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 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 method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific ...

s is a relatively recent development. The world's first Professor of Animal Welfare Science,

Donald Broom Donald Maurice Broom (born 14 July 1942) is an English biologist and emeritus professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University. Awards * 2000: Honorary D.Sc: De Montfort University. * 2005: Honorary Doctorate: Norwegian University of Life ...

, 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 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...

(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 ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

Parliament (Thomas Wentworth) ''"

An Act against Plowing by the Tayle, and pulling the Wooll off living Sheep An Act against Plowing by the Tayle, and pulling the Wooll off living Sheep (10 & 11 Chas. 1 c. 15) was an Act of the Parliament of Ireland passed in 1635. It was one of the first pieces of legislation to protect the rights of animals. The act ...

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

Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822 The Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act 1822 (3 Geo. IV 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 MP an ...

"'' 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 The Cruelty to Animals Act 1835 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 59), intended to protect animals, and in particular cattle, from mistreatment. Its long title is An Act to Consolidate and Amend the Several ...

"'' followed by the ''"

Protection of Animals Act 1911 The Protection of Animals Act 1911 (c. 27) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It received royal assent on 18 August 1911. The act consolidated several previous pieces of legislation, among others repealing the Cruelty to Animals ...

"''. 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 The Animal Welfare Act 2006 (c 45) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Overview It is the first signing of pet law since the Protection of Animals Act 1911, which it largely replaced. It also superseded and consolidated more tha ...

"'' 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 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 and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as wel ...

or physiological 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, tail-biting,

facial expressions A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are ...

) *Departure from

ethogram An ethogram is a catalogue or inventory of behaviours or actions exhibited by an animal used in ethology. The behaviours in an ethogram are usually defined to be mutually exclusive and objective, avoiding subjectivity and functional inference as ...

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 antianxiety 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 anxiet ...

*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 or goal and is likely to in ...

Animal physiology

Heart rate Heart rate (or pulse rate) is the frequency of the heartbeat measured by the number of contractions (beats) of the heart per minute (bpm). The heart rate can vary according to the body's physical needs, including the need to absorb oxygen and excr ...

* Heart rate variability * Corticosteroids in plasma, saliva, urine, faeces, hair, feathers and eggs * Immune function * NeuorobiologyLewis 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 quality *

Thermography Infrared thermography (IRT), thermal video and/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 i ...

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 that 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 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...

MP and the Reverend 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 is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

in Australia and the Animal Welfare Science and Bioethics Centre at Massey University in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. 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'' 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 Marian Stamp Dawkins One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from the royalsociety.org website where: (born Marian Ellina Stamp; 13 February 1945) is a British biologist and professor of ethology at the University of Oxford. H ...

,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,

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.

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1778832. * * {{ethology Animal welfare Ethology Zoology