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Animal machines: The new factory farming industry
... It is based on the need to establish a balance between human beings and nature and to reduce the anthropocentric view of relations between living beings. Thus, it recognises the importance of humans, animals and other living beings for the ecosystem (Harrison, R., 1964). ...
The aim of this review was to analyze Brazilian animal protection policy throughout history and discuss the importance of some recent events and societal developments in its modernisation. A search for the complete legislation and scientific works was performed on the government’s website and search platforms (Google scholar, Science direct and CAPES). It was observed that the first Brazilian law on animal protection was published in 1924. After this, several amendments were incorporated. The current Brazilian Constitution, published in 1988, was a landmark in the modernisation of animal protection in the country as it allowed the recognition of sentience and thus characterised cruelty and mistreatment of animals as crimes. At the same time, society has evolved, increasing the proximity with animals until the recent development of the concept of the multi-species family positioning animals as family members. Recent reports have shown that animal abuse and cruelty can still occur and the application of the animal protection policy is allowing pursuits and condemnation of offenders. Brazil is a young country but its policy on animal protection and its society greatly evolved in the last century. This progress is still ongoing as the society is taking an active role to push improvements on public policies and surveillance towards animal mistreatments. However, it would be advisable to include the real needs of animals in the reflections in order to avoid making decisions that are erroneously harmful to animals. This work was a collaboration between the post-graduation program of the Veterinary school of the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco – Brazil and The National school of veterinary of Alfort - France, from January to August 2024.
... Large-scale campaigns by animal rights activists, leading to public outcry and altered consumer behaviour, have typically been the driving force behind substantial improvements in farm animal welfare and policy [31,72,84]. One such example started with the book Animal Machines, written by animal welfare activist Ruth Harrison, and first published in 1964 [85]. Animal Machines described some of the realities of "factory farming" at the time and triggered intense public reaction, prompting the English Parliament to convene the Brambell Committee in order to review intensive farming practices and define animal welfare [86,87]. ...
This commentary provides an update and clarification on the legislative landscape surrounding mulesing in Australia since the publication of the 2023 study, “How Well Does Australian Animal Welfare Policy Reflect Scientific Evidence: A Case Study Approach Based on Lamb Marking”. The article explores legislative changes mandating the use of pain relief for mulesing in various states, emphasising Victoria’s original role, and highlighting the fragmented state-based legislative approach to animal welfare. It discusses the impact of these legislative changes on industry practices and animal welfare outcomes. The commentary highlights the complexities of policy development in this area, due in part to the diverse and often conflicting interests of stakeholders and the public. It underscores the importance of transparency, stakeholder collaboration, and scientifically informed policymaking to effectively enhance animal welfare standards.
... At least in western economies, the 1960's awakening environmental debate directed attention to the consequence of chemicals and drugs in agriculture. With Rachel Carson's (1962) Silent Spring and Ruth Harrison's (1964) Animal Machines as wake up calls, consequences of compensating investments in animal health with antibiotics gained attention. ...
Purpose
Limiting the use of antibiotics in food animals is a cornerstone of contemporary EU policy. Despite that marketing of antibiotics for growth promotion and nutrition has been banned since 2006, the use is still high and varied. This paper aims to investigate the forces behind the different usage patterns in Italy, with one of the EU’s most extensive use of antibiotics in animals, versus Sweden, with the union’s most restricted use, including how these usage patterns are related to EU and national policies.
Design/methodology/approach
The industrial network approach/the 4R resources interaction model is adopted to investigate the major forces behind the different antibiotic usage patterns. Furthermore, the study relies on the notion of three main characteristics related to the use of a resource activated in several user settings (Håkansson and Waluszewski, 2008, pp. 20–22). The paper investigates the Swedish and the Italian using settings, with a minimised, respectively, extensive usage of antibiotics. The study is exploratory in nature and based on qualitative data collected through a combination of primary and secondary sources.
Findings
The paper underlines the importance of integrating forces for policy to succeed in attempts to reduce the use of a particular resource. It reveals that Sweden’s radically reduced use was based on great awareness, close interactions between animal-based food producers and policy – and that integrating forces were supported by an era of state-protected food production, with promising ability to distribute the cost of change. The Italian characteristics hindering the integration of forces mounting for reduced use were restricted awareness, top-down business and policy interactions – and a great awareness about the difficulties of distributing the cost of change.
Originality/value
The study deals with the analysis of forces affecting the different usage of antibiotics within two EU settings. The investigation, based on the industrial network approach’s notion of connectivity of economic resources, that is, of exchange having a content and substance beyond discrete transactions, reveals how indirect related contextual forces, neglected by policy, have an important influence on the ability to achieve change, in this case of antibiotics usage patterns.
