practices on the environment) are reviewed. The roles of scientists and science in public debates about animal agricultural practices are also examined. It is suggested that scientists have a duty to contribute to the development of sound policy by providing clear and objectively presented information, by clarifying misinterpretations of science, and by recognizing the differences between presenting data vs. promoting their own value judgments in regard to how and which data should be used to establish policy. Finally, the role of the media in shaping public opinions on key issues pertaining to animal agriculture is also discussed.     

Identifying Wildlife Species Believed to be Deserving of Protection From Hunting by U.S. Residents

This article examines the perceptions of individuals toward protecting animals from hunting. Researchers surveyed 825 U.S. residents in an online survey about their views of whether 17 species of mammals should be protected from hunting. Over 85% of respondents believed elephant, white rhino, black rhino, hippo, leopard, lion, and polar bear species should be protected from hunting. Conversely, only 55% of respondents believed mountain lion and coyote should be protected. Cross tabulations and logit analysis were employed to explore relationships between believing an animal species should be protected from hunting and demographics. Older and female respondents more often agreed that species should be protected from hunting. Those who hunted or knew a hunter less frequently agreed that the species surveyed should be protected from hunting. Demographics and previous exposure to hunting appear to influence beliefs about what species should be protected from hunting.     

Ethical stockmanship

The objective of this review is to consider the ethics of stockmanship, particularly from the perspective of the nature and extent of the duties of stockpeople to their farm animals. It will consider what science tells us about the impact of stockmanship on the animal, particularly the welfare of the farm animal. The effects of human-animal interactions on the stockperson will also be considered, since these interactions affect the work performance and job satisfaction of the stockperson and thus indirectly affect animal welfare. Animal ethics is broader than animal welfare and includes economic as well as philosophical, social, cultural and religious aspects. This paper is predicated on the view that farm animals can suffer, and that animal suffering is a key consideration in our moral obligations to animals. Housing and husbandry practices affect farm animal welfare and thus farmers and stockpeople have a responsibility to provide, at minimum, community-acceptable animal housing and husbandry standards for their animals. The farmer's or stockperson's attitudes and behaviour can directly affect the animal's welfare and thus they also have a responsibility to provide specific standards of stockmanship for these animals. However, research suggests that the behaviour of some stockpeople is not as correct as it might be. Such situations exemplify the inevitably unequal human - domestic animal relationship, and this inequality should be considered in analysing the boundary between right and wrong behaviour of humans. Thus ethical discussion, using science and other considerations and involving stockpeople, livestock industries, government and the general public, should be used to establish and assure acceptable stockperson competencies across the livestock industries. Training programs targeting the key attitudes and behaviour of stockpeople presently offer the livestock industries good opportunities to improve human-animal interactions.     

Farm animal welfare: the five freedoms and the free market

This review addresses the scientific, ethical and economic factors that impact on the welfare of farm animals. Respect for animals within the food chain is considered within the context of an ethical matrix that affords respect according to the principles of wellbeing, autonomy and justice to consumers, farm animals, farmers and the living environment. The welfare of a farm animal depends on its ability to sustain fitness and avoid suffering. The responsibility of the farmer is to make provision for good welfare through good husbandry; he cannot ensure good welfare. Improvements to farm animal welfare can only come about within the context of the forces that drive the free market. In essence, consumers need to afford a greater extrinsic value to farm animals. The costs to farmers of legislation to impose higher animal welfare standards are substantial but the cost to consumers can be very small. The responsibility is therefore on the consumer to convert an expressed desire for higher welfare standards into an effective demand. A promising route to encourage and fulfil this demand is through welfare-based quality assurance schemes with quality control ensured by independent audit. At present, audit protocols are based largely on identification of the elements of good husbandry. Ultimately we need a further independent audit to ensure that the outcome of these perceived elements of good husbandry is, in fact, good animal welfare.     

