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1.
Animal scientists have an extraordinary burden to promote the health and well-being of all animals in their care. Promoting species- or breed-appropriate behaviors through proper training and enrichment, regardless of animal housing, should be a paramount concern for all animal scientists working with exotic animals, laboratory animals, shelter animals, or privately owned pet animals. Developing ideal training and enrichment programs for any species begins with understanding basic behavior patterns and emotional systems of animals. The basic emotional systems in mammals have been extensively mapped; however, most of these studies are in the neuroscience literature and seldom read by animal science professionals. The emotional circuits for fear have been well documented through studies demonstrating that lesions to the amygdala will block both conditioned and unconditioned fear behaviors. Additionally, other core emotional systems including seeking (i.e., approaching a novel stimulus), rage, panic (e.g., separation stress), play, lust (i.e., sex drive), and care (e.g., mother-young nurturing behavior) have been identified. More recent neuroscience research has discovered the subcortical brain regions that drive different types of seeking behaviors. Research to increase the understanding of the emotional systems that drive both abnormal and normal animal behaviors could greatly improve animal welfare by making it possible to provide more effective environmental enrichment programs. Enrichment devices and methods could be specifically designed to enable the expression of highly motivated behaviors that are driven by emotional circuits in the brain. The objective of this paper is to increase awareness of animal scientists to the field of neuroscience studying animal emotions and the application of that science to improve the welfare of captive exotic animals, laboratory animals, and pets with environmental enrichment.  相似文献   

2.
The best means of providing for the physical and psychologic well-being of animals maintained in captive environments for research, teaching, testing, and exhibition is a problem being debated by scientists, veterinarians, animal rights and welfare groups, zoos, and others. Even a cursory examination of this question reveals its complexity and the inherited difficulties not only in assessing an animal's well-being but also in designing housing environments and implementing enforceable regulations. Assessment of well-being should not be based on a single category of measures but rather on a variety of physiologic and behavioral parameters. Most behavioral (and physiologic) methods used to assess well-being have problems of quantitation and interpretation. Preference tests and the application of economic demand theory to welfare assessment are examples of improved behavioral methodology, but much more research is needed on dogs and other species so that animal care and use guidelines can be based on objective data rather than on controversial opinions.  相似文献   

3.
In the assessment of husbandry conditions with regard to farm animal welfare the probability or risk is evaluated to which extent the animals are feeling well or are prone to pain, suffering or physical harm under the specific husbandry conditions. It is emphasised that well-being is more than merely the absence of pain, suffering and physical harm. Well-being is defined as the experience of the extent of being able to successfully cope with the environment. Consequently, any prevention to actively and successfully interact with the environment may impair animal well-being. This situation often arises because of conflicts between husbandry conditions and innate species-specific behaviour programs, regardless of any domestication effects on the reactivity of the farm animals to their environment. Based on these presumptions, four broad categories of influence on the well-being of animals are identified and exemplary explained. On the side of the environment these are the extent of (1) physical opportunity to perform species-specific behaviour, (2) availability of adequate stimuli and substrates for this behaviour and (3) adequate learning opportunities, especially during rearing. On the animals' side it is the extent of (4) their genetically based bodily capacity to perform species-specific behaviour. Less behavioural restriction is associated with the likelihood that better well-being is safeguarded under the aspect of behaviour. For a full assessment with respect to animal welfare also health aspects and other variables as appropriate must be taken into account. The assessment is comparative by nature and does not in itself include any conclusion about the acceptability of certain conditions.  相似文献   

4.
Classically, biologists have considered adaptation of behavioural characteristics in terms of long-term functional benefits to the individual, such as survival or reproductive fitness. In captive species, including the domestic horse, this level of explanation is limited, as for the most part, horses are housed in conditions that differ markedly from those in which they evolved. In addition, an individual horse's reproductive fitness is largely determined by man rather than its own behavioural strategies. Perhaps for reasons of this kind, explanations of behavioural adaptation to environmental challenges by domestic animals, including the capacity to learn new responses to these challenges, tend to concentrate on the proximate causes of behaviour. However, understanding the original function of these adaptive responses can help us explain why animals perform apparently novel or functionless activities in certain housing conditions and may help us to appreciate what the animal welfare implications might be. This paper reviews the behavioural adaptation of the domestic horse to captivity and discusses how apparently abnormal behaviour may not only provide a useful practical indicator of specific environmental deficiencies but may also serve the animal as an adaptive response to these deficiencies in an “abnormal” environment.  相似文献   

5.
This paper gives an introduction on the importance of ethology as a basis for the ethical animal welfare. The last edition of the Animal Welfare Act of the Federal Republic of Germany is based on the ethological principle which includes, that the animal must be free to satisfy its needs and preserve itself from damage by using of adequate behavioural patterns. With the help of observing animal behaviour the veterinarian can remark faults in the animal management before pain, suffering or injuries set it. So the importance of the ethology in the system of veterinary education is clear. Pertinent information shall promote the dialogue between scientists working in the field of animal behaviour and people engaged in animal welfare.  相似文献   