... É amplamente reconhecido que o livro Animal Machines (Harrison, 1964) desempenhou um papel fundamental no início do movimento moderno de bem-estar animal. Harrison expressou críticas relevantes em relação às práticas intensivas de produção animal que se tornaram cada vez mais comuns após a Segunda Guerra Mundial. ...
... These metabolic experiments are at once rudimentary and sophisticated, relying on visions of metabolism as industrial (Landecker, 2013) and housed in the body of chickens. There is a long and rich history of theorizing and criticizing industrial agriculture with chickens and their eggs, notably as 'factories', beginning with Harrison's (1964) Animal Machines. For Landecker (2011, the development of metabolic knowledge in nutritional science in the 19th century is tangibly connected with the industrial era, being focused on the conversion of matter from raw materials of nature to products of man. ...
Chickens have become emblematic of the Anthropocene: They embody the age of acceleration, (post-) industrial value, and intensification in scientific and technological knowledge and practice. Contemporary chickens are the bearers of significant genetic and nutritional knowledge, experimented upon and ‘tweaked’ so much so that some have denied that contemporary commercial chickens are chickens at all. This article reconsiders chickens through a metabolic lens, and the notion of metabolism through chickens, arguing that attending to chickens opens up new conceptualizations of life and labour in the metabosphere. The article tells a metabolic history of chickens from ornament to enclosed monocrop, by way of the laboratory and nutritional experiments. Then, it looks at chicken metabolism in three conceptual modes: first, as a conduit for value, metabolizing and enhancing human life for the past century; second, through technological innovations extending the gut outside chickens’ immobilized bodies; and third, through the planetary impacts of metabolic porosity in geological manifestations, toxic atmospheres, and viral overflow. Ultimately, this article shows how techno-scientific production of chickens has taken place in and created the metabosphere as a site of experimentation and exploitation.
... É amplamente reconhecido que o livro Animal Machines (Harrison, 1964) desempenhou um papel fundamental no início do movimento moderno de bem-estar animal. Harrison expressou críticas relevantes em relação às práticas intensivas de produção animal que se tornaram cada vez mais comuns após a Segunda Guerra Mundial. ...
... One of the least contested and most widely accepted and repeated narratives within the animal sheltering industry is that shelters should guarantee the Five Freedoms, a set of principles that can be, and often are, used to justify killing. After public outcry in response to British animal advocate Ruth Harrison's 1965 book on the conditions of farmed animals who were destined for slaughter [39], the British government assembled a committee to consider the welfare of animals in industrial agriculture. The ensuing report [40] included what came to be known as Five Freedoms, or that animals being raised for slaughter should be guaranteed the (1) freedom from hunger and thirst; (2) freedom from discomfort; (3) freedom from pain, injury, and disease; (4) freedom to express normal behavior; and (5) freedom from fear and distress [41]. ...
This paper examines the legacies of the emergence of the animal control and sheltering industry in the United States and their impact on contemporary public animal shelters. While decades of gradual reform have helped substantially reduce the number of animals entering shelters and being killed there, contemporary animal sheltering largely continues to follow the path set when animal sheltering developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Three key interrelated legacies of the pound model of early animal control and sheltering enduringly shape sheltering today: (1) the institutional culture of animal shelters grounded in the logics of caging and killing; (2) the lack of visibility and transparency, especially within government shelters; and (3) the economic logics of the pound model, including the disparities in sheltering resources across communities. Examining the origins of animal control and sheltering and identifying the specific legacies of this pound model within contemporary government-funded shelters improves understanding of why such shelters in the US have developed with a particular set of practices and ideologies, and thus provides an important footing for envisioning and enacting radical changes in animal sheltering.
... Third, a crisis of confidence in the UK chicken industry suddenly emerged in the mid-1960s, but not from concerns about the risks to human health, but rather from concerns about animal welfare. This was triggered by the publication of Ruth Harrison's Animal Machines (1964), which became a cause célèbre, and which led to an intense public focus on the moral implications of indoor rearing of livestock, especially chickens (Harrison, 1964;Sayers, 2013;Kirchelle, 2021). The controversy quickly led to several other related investigations, notably Elspeth Huxley's Brave New Victuals (1967), which highlighted the role played by antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in intensive rearing, and to a Parliamentary enquiry, the 'Technical Committee to Inquire into the Welfare of Animals kept under Intensive Livestock Husbandry Systems,' chaired by Roger Brambell in 1965. ...
