Animal welfare science is the scientific study of the welfare of animals as pets, in zoos, laboratories, on farms and in the wild. Although

animal welfare Animal welfare is the quality of life and overall well-being of animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures ...

has been of great concern for many thousands of years in religion and culture, the investigation of animal welfare using rigorous

scientific method The scientific method is an Empirical evidence, empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has been referred to while doing science since at least the 17th century. Historically, it was developed through the centuries from the ancient and ...

s is a relatively recent development. The world's first Professor of Animal Welfare Science, Donald Broom, was appointed by

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

(UK) in 1986.

Historical legislation and guidelines

Early legislation which formed the impetus for assessing animal welfare and the subsequent development of animal welfare science include the

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

Parliament (Thomas Wentworth) ''" An Act against Plowing by the Tayle, and pulling the Wooll off living Sheep"'', 1635, and the Massachusetts Colony (

Nathaniel Ward Nathaniel Ward (1578 – October 1652) was a Puritan clergyman and pamphleteer in England and Massachusetts. Biography A son of John Ward, a noted Puritan minister, he was born in Haverhill, Suffolk, England. He studied law and graduated fr ...

) ''"Off the Bruite Creatures"'' Liberty 92 and 93 in the ''"

Massachusetts Body of Liberties The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first legal code established in New England, compiled by Puritan minister Nathaniel Ward. The laws were established by the Massachusetts General Court in 1641. The Body of Liberties begins by establishin ...

"'' of 1641. Richard Martin's act, the ''"

Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822 The Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822 ( 3 Geo. 4. c. 71) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom with the long title "An Act to prevent the cruel and improper Treatment of Cattle"; it is sometimes known as Martin's Act, after the M ...

"'' is often considered to be the precursor of modern relevant legislation. One of the first national laws to protect animals was the UK ''" Cruelty to Animals Act 1835"'' followed by the ''" Protection of Animals Act 1911"''. In the US it was many years until there was a National law to protect animals—the ''"

Animal Welfare Act of 1966 The Animal Welfare Act (Laboratory Animal Welfare Act of 1966, ) was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 24, 1966. It is the main federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research and exhibi ...

"''—although there were a number of states that passed anti-cruelty laws between 1828 and 1898. In India, animals are protected by the ''" Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960"''. In the UK, the ''" Animal Welfare Act 2006"'' consolidated many different forms of animal welfare legislation. Animal welfare science can be considered as the assessment of welfare. The first publication to include the term "assessment" appears to be a 1965 appendix by

William Homan Thorpe William Homan Thorpe Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (1 April 1902 – 7 April 1986) was Professor of Animal Ethology at the University of Cambridge, and a significant United Kingdom, British zoologist, ethologist and ornithologist.Alan Costall, ...

entitled ''The assessment of pain and distress in animals''.Thorpe, W.H., (1965). The assessment of pain and distress in animals. Appendix III in the report of the technical committee to enquire into the welfare of animals kept under intensive husbandry conditions, F.W.R. Brambell (chairman). H.M.S.O., London This was followed 20 years later by a highly influential paper on assessing pain and distress in laboratory animals by Morton and Griffiths.

Methods of assessment

Animal welfare science uses a variety of

behavioural Behavior (American English) or behaviour (British English) is the range of actions of individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as well as the inanimate ph ...

physiological Physiology (; ) is the science, scientific study of function (biology), functions and mechanism (biology), mechanisms in a life, living system. As a branches of science, subdiscipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ syst ...

measures or indicators. Integrated approaches to assess animal welfare include risk analysis and semantic modelling of animal welfare.

Animal behaviour

*Occurrence of abnormal behaviours (e.g. stereotypies,

feather pecking Feather pecking is a behavior that occurs most frequently amongst domestic hens reared for egg production,Huber-Eicher, B. and Sebo, F. 2001. The prevalence of feather pecking and development in commercial flocks of laying hens. Applied Animal Be ...

, tail-biting,

facial expressions Facial expression is the motion and positioning of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. These movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers and are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying ...

) *Departure from ethogram of ancestral precursors *Intra-specific variations in behavioural welfare indices *Behaviour of captive animals upon release in a natural environment * Preference studies * Motivation studies * Cognitive bias in animals studies *Self selection of

anxiolytics An anxiolytic (; also antipanic or anti-anxiety agent) is a medication or other intervention that reduces anxiety. This effect is in contrast to anxiogenic agents which increase anxiety. Anxiolytic medications are used for the treatment of anxie ...

*Effects of

frustration In psychology, frustration is a common emotional response to opposition, related to anger, annoyance and disappointment. Frustration arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual's Will (philosophy), will or goal and ...

Animal physiology

Heart rate Heart rate is the frequency of the cardiac cycle, heartbeat measured by the number of contractions of the heart per minute (''beats per minute'', or bpm). The heart rate varies according to the body's Human body, physical needs, including the nee ...

Heart rate variability Heart rate variability (HRV) is the physiological phenomenon of variation in the time interval between heartbeats. It is measured by the variation in the beat-to-beat interval. Other terms used include "cycle length variability", "R–R variabi ...