6.
The general concept of animal welfare embraces a continuum between negative/bad welfare and positive/good welfare. Early approaches to defining animal welfare were mainly based on the exclusion of negative states, neglecting the fact that during evolution animals optimised their ability to interact with and adapt to their environment(s). An animal's welfare status might best be represented by the adaptive value of the individual's interaction with a given environmental setting but this dynamic welfare concept has significant implications for practical welfare assessments. Animal welfare issues cannot simply be addressed by means of objective biological measurements of an animal's welfare status under certain circumstances. In practice, interpretation of welfare status and its translation into the active management of perceived welfare issues are both strongly influenced by context and, especially, by cultural and societal values. In assessing whether or not a given welfare status is morally acceptable, animal welfare scientists must be aware that scientifically based, operational definitions of animal welfare will necessarily be influenced strongly by a given society's moral understanding.  相似文献   

7.
At first glance, the abstract world of reptile ethology may seem remote to clinicians dealing with the health and disease of captive animals. By delving a little deeper, however, veterinarians can learn to appreciate the reasons for certain behaviors and actually use these behaviors as indicators of various biologic states. Close scrutiny of subtle changes in behavior can further help assess reptile well-being and judge captive welfare. In the future, it is hoped that improved ethologic understanding will result in behavioral enrichment for reptiles, as is already promoted for many nondomestic mammals and birds.  相似文献   

8.
A.K. Pascalev   《Livestock Science》2006,103(3):208-220
The paper discusses central moral issues raised by the applications of advanced biotechnology to animal agriculture and introduces the major ethical concepts and principles of animal bioethics. It is argued that biotechnology enables human beings to transform animals according to human needs, which blurs the boundary between humans and non-human animals in moral and biological sense. The more humans change animals, the more responsible humans are for the welfare of the animals and the greater their moral obligations. The paper introduces the main ethical approaches to animal welfare, traces the philosophical roots of animal ethics in the Judeo-Christian tradition and discusses the views of classical and contemporary ethicists such as Kant, Bentham, Mill, Peter Singer and Tom Regan. The paper explores the concept of animal welfare, suffering and rights, and the values behind Animal Liberation. Special attention is given to the animal welfare issues posed by cloning, genetic engineering and patenting of living organism. For each technology, actual or potential risks to animal welfare are identified and their moral implications are outlined. It is noted that the traditional moral principles of animal welfare, animal interests and animal rights are inadequate as means for evaluating the morality of certain advanced technologies because the technologies can change the animals in profound ways that make animal awareness too limited to give rise to claims about welfare, interests or rights. The principle of animal integrity is endorsed as an alternative better suited for evaluating the morality of advanced biotechnology.  相似文献   

9.
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.  相似文献   

10.
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.  相似文献   

11.
Organic farming in Europe has increased during the last decade but the market share is still relatively low with less than 3% of farmed arable land and an even smaller proportion of farm animal species raised in organic livestock production systems. In many aspects, the biological and ethological needs of animals in organic farming systems are better met than on conventional farms. Emphasis is placed on high standards in product quality, animal health and welfare. However, limitations due to the strict organic rules place high demands on management qualifications. Practical experience shows that organic livestock production is certainly no guarantee of good animal health and welfare. It is suggested to develop quality assurance programmes for process quality assessment to ensure a certain level of management standard. Epidemiological studies are needed to evaluate health risk factors for health and welfare problems in organic livestock production. The concept of organic animal farming can only fulfil the criteria for sustainability, if all requirements on animal health and welfare, together with product quality and ecological soundness, are strongly considered and controlled.  相似文献   

12.
Animals in the wild are facing a wide variety of challenges and ever-changing environmental stimuli. For successful coping, animals use both innate behavioural programs and their cognitive skills. In contrast, zoo- and farm animals have to cope with restricted husbandry conditions, which offer only few opportunities to adequately satisfy their various needs. Consequences could be sensory and cognitive underchallenge that can cause boredom and frustration as well as behavioural disturbances. Initially intended for improvement of management and husbandry, different forms of operant behavioural training have been applied firstly in zoo- and later also in farm animals. It has been suggested that successful coping with appropriate cognitive challenges is a source of positive emotions and may lead to improved welfare. Under the term cognitive enrichment, new approaches have been developed to integrate cognitive challenges into the housing of zoo- and farm animals. The present article reviews actual research in the field. Previous results indicate that, beyond improvement of management and handling routines, such approaches can positively affect animal behaviour and welfare. The combination of explorative and appetitive behaviour with successful learning improves environmental predictability and controllability for the animals, activates reward-related brain systems and can directly affect emotional processes of appraisal. For practical implementation in farm animal husbandry, it sounds promising to link individual access to e.g. automated feeders or milking systems with previously conditioned stimuli and/or discriminatory learning tasks. First experimental approaches in pigs, dwarf goats and cattle are available and will be discussed in the present article.  相似文献   