... The growing adoption of the cage system soon raised concerns about the welfare of the caged animals [2,6]. Notable publications, such as "Animal Machines" [7] or the "Brambell Report" [8], which highlighted animal suffering, inspired and led to the development of legislation to protect farm animals [9]. 2 of 19 The first country to ban the conventional cage system was Switzerland in 1992, followed by more European countries that introduced national regulations to reduce stocking density. Finally, by 2012, the European Union (EU) implemented a complete ban on the use of conventional cages, replacing them with "enriched cages" and other alternative solutions [10]. ...
This paper’s main objective is to assess the impacts of the ban on cages for housing laying hens, planned by the European Commission to raise animal welfare standards beyond the level set in the current legislation. The farm-level economic assessments of the ban were carried out in three stages: farm surveys and expert consultations, farm-level analyses, and aggregation to the EU-27 egg production sector. Four scenarios were constructed. All financial estimates were conducted with fixed prices from the year 2021 for which the reference scenario was built. Alternative hen-housing systems were barn (Voliera), free range, and organic. Until now, more than 50% of laying hens in the EU have already been transferred to alternative systems. The remaining part is subject to the transition. The basic assumptions included a reduction in yields due to the required lower densities and specifics of the production systems. A factor strongly differentiating the scenarios is likelihood of exists form the sector, as declared in the survey by many farmers, mainly those reaching retirement age without successors and keeping relatively small flocks of hens. The introduction of the ban will cause a decrease in egg production, varying between the scenarios. Substantial investments will be required within the range of 2–3.2 billion EUR, depending on the scenario.
... In order to obtain high yields from the animals, the care and feeding of the animals, which are separated from their natural living conditions, are carried out in such modern shelter systems. However, the expected high level of efficiency in intensive production cannot be realized due to some problems related to welfare (Harrison, 1964). ...
In this research, welfare measurements were made on 14 modern dairy cattle farms (Type 1) with similar enterprise scales and built without any support from any institution, and on eight modern dairy cattle farms (Type 2), which were built with the support of the Agriculture and Rural Development Support Institution (ARDSI), in the province of Konya, Turkey. Welfare levels of dairy cattle farms were measured using the Animal Needs Index (ANI) 35L/2000 method. Milk samples were taken from each of these enterprises and somatic cell counts were obtained. Collected data and calculated ANI scores were compared. While there was a substantial difference between the two enterprise types in terms of the scores obtained for stockmanship (welfare measurement) and the general ANI scores, there was no relationship between the enterprise types in terms of somatic cell count. According to the ANI 35L/2000 welfare measurement method, suitable welfare conditions were provided in these enterprises. However, when examining categories that determine the overall ANI welfare score, deficiencies in some welfare criteria such as flooring, stockmanship, and light-air conditions were noted.
... Awareness of the welfare problems associated with factory farming was first raised by Ruth Harrison in her 1964 book Animal Machines, issues that were further brought to popular attention by Peter Singer in 1975 with the publication of Animal Liberation. These books, and others since, have highlighted the range of ways in which intensive farming causes suffering to animals: broiler chickens spending their life indoors with no natural light and less than a square foot each, their beaks partially removed with hot blades to decrease aggression in these crowded conditions, and suffering deformities and lameness from overly rapid growth; sows kept in tiny stalls that don't permit them to turn around or provide a soft place to sleep, with limited cognitive and behavioural opportunities provided for them to exercise their physical and cognitive needs (Gruen 2011;Harrison 1964;Singer 1975). With over 70 billion animals 3 farmed annually for human food production, and around another 1-3 trillion fish 4 caught per year, this is a considerable amount of suffering. ...
Synthetic meat made from animal cells will transform how we eat. It will reduce suffering by eliminating the need to raise and slaughter animals. But it will also have big public health benefits if it becomes widely consumed. In this paper, we discuss how "clean meat" can reduce the risks associated with intensive animal farming, including antibiotic resistance, environmental pollution, and zoonotic viral diseases like influenza and coronavirus. Since the most common objection to clean meat is that some people find it "disgusting" or "unnatural," we explore the psychology of disgust to find possible counter-measures. We argue that the public health benefits of clean meat give us strong moral reasons to promote its development and consumption in a way that the public is likely to support. We end by depicting the change from farmed animals to clean meat as a collective action problem and suggest that social norms rather than coercive laws should be employed to solve the problem.
... century (Kirkden and Pajor, 2006), the publishing of Animal Machines in the 1960s (Harrison, 1964) and the mention of animal welfare in the Brambell report (Brambell Committee, 1965) consequently spiking societal concerns of intensive farming, soon made animal welfare a valid scientific topic, giving rise to systematic approaches to animal welfare. The subsequent acknowledgement of subjective animal feelings (e.g. ...
