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| Talking about the welfare or
well-being of animals is easier than about (the feasibility
of) animal rights. Rights are more abstract than the violation
of welfare is. We would have come a long way once the
welfare of animals kept by man, would no longer be threatened.
The free-market-economy makes the situation in cattle
farming awkward. What exactly is the relationship between
management and animal welfare? Can a farmer be obliged
to invest more than can be seen as a result in terms of
the well-being of his animals? The life-cycle of many
animals that are kept in cattle farming is so short, that
some attacks on their well-being do not properly come
to expression in the behavior of young animals.
Animal Freedom outlines that animals are entitled to
the freedom to behave themselves
in natural ways. Thinking with this principle of justice
as a basis, has the advantage that at a glance the situation
for any animal can be estimated, whereas thinking on
the basis of preventing from non-welfare takes more
time in order to develop an estimation. When the basis
of the thinking-process is the promotion of animal welfare,
this takes even more time. |
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Keeping animals as cattle or
as pets, in principle means a violation of their rights.
But how bad is this? Before we try to formulate an answer,
we start with: which are the matters that are being withheld
from a farm animal or domestic pet?
Cattle is being cramped in it's freedom to move around,
cannot reproduce itself according to it's own wishes and
is being slaughtered and eaten at a (relatively) young
age.
Theoretically this can be carried out (also on a large
scale) without impairing the animal in it's health (assuming
the animal is unconscious when it becomes butchered).
It is not so hard to establish what hangs over the welfare
of animals, it is far more difficult to establish what
enhances their well-being.
People are not obliged to be beneficial to the well-being
of one another. At best there are rules to protect human
well-being. People are supposed to be able to serve
their own well-being (as well as have sufficient knowledge
on how to do so). People also are not obliged to further
the well-being of animals, but (when) are animals kept
by people able to serve their own well-being? |
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Animals have tails, teeth or
beaks and reproductive organs. Sometimes these are being
removed or sterilized (spayed/neutered). Being allowed
to keep these physical functions, falls under the right
to physical integrity. But does this right fall under
animal rights?
In the case of the piglets in industrial farming, their
tails are docked in order to enable their well-being.
That seems odd, and that is precisely what it is for these
young animals suffer from pain when their tail is being
cut off. Industrial pig-breeders take to this practise
because the older animals, in their hardly stimulant stables,
suffer from weariness and start biting each other's tails.
That causes more pain than docking the tail does. Is for
this reason this action legitimate and an interference
with or a furtherance of their well-being?
The answer depends on which life-situation one considers
legitimate for the animals. |
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In biological pig breeding,
where animals have enough space and natural distraction
and f.e. are able to grub in the earth, they hardly get
bored and do not bite each
other's tails.
The cutting of beaks of free-range hens takes place due
to the fact that their numbers in the biological sector
are too large to prevent chicken from pecking each other.
For that purpose further welfare-measures have to be taken,
such as is being done within biodynamic farming and with
the hens that have access to grassland. With the way in
which chicken are kept in grassy environments, their broods
(groups) are small while they have lots of room. These
chicken can settle their pecking order in natural ways
and there's hardly any harmful pecking amongst each other.
By ways of selection or genetic modification, some
influence can be exercised on aggressive behavior, but
accomodating them in more natural ways produces much
more effect on animal well-being. Once man would house
animals in more natural ways and give them sufficient
room, it is no longer required to violate their physical
integrity.
However, both the desire
to export animal products as well as the large cattle
population, make it impossible to make better welfare
circumstances more common practice.. |
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By tending
an animal in a relatively absence of freedom, the owner
or farmer subsequently has to act up to his duty
to take good care of it.
This duty towards welfare implies that the animal is
minimally met on it's safety-needs and it's possibilities
to behave as it's nature tells it to, as much as it
can. The animal is hungry, thirsty, seeks security and
shelter and sometimes the presence of it's congeners.
Together with the absence of disease and other discomfort,
meeting these needs means the five "freedoms"
that -according to a Dutch think-tank- animals are entitled
to in order to guarantee their well-being.
The five freedoms
primarily guarantee that the animal's well-being will
not be affected, but do they also enhance it's well-being?
Or does it take too much (time, money and space) to
do more for an animal? |
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Is the possibility
to reproduce itself something that belongs to animal
rights or physical integrity too?
The well-being of an animal is not at stake when it
was spayed or neutered. The surgery itself can be exercised
painlessly (but in industrial pig-breeding piglets are
neutered without anaesthesia in an extremely painful
manner!).
It is therefore possible to deny reproduction to an
animal without affecting it's well-being. The question
remains whether or not this interferes with animal rights.
An answer could be: yes, but it is "no matter of
life and death", such as eating animals is. And
with that we have returned at an other message of Animal
Freedom: by not eating animals
(any more), the size of the cattle population will be
reduced a good deal, and therefore automatically in
many cases the above mentioned dilemma's and abuses
are being avoided.
Also: by accepting freedom as a basic right in respect
of animal rights, most
welfare-measurements are automatically covered by this
right. |
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| Books on related topics can
be found at Amazon. |
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UK: |
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USA: |
Canada: |
Applied Animal Ethics
by Leland Shapiro |
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| Want to know more? We sell books on animal rights, animal welfare, nature and wildlife, factory farming, food politics, the meat industry, antibiotic resistant bacteria, ecological footprint, harmful myths; we offer cruelty free products, DVD's about animals, vegan food, vegan and vegetarian books, etc. |
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