The importance of applied ethology for the execution of animal welfare legislation]

Applied ethology in general and farm animal ethology in particular have a great importance in connection with animal welfare regulations on a national and international level. They have through the legislation on animal welfare brought about important repercussions on housing of farm animals, wild animals and experimental animals in Switzerland. The animal welfare legislation has been a considerable boost to scientific research. The application of ethological knowledge in the legislation and in practice has indeed also its limits. The importance of applied ethology for animal welfare and for animal husbandry will still increase in future.     

Effects of confinement and research needs to underpin welfare standards

Although there is no agreement on how to measure animal welfare, how to interpret some of the observed changes in behavior and physiology, and how much confinement of animals is acceptable, this has not stopped animal welfare standards from being set in the form of either voluntary or mandatory recommendations. Notwithstanding that there are gaps in knowledge about a number of farming practices, there is some emphasis by scientists, industry, politicians, and some animal welfare groups for any changes to welfare-related recommendations to be based on scientific evidence. This article discusses the related issues of confinement and its effects on farm animals, research gaps in the field of animal welfare, the development of welfare standards, and whether such standards should be underpinned by science. For some issues there is a general consensus, for example, that animals feel pain and have emotions and that animals' appearance and behavior are used by good farmers to recognize both the ‘normality’ and deviations from normal of their animals. However, these variables are difficult to measure or define. Nevertheless, if issues are considered important to animals' welfare, should difficulty of measurement or definition be a barrier to the creation of legislated standards? Thus, options for legislated standards include either comprehensive standards, some of which may be difficult to measure, similar to current legislation on cruelty to animals, or only a limited number of standards with targets that can be measured, some of which may have less relevance to welfare outcomes.     

Farm animal welfare research in interaction with society

Over the last 30 years concern about farm animal welfare has increased and has become a public issue in the Netherlands. Public discussion has stimulated research in this field, financed by both government and industry. Dutch society in general and consumers of animal products in particular, want to see high standards of welfare for production animals. Good animal welfare has gradually gained more impact in the total quality concept of the product. This will encourage scientists to continue to analyse the welfare status of animals and to come up with innovative solutions for the remaining problems. At ID-Lelystad much effort is put into farm animal welfare research. This research includes for example, the development of behavioural tests for quantifying and interpreting fear in cattle, investigations into the effects of dietary iron supply and a lack of roughage on behaviour, immunology, stress physiology, and pathology in veal calves, studies of the ontogeny of tail biting in finishing pigs and feather pecking in laying hens as well as evaluation of the welfare effects of automatic milking in dairy cows. The results of these projects contribute to concrete improvements in animal husbandry and expertise and support policy making and legislation. The animal industry as well as retailers should aim at the further implementation of this knowledge and to specify welfare standards to guarantee consumer acceptance of animal production.     

浅析畜牧生产中的动物福利与人兽共患病和公共卫生安全

近年来全球因人兽共患病引发的公共卫生事件频繁发生,对世界经济的发展和全球公共卫生安全带来了严峻挑战,此已引起国际社会的高度关注。有专家指出：人类对动物“严酷的剥削与过度的利用”,是造成了人禽（人畜）共患流行性疾病不断暴发的原因。本文阐述了动物福利与畜牧生产的关系和非福利因素对动物生理健康的影响。以期引起全社会关注和促进动物福利事业的发展,积极为畜牧生产中的动物创造一个精神上协调一致、生理上完全健康的生存状态,减少动物疫病（特别是人兽共患病）的发生与流行,保障畜牧业的发展与公共卫生安全。     

《家畜环境卫生学》课程内容的扩展

家畜环境卫生学是我国高等农林院校动物科学专业的一门专业基础课。我国畜牧业发展过程中畜产品安全事件层出不穷、畜禽公共卫生安全防御体系薄弱以及动物福利差等一系列问题极为突出,结合世界畜牧业发展注重环境保护和动物福利保障等方面的大趋势,必须对原有的家畜环境卫生学课程内容进行改革。本文结合我国畜牧业发展实际,将畜产品安全事件、畜禽公共卫生安全防御体系以及家畜福利等内容引入本科生家畜环境卫生学课程,以期培养具有现代先进养殖理念的新型畜牧业人才。     

Imbedding HACCP principles in dairy herd health and production management: case report on calf rearing