The polar bear (Ursus maritimus) serves as a flagship species in zoological institutions, contributing
to both indirect and potential future direct conservation efforts. However, concerns over the welfare
of these bears in captivity have been raised, and contemporary initiatives soon require institutions to
evaluate and monitor welfare through evidence-based welfare assessment tools. The overall
objective of this PhD study was to therefore to commence the development of a welfare assessment
protocol for zoo-housed polar bears, focusing on the appropriate behaviour welfare principle of the
Welfare Quality® framework.
In a critical review of scientific publications, several potential animal-based welfare indicators were
found. Based on content, construct and criterion validity, only limited evidence of validity was
established for the indicators, with abnormal repetitive behaviour being the only thoroughly
validated behavioural indicator. The identified gaps in knowledge encouraged the remaining parts
of this PhD study, concerning developing and validating indicators within the welfare criteria of
‘positive emotional state’, ‘expression of species-specific normal behaviour’ and ‘appropriate social
environment’.
To enable inference of the emotional state, a fixed-term Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA)
list was developed, of which validity and short-term consistency was investigated. QBA was carried
out on 22 polar bears housed in nine zoos in Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands and France,
concurrent with collection of several behavioural, postural and health-related indicators. Two
components were extracted through Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and coined as Valence
and Arousal, which displayed evidence of construct validity (both convergent and divergent)
through meaningful significant associations of component scores to the other animal-based welfare
indicators. Positive association of valence scores was found to behavioural diversity, environmental
interaction, rest and negative significant associations was found to abnormal repetitive behaviour
and activity level. Arousal scores showed significant positive associations to abnormal repetitive
behaviour, environmental interaction and activity level as well as a negative association with awake
inactivity. The valence scores of the QBA was moreover found to be consistent within and between
days (short term), useful for feasibility of future assessments.
In the same study population, behavioural diversity, based on the Shannon Index (H), was assessed
for its potential use in polar bear welfare assessment concerning the criterion relating to species-
appropriate behaviour. Behavioural diversity showed both construct (convergent) validity through association with QBA valence scores, and construct (divergent) validity with time spent engaged in
abnormal repetitive behaviour. However, several caveats of this index persist, and the behavioural
diversity index should not be treated as an independent or fully validated indicator.
Lastly, the effect of the social environment on polar bear welfare is of current focus, yet no
immediate measure to assess this has been developed. Potential indices for monitoring social
dynamics were therefore investigated, along with the effects of these relationships on welfare,
assessed through associations to other welfare indicators. Potential dyadic factors explaining
variation in social qualities were moreover investigated. The social environment of the same study
population of polar bears (excluding solitary housed bears and a mother-cub dyad), was investigated
through PCA of multiple diverse social parameters, as well as through existing social indices used
for other species. Three components were found explaining dyadic relationships labelled Value,
Security and Incompatibility, and useful social indices capturing information on the social
environment were identified, along with a proxy measure (inter-individual proximity) for
feasibility. Relatedness was found to be significantly associated with positive dyadic relationships,
and bears in positive relationships was significantly less engaged in awake inactivity compared to
other bears, assessed through the adapted social indices. Although no clear-cut relationship between
the social environment and welfare was found, the proposed indices may prove useful for
monitoring social dynamics, which is imperative in socially housed polar bears.
The generated novel knowledge and indicators were compiled into an adapted welfare framework
based on Welfare Quality® and the 24/7 approach, serving as a prototype welfare assessment
protocol for zoo-housed polar bears. The protocol highlights current indicators, scoring schemes,
gaps in knowledge and future perspectives, and may serve as a starting point for protocol
development, important for the care, management and conservation efforts of this vulnerable
species.
... Bu açıklama, vegan hareketinin tarihinde önemli bir dönem noktasıdır, çünkü veganlık, vejetaryenlik gibi bir beslenme tarzından ziyade bir yaşam tarzı olarak tanımlanmıştır. Karşı kültürlerin gelişmeye başladığı 1960'lı yıllardan itibaren hayvan hakları ve veganlık-vejetaryenlik kavramlarını sentezleyen Hayvan Makineleri (Harrison, 1964), Hayvan Özgürleşmesi (Singer, 1975(Singer, /2018 ve Hayvan Devrimi (Ryder, 1989) adlı eserlerin popülaritesi de hayvan haklarının savunulmasının çoğunlukla hayvan eti yemeyi reddetmekle ilişkilendirilmesinde önemli köşe taşlarından biri olmuştur. Bugün Vegan Topluluğu (The Vegan Society) (2023), veganizmi "mümkün ve uygulanabilir olduğu ölçüde yiyecek, giyecek veya başka herhangi bir amaç için hayvanlara yönelik her türlü sömürü ve zulmü dışlamayı amaçlayan bir felsefe ve yaşam tarzı" şeklinde tanımlamaktadır. ...