Corticosteroids Corticosteroids are a class of steroid hormones that are produced in the adrenal cortex of vertebrates, as well as the synthetic analogues of these hormones. Two main classes of corticosteroids, glucocorticoids and mineralocorticoids, are invol ...

in plasma, saliva, urine, faeces, hair, feathers and eggs *

Immune function The immune system is a network of biological systems that protects an organism from diseases. It detects and responds to a wide variety of pathogens, from viruses to bacteria, as well as cancer cells, parasitic worms, and also objects such as ...

Neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...

Lewis M.H., Presti M.F., Lewis J.B. and Turner, C.A. (2006). The neurobiology of stereotypy I: Environmental complexity. In ''Stereotypic Animal Behaviour: Fundamentals and Applications to Welfare'', G. Mason and J. Rushen (Editors). CABI pp. 190-226. *

Eggshell An eggshell is the outer covering of a hard-shelled egg (biology), egg and of some forms of eggs with soft outer coats. Worm eggs Nematode eggs present a two layered structure: an external vitellin layer made of chitin that confers mechanical ...

quality *

Thermography Infrared thermography (IRT), thermal video or thermal imaging, is a process where a thermal camera captures and creates an image of an object by using infrared radiation emitted from the object in a process, which are examples of infrared im ...

including eye surface temperature

Organisations

Organisations interested in animal welfare science were set up before the subject became recognised as a science. The

Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) is a charity operating in England and Wales which promotes animal welfare. The RSPCA is funded primarily by voluntary donations. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest and largest a ...

(RSPCA) was founded in 1824 by a group of twenty-two reformers led by Richard Martin MP (who would thereby earn the nickname ''Humanity Dick''),

William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780 ...

MP and the

Reverend The Reverend (abbreviated as The Revd, The Rev'd or The Rev) is an honorific style (form of address), style given to certain (primarily Western Christian, Western) Christian clergy and Christian minister, ministers. There are sometimes differen ...

Arthur Broome. The

Universities Federation for Animal Welfare The Universities Federation for Animal Welfare (UFAW) is an animal welfare science society. It is a UK-registered scientific and educational charity. UFAW works to improve animals' lives by promoting and supporting developments in the science ...

(UFAW) history can be traced to the founding in 1926 of the University of London Animal Welfare Society (ULAWS) by Major Charles Hume. The name was changed to the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare in 1938, reflecting the increasingly wide range of people and institutions involved. More recent organisations involved in animal welfare science include the Scientists Center for Animal Welfare (SCAW) and university departments specialising in this branch of science including the Animal Welfare and Anthrozoology Center at

, the Animal Welfare Science Centre at

The University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state of Victoria. Its ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and the Animal Welfare Science and Bioethics Centre at

Massey University Massey University () is a Public university, public research university in New Zealand that provides internal and distance education. The university has campuses in Auckland, Palmerston North, and Wellington. Data from Universities New Zealand ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. Although not limited to animal welfare science, many members of the International Society for Applied Ethology work and publish research in this subject.

Journals, articles and books

Veterinary journals carrying articles on animal welfare have been published for many years, for example, the ''Veterinary Record'' has been published weekly since 1888. Peer-reviewed scientific journals have been launched more recently, e.g. ''Applied Animal Behaviour Science'' in 1974, ''

Animal Welfare Animal welfare is the quality of life and overall well-being of animals. Formal standards of animal welfare vary between contexts, but are debated mostly by animal welfare groups, legislators, and academics. Animal welfare science uses measures ...

'' in 1992, the ''Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science'' in 1998, and ''Frontiers in Veterinary Science—Animal Behavior and Welfare'' in 2014. Many books on animal welfare science have been written, for example those by Professor Marian Stamp Dawkins,Dawkins, M.S., (1980). ''Animal Suffering: The Science of Animal Welfare''. Chapman and Hall, London Professor David Fraser,Fraser, D., (2008) ''Understanding Animal Welfare: The Science In Its Cultural Context''. John Wiley and Sons Michael Appleby, Barry Hughes and Joy Mench,Linda J. Keeling, Jeff Rushen and Ian Duncan. Understanding animal welfare. Animal Welfare. 2011 Page 13. edited by Michael C. Appleby, Barry O. Hughes, Joy A. Mench
/ref> John Webster, and David Mellor et al.Mellor, D., Patterson-Kane, E. and Stafford, K.J., (2009). ''The Sciences of Animal Welfare''. UFAW/Wiley-Blackwell

Teaching

In 2011 in an article on the history of animal welfare science, Donald Broom wrote "The numbers of animal welfare scientists is increasing rapidly. The subject is now being taught in all European countries and the number of university courses on animal welfare in Brazil has increased from one to over 60 in 15 years. The diversity of animal welfare science is increasing and the expansion is likely to continue. The decision by the American Veterinary Medical Association to promote the teaching of the subject in all American veterinary schools will have a substantial effect."

References

Further references

* Broom, D.M. (1991). "Animal welfare: concepts and measurement". '' Journal of Animal Science''. 69 (10): 4167–75. doi:10.2527/1991.69104167x.

PMID PubMed is an openly accessible, free database which includes primarily the MEDLINE database of references and abstracts on life sciences and biomedical topics. The United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of ...

1778832. * * {{ethology Animal welfare Ethology Zoology