Driven by consumer demands, European legislation has suggested the use of HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) as the quality risk management programme for the whole dairy chain. Until now, an exception has been made for primary producers, but as regulations evolve, on-farm HACCP-like programmes should be ready to assure food safety as well as animal health and animal welfare. In our field experiment, the HACCP-concept was used to combine both optimal farm management and formalisation of quality assurance in an on-farm situation in the Netherlands. The process of young stock rearing was chosen, since its importance for the future of the farm is often underestimated. Hazards and their associated risk factors can be controlled within the farm-specific standards and tolerances, as targets can be controlled by corrective measures and by implementation of farm-specific worksheets. The veterinarian is pivotal for the facility-based HACCP team, since he/she has knowledge about on-farm risk assessment and relations between clinical pathology, feed and farm management. The HACCP concept in combination with veterinary herd health and production management programmes offers a promising approach to optimise on-farm production processes (i.e., young stock rearing) in addition to a structural approach for quality risk management on dairy farms.     

Characterizing the Role of Animal Exposures in Cryptosporidiosis and Shiga Toxin‐producing Escherichia coli Infections: South Dakota, 2012

Cryptosporidium spp. and Shiga toxin‐producing Escherichia coli strains (STEC) are important causes of human illness. Incidence rates of these illnesses are high in South Dakota compared to the USA as a whole. Direct animal contact has been identified as a possible route of exposure for these illnesses. Ruminant animals may carry STEC subclinically, while young ruminants are common sources of zoonotic strains of Cryptosporidium. South Dakota patients with either STEC or cryptosporidiosis during 2012 were interviewed regarding seven categories of animal exposure: (i) petting zoo/fair attendance, (ii) animal event/rodeo attendance, (iii) feed/pet store visits, (iv) farm visits, (v) employment or residence at a farm, (vi) residence with pets and (vii) visiting other households with pets. Of the 50 STEC cases, 78.0% reported animal exposure prior to illness onset, with 23.3% having lived or worked on a farm. Farm visitors in particular had high degrees of animal contact and infrequently practiced personal protective measures. Of the 115 cryptosporidiosis cases, 87.8% reported animal exposures, with 45.6% having lived or worked on a farm and 29.0% having visited a farm prior to illness. Cases with farm exposures reported a high degree of direct animal contact and inconsistent use of personal protective measures. Cryptosporidiosis patients were significantly more likely than STEC patients to have lived or worked on a farm prior to their illness and were older on average. Patients with these illnesses had high rates of animal contact prior to illness. Animal contact on farms emerged as an important exposure route. Educational messages about personal protective measures should be directed at these individuals.     

Aspects of animal welfare in livestock production

The modern consumer is increasingly concerned about the welfare of farm animals which are kept in intensive systems on specialised farms where the health and well-being is almost completely dependent on the will, ability and care of the farmer. Further demands related to animal production are consumer health (quality and safety of food products), the protection of the environment and cheap food. The currently used husbandry systems are man made and emphasise automation which requires permanent critical observation of the welfare of the animals. Ethological indicators are equally important as health and performance to evaluate keeping systems. Future animal farming will be influenced by new technologies such as electronic animal identification and milking robots, and more important by biotechnology and genome analysis. Veterinary surgeons and farmers have to co-operate on the basis of scientifically sound animal welfare schemes which help to protect our farm animals in modern and intensive livestock production systems.     

基于动物福利的实验动物管理

动物福利包括实验动物福利、农场动物福利、野生动物福利等。目前,越来越多的实验动物被应用到科学研究当中,实验动物福利也受到了各国研究者的重视。在实验动物管理中,环境调控、日常饲养管理及动物实验等方面皆应考虑动物福利,环境因素主要包括温度、湿度、噪音、空气质量和光照等;日常饲养管理包括动物的饲料与饮水、运输、人员培训等;动物实验方面应遵从3R原则。我国实验动物的福利事业已经展开,《实验动物的法律保护》的建议稿已于2010年提出,鉴于国内外动物福利的现状分析,我国建立实验动物福利标准势在必行。