Küresel iklim değişikliği ve hayvan hakları konusundaki hassasiyetlerin bir uzantısı olarak vegan ve bitki bazlı beslenmeye olan ilginin artmaya başladığı görülmektedir. Bu araştırma, Türkiye’de veganizm konusundaki tartışma alanının Twitter’da nasıl yapılandırıldığını; veganların ve hepçillerin anlatılarını hangi temel konular üzerinde inşa ettiğini belirlemeyi amaçlamaktadır. Araştırmada 2022-2023 yılları arasında vegan, veganizm ve veganol anahtar kelimeleri ve hashtag’leriyle paylaşılan 62.742 tweet üzerinde MiniLM-L6 modeli ile öznitelik çıkarımı, UMAP ile boyut indirgeme ve HDBSCAN ile kümeleme işlemleri gerçekleştirilmiştir. Kelime ağırlıklandırma yöntemiyle kümelerde öne çıkan kelimeler ve rastgele yapılan manuel okumalarla elde edilen bilgiler kullanılarak, veganlar, hepçiller, kararsızlar ve vegan ürün reklamı yapan kullanıcılar olmak üzere dört farklı kesim tarafından 18 konunun tartışıldığı tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca #vegan hashtag ağı incelenerek, vegan beslenme eğilimindeki temel motivasyonların sırasıyla hayvan hakları konusundaki endişeler, sağlıklı beslenmeye/yaşama olan ilgi, kilo kontrolü ve son olarak ekolojik kaygılar olduğu belirlenmiştir. Anahtar Kelimeler: vegan, veganizm, Twitter, kümeleme, konu modelleme.
... Over time, this emphasis on population-based outputs led to intensive "factory farm" practices in which the welfare of individual animals was not routinely evaluated. Ruth Harrison's 1964 exposé Animal Machines revealed the reality of these practices and demonstrated that population-based parameters do not adequately Animals 2023, 13, 1577 2 of 12 protect animal welfare [2]. The subsequent public outcry prompted the formation of what became known as the Brambell Committee and the basis of the modern approach to animal welfare, the Five Freedoms [3]. ...
Simple Summary
The science of animal welfare can be approached along a continuum of perspectives. Historically, we considered animal welfare at a distance, through a big-picture examination of population-level parameters (e.g., longevity, reproductive success). In recent decades, scientists and practitioners have advanced the field and optimized animal welfare by incorporating a focused approach examining each individual (e.g., their lived experiences). Population-level welfare evaluations are key to validating parameters used to measure individual animal welfare and have an important role when individual animal welfare cannot be easily measured. However, there are also situations in which individual and population welfare may be in conflict, and managers must consider maximizing population welfare at the expense of individuals. We examine these cases and explore opportunities for the integration of individual and population-level welfare to promote optimal well-being for animals in zoos and aquariums.
Abstract
Over the last 50 years, animal welfare science has advanced dramatically, especially in zoos and aquariums. A shifting focus from population-level welfare parameters such as reproductive success and longevity (macroscopic, big-picture concepts) to the subjective experience of individual animals (microscopic, focused concepts) has led to more effective animal welfare assessments and improvements in animal welfare. The interplay between individual animal and population welfare for captive animals is critical to the way zoos and aquariums operate to realize their welfare and conservation missions, especially when these missions conflict with one another. In this report, we explore the intersection of individual animal and population welfare in zoos and aquariums and how these two concepts may support one another or be in conflict.
... This is in contrast to how research has drawn attention to human groups by focusing on issues such as race, gender, and ability. Vinnari and Vinnari (2021) view the important literature works of Harrison (1964) and Singer (1975) as drivers of animal rights governance but not necessarily as drivers for farm animal welfare. They argue that research in animal rights has applied more to wild animals while farm animals have ended up in an intermediate position, i.e., neither part of nature nor of society-only for the benefit of humans. ...
The lack of research in farm animal welfare governance is noticeable given how political science traditionally describes the agricultural field as politicized, i.e., subject to private and public regulations and governance. This paper shows how this issue is making its way into social and political science by using a scoping review methodology to map and analyze what exists in the research literature on farm animal welfare governance from 2000 to 2021. In evaluating drivers in farm animal governance, the literature points to increasing public concern. This is not necessarily because it changes the public's actions, but rather give legitimacy to actors to drive change in other domains such as research and the market. This review identifies retailers and animal welfare organizations as key actors in private farm animal welfare governance. Public government and political parties are perceived as “slower drivers,” thus leaving room for private governance.