13.
丰容是为圈养动物提供适宜生活环境,改善圈养动物行为结构的重要方法。为了探究丰容对圈养双角犀鸟日常行为的影响,于2013年1~4月对上海动物园3只双角犀鸟进行展区丰容实验。丰容方法包括在栖架上设置云梯、悬挂麻绳和玩具、使用饲喂器等。采用瞬时扫描法观察双角犀鸟的日常行为并进行统计学分析。实验结果表明,丰容前后双角犀鸟个体间行为时间分配在社群、休息、运动、动喙行为方面有显著差异;丰容对双角犀鸟的日常行为有显著的影响,且丰容后各个个体均在修饰行为、休息行为、运动行为和动喙行为方面出现显著差异,具体表现为:修饰行为、运动行为、动喙行为增加,休息行为减少。丰容前后双角犀鸟的Et常行为变化具有个体特异性及行为连锁性。丰容有利于丰富双角犀鸟的日常行为,减少刻板行为的发生,有效提高了动物福利。  相似文献   

14.
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.  相似文献   

15.
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.  相似文献   

16.
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.  相似文献   

17.
The implications of cognitive processes for animal welfare.   总被引:1,自引:0,他引:1  
In general, codes that have been designed to safeguard the welfare of animals emphasize the importance of providing an environment that will ensure good health and a normal physiological and physical state, that is, they emphasize the animals' physical needs. If mental needs are mentioned, they are always relegated to secondary importance. The argument is put forward here that animal welfare is dependent solely on the cognitive needs of the animals concerned. In general, if these cognitive needs are met, they will protect the animals' physical needs. It is contended that in the few cases in which they do not safeguard the physical needs, it does not matter from a welfare point of view. The human example is given of being ill. It is argued that welfare is only adversely affected when a person feels ill, knows that he or she is ill, or even thinks that he or she is ill, all of which processes are cognitive ones. The implications for welfare of animals possessing certain cognitive abilities are discussed. For example, the extent to which animals are aware of their internal state while performing behavior known to be indicative of so-called states of suffering, such as fear, frustration, and pain, will determine how much they are actually suffering. With careful experimentation it may be possible to determine how negative they feel these states to be. Similarly, the extent to which animals think about items or events absent from their immediate environment will determine how frustrated they are in the absence of the real item or event but in the presence of the cognitive representation.  相似文献   

18.
In the last years animal welfare has assumed an increasing interest in our society, influencing legislation to enact many provisions aimed at the protection of animals. Along with increased consumer awareness of the need to maintain ethically acceptable conditions of raised animals, scientists too have begun to investigate the conditions of animal welfare, the tools for its evaluation and for its improvement. Although there are many advances in knowledge, much remains to be investigated concerning many species considered "minor", that is, camels and dromedaries. Dromedaries, recently, have attracted the interest of some breeders following the results of studies concerning the nutritional and therapeutic properties of their products ‐ milk in particular ‐ that make them ideal for some particular categories of consumers, such as diabetics, obesity sufferers, lactose‐intolerant subjects, menopausal women and so on. Considering their use in dairy husbandry, dromedaries are reared under intensive and/or semi‐intensive systems with the resulting emergence of specific needs, which should be fulfilled in order to have appropriate welfare. This paper's purpose is to give practical elements in order to find out dromedary welfare standards, promoting a comprehensive set of regulations on welfare, care and protection of this animal.  相似文献   

19.
动物园有限的面积与园中野生动物对环境条件的需求之间往往存在巨大的差距。应用分配通道提高动物园场地利用率可以缓解这一矛盾,并最终有利于提高动物福利。分配通道的应用可以划分为4个阶段,其发展趋势是将动物园中的所有展区联结成网络,从而使每种动物的生活和展示空间逐步接近动物生态领地模型,使动物园中有限的场地条件能够满足圈养野生动物的环境需求。  相似文献   

20.
To describe and then fulfill agricultural animals' needs, we must learn more about their fundamental psychological and behavioral processes. How does this animal feel? Is that animal suffering? Will we ever be able to know these things? Scientists specializing in animal cognition say that there are numerous problems but that they can be overcome. Recognition by scientists of the notion of animal awareness has been increasing in recent years, because of the work of Griffin and others. Feeling, thinking, remembering, and imagining are cognitive processes that are factors in the economic and humane production of agricultural animals. It has been observed that the animal welfare debate depends on two controversial questions: Do animals have subjective feelings? If they do, can we find indicators that reveal them? Here, indirect behavioral analysis approaches must be taken. Moreover, the linear additivity of several stressor effects on a variety of animal traits suggests that some single phenomenon is acting as a "clearinghouse" for many or all of the stresses acting on an animal at any given time, and this phenomenon might be psychological stress. Specific situations animals may encounter in agricultural production settings are discussed with respect to the animals' subjective feelings.  相似文献   

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