... El cuidado de los animales: para cuidar los animales de la mejor manera debemos tener en cuenta las cinco libertades de las mascotas (Harrison, 1964), estas son: -Libertad de alimentación e hidratación: Proporcionarles una adecuada alimentación y agua potable a libre disposición para que no sufra una deshidratación. ...
... McLoughlin 2019; Veng 2018; Hamilton & McCabe 2016;Harfeld et al. 2016;Crowder 2015;Vialles 1994;Noske 1993;Singer 1976;Harrison 1964).39 Here, animals are considered production units, often complete with generic number tags. ...
This thesis examines the work and lives of a community of biodiversity-centered, rubber-boot oriented biology students and researchers at the Department of Bioscience at Aarhus University in Denmark. Based on long-term immersive fieldwork, it depicts practices and animations that are attuned to the earthly vulnerabilities of our time and at the same time permissive of lived enchantment and hopes for the future. It charts, in other words, how a love of the living turns into a quest for a world that is not just biodiverse, but where the bios as a whole, not the Anthropos alone, becomes the gravitational center of everything that humanity does and does not do. This vision is for the world is what I refer to in this thesis as the Biocene. The first part of the thesis concentrates on central elements of biological practice at the Aarhus University to explore how such practices implicate passions and condition relationships to the living world. The latter part shifts beyond the institutional con-fines of the university to focus on the ways that biology – at least of the rubber-booted sort – emerges as something like a calling. Chapter 1 examines taxonomic practices of classification and identification of species. It queries how such presumably detached approaches may bespeak care, and argues that classificatory exercises, apart from providing a grip on a diverse natural world, augment the lives of my interlocutors. Identifying a species by a name, I suggest, is not like putting a label on a container of rice. Nor is it only a constitutive operation of power. Rather, it makes particular species of bees, ants, or grasses pre-sent and manifest to biologists, thus enabling certain care-full relationships to the living world. The second chapter exposes the ethicalities involved as biologists forfeit nonhuman life both in- and outside laboratories. It demonstrates how biologists try on various legitimizing institutional logics, highlighting how such frameworks fail to address the full gamut of ethical becoming that is at stake. Ultimately, I suggest, violence and killing executed by biologists is realized in an ethically engaged mode of apolo-gy whereby biologists accede to the complexity of entangled multispecies relationships and take on responsibility for their actions in order to nurture the care-full po-tentials of responsivity. Chapter 3 tackles the doing of biodiversity through a turning toward wild(er) nature in general and rewilding in particular. Taking the rewilding experiment at the Mols field laboratory as its point of departure, it argues that rewilding among biologists is ar-ticulated as an effective biodiversity management tool but also, importantly, that it presents a vision for the natural world that revolves around a decentering of Homo sapiens. This decentering, I argue, constitutes a condition of possibility for a detachment from pecuniary human interests which, biologists contend, ought to structure human relations to the rest of the living world if earthly flourishing is to be dis-tributed more evenly across species – and if we are to properly appreciate the diversity of the bios on its own terms. Chapter 4 reveals how such experiences of decentering are inhabited and lived by my biologist interlocutors. It depicts various encounters with life – with evolutionary theory, with sei whales and wolves – that leave biologists infatuated and ‘wonder’ed,’ and it suggests that such infatuation hinges crucially on the skills and wherewithal of rubber-boot biology. The fifth and final chapter focuses on the flipside of such infatuation and begins with the grief and mourning that comes with the realization that one’s object of love is hurting and may soon cease to exist. I propose that these diverging affective responses coalesce in an incipient mobilization of biologists into various kinds of concerted interventions in favor of biodiversity. Zooming in on instances of conspicuously excited public biodiversity dissemination, I illustrate how my interlocutors seek to instill in the general public greater attention to and appreciation of the (often unloved parts of the) living world. I suggest that as they do this – as they become what I call machines of wonder and enchantment – enchantment is turned from a potential source of ethics to a form that ethics or politics might take. The five chapters present distinct thematic loci and they demonstrate how biodi-versity comes to matter to my interlocutors in ways that are 1) experientially aug-menting, 2) ethically absorbing, 3) cosmologically unsettling, and 4) wonder-full. Indeed, I make the case that such forms of mattering fuel my interlocutors’ quest for a Biocene. Given our ecologically perilous times, vernacularized among other things as the sixth mass extinction, we might want to take notice.
... The expansion of the animal population under human care has occurred at a great cost to their welfare, particularly in the last Decades [1,2]. For example, productivity gains that increased the efficiency of meat, egg and dairy production arose predominantly through the selection of fast-growing and highly productive breeds. ...
We describe a recently developed approach to quantify welfare loss in animals, the Cumulative Pain metric. It combines the two most relevant dimensions of negative affective experiences: intensity and duration. The metric enables estimating the time individuals spend in negative affective states of a physical or psychological nature (operationally referred to simply as ‘pain’) of different intensities as the result of one or more challenges (e.g., diseases, injuries, deprivations). A new notation protocol (the Pain-Track) is used in which the duration of the experience is represented along the horizontal axis and intensity is represented by four categories in the vertical axis. Pain experiences are partitioned into temporal segments, where hypotheses for the experienced duration and intensity are proposed based on existing welfare indicators (e.g., neurophysiological, behavioral, anatomical, evolutionary). This structure forces transparency about assumptions and uncertainties, highlights knowledge gaps, and enables estimates to be continuously adjusted. Because the Cumulative Pain metric is based on parameters with a broadly common biological meaning, it provides the much needed interoperability among assessments of animal welfare. It enables comparing the impact of practices and living conditions, policies and interventions, and the calculation of welfare footprints of animal-sourced products using a universal measurement unit.
... Hence, I believe, this term deserves a discussion before going into the details of animal monitoring. Although publication of the first book in support of animal well-being is dated back to 1776, significant progress in animal welfare did not take place until the late 20th century [22], [23]. As defined by Broom, "the welfare of an individual is its state as regards its attempts to cope with its environment" [24]. ...
The relentless pursuit of financial efficiency has encouraged the development of intensive animal management systems, where the care of the animal is sometimes compromised. As the physical or emotional stress on the animals summons the conscience of the consumers, the public's interest in animal welfare is continuing to rise. While several qualitative and quantitative measures are used to assess the long-term welfare of an animal, the physiological and behavioral states of the animals are the only quantifiable measures of the short-term responses of animal welfare. Moreover, studying the vital signs [e.g., heart rate (HR), breathing rate (BR), blood pressure (BP), core body temperature, etc.] and behavioral traits of freely moving animals can provide significant insights to veterinarians, animal researchers, and biomedical engineers. Monitoring of animals is also necessary for the pharmaceutical industries, where the safety and efficacy of human drugs are tested on animal models. Wireless sensor systems attached to individual animals can provide specific physio-behavioral information about each animal continuously. However, an externally attached device on a freely moving animal would have unfavorable impacts on its natural behavior and comfort. Moreover, the recordings from a wearable sensor would suffer from the obstruction created by the layer of skin and fur. An implantable system, on the other hand, can avoid the difficulties related to the attachment of sensors to the animal and can be minimally obtrusive, depending on the size of the implant. In this research, a subcutaneously injectable implant equipped with several sensing capabilities is developed using commercial-off-the-shelf components.
First, the transparently encapsulated implant includes a biophotonic front-end circuit that can acquire photoplethysmography (PPG) signals. The designed system successfully recorded PPG signals using light sources of different wavelengths from rats and chickens during \textit{in vivo} experiments. As PPG systems are highly power-consuming, a low-power custom-integrated PPG front-end circuit has been validated by developing a wearable wristband for humans that has the potential to reduce the implant’s battery usage in the future. Second, the developed system is capable of biopotential (electrocardiography or ECG) and bioimpedance (BIOZ) measurements that can provide deeper insight into the cardiovascular system. Despite the difficulties of interfacing conductive electrodes in implants, two techniques for manufacturing electrode surfaces on the implant are proposed, and the accuracy of the system is validated with a commercial ECG amplifier during the in-vivo experiments. The combination of this biophotonic and bioelectric sensing would enable the estimation of HR, BR, oxygen saturation in the blood (pulse oximetry), pulse transit time (PTT) which is correlated with BP, tissue hydration level, etc. Third, a temperature sensor has been added to read the core body temperature, which has been validated using an in-vitro setup. Lastly, an inertial measurement unit (IMU) that integrates an accelerometer and a magnetometer are included in the system. Accelerometry can track various micro and macro activities by classifying the tri-axial data, whereas magnetometry can register an animal's physical orientation.
All these sensor electronics, along with a wireless microcontroller and a pin-type battery, are coated with biocompatible materials and packaged into a capsule-shaped cylinder with a diameter of 4 mm. This miniaturized implant fits into a commercially available injector (similar to the ones used for RFID tags) and allows for an easier injection method avoiding any surgical procedure on the animal. The contribution of this research includes the design and development of the implantable system, optimization of the hardware and software to reduce the power consumption, packaging innovations to accommodate electrical interfaces within the injectable form factor, and the in-vivo animal experiments for the validation of individual sensors.
The costs, benefits, and ethical considerations regarding animal welfare are a central element in modern capitalist agriculture, yet systematic quantitative historical insights are lacking. To overcome this, we seek to understand animal welfare in the Danish dairy sector from 1750 to 1900, a period marked by significant agricultural development and industrialization. By applying contemporary animal welfare metrics to historical data, we uncover a complex pattern of both improvements and declines in welfare over time, influenced by largely economically motivated changes in farming practices such as feeding, housing, and health management. Our work thus contributes to a deeper understanding of the nexus of economic progress and animal welfare, and invites the field of economic history to focus more on externalities in the development process.
La capacidad de los animales de sentir dolor es objeto de reflexión filosófica desde la antigüedad, y conlleva preguntas alrededor de qué es la sensibilidad, dónde se ubica en la estructura ontológica del mundo y cuál es su significancia en el discurso moral. La relevancia de estas preguntas y su vinculación mutua varía a lo largo de la historia de la filosofía: a partir de finales del siglo XIX, y en creciente medida durante las últimas décadas, el interés para la ontología de la sensibilidad animal ha sido sustituido por preocupaciones alrededor del valor moral del sufrimiento frente a otros marcadores de dignidad moral, como la racionalidad. Este artículo propone un recorrido histórico y un análisis comparado de las discusiones sobre sensibilidad animal en filosofía desde la antigüedad hasta la actualidad.
Farming, food safety, and sustainable agriculture are trivial aspects in Africa that play significant roles to guarantee food security, public health, and environmental preservation. This paper aims at uncovering the challenges, limitations, and opportunities connected to farming, food safety, and sustainability in Africa. It highlights the interconnectedness of these issues and portrays the necessity for holistic approaches to be adopted as effective remedial solutions. I reveal that, farming in Africa ranges from small scale subsistence farming to larger commercial activities. Though agriculture is a vital source of income and employment for many Africans, significant setbacks like climatic mutations, soil degradation, limited access to natural and human resources, foodborne diseases, contamination, poor hygiene, limited storage facilities, lack of infrastructure, technology, etc., hinder development, productivity, and sustainability in most regions. I conclude by stating that, food safety concerns require multifaceted approaches and collective efforts from farmers, governments, consumers and other stakeholders charged with monitoring, strengthening, regulating, enhancing, and improving food handling practices. Environmental conservation can be ensured through sustainable agricultural practices such as, agroforestry, organic farming, conservation agriculture, and agro ecological principles expected to enhance productivity, biodiversity, improve soil health, limit the use of chemicals, and conserve water.
In this study, veterinary students from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Belgrade and Department of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Novi Sad were surveyed to evaluate their knowledge and attitudes toward farm animal welfare. Data were collected from 431 students by survey consisting of 39 closed-ended questions divided into two parts (demographic characteristics and a five-point Likert scale). Results showed that female students, students aged 18 to 21 years, from veterinary high schools, from urban areas, with mixed diets, who own pets, were predominated. Younger students and students from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University in Belgrade agree significantly higher (p<0.001) that animal welfare is necessary for sustainable agriculture, food safety, biological functioning, emotional state, and natural behavior, as well as zootechnical procedures and rearing systems impairing the welfare of farm animals compared with students of the final year of studies, and from Department of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Agriculture in Novi Sad. Female students, and younger students, from urban areas, who own pets, have more concerned attitudes regarding farm animal welfare (p<0.001). The findings of this study confirm that attitudes toward farm animal welfare are not homogeneous and are associated with students’ demographic characteristics. Also, results suggest that more attention should be paid to the curriculum and program to indirectly improve the welfare of farm animals.
The paper touches upon fundamental questions connected with shaping the ethics of animal protection. It presents the historical process of evolution of attitudes towards animals, from reification to empowerment. For many centuries, animals were treated as things, an object of rights to which humans were entitled, including the right of ownership. In ethics there appear increasingly numerous discussions on the moral status, being a subject as well as human responsibilities towards other living creatures capable of feeling pain and suffering. The attitude of people towards other living species has significantly transformed over the recent 70 years. Since the 1960s, activists, writers and philosophers (e.g. R. Harrison, P. Singer, G.L. Francione) have begun to insist on the dignified treatment of animals. This trend also points to the connection between treating animals like objects and the global development of the animal industrial sector. This phenomenon is growing as the scale of industrialization of the animal industry intensifies. In light of this, the question arises about the proper understanding of the concept of animal welfare.
Primates, and great apes such as chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in particular, were and are still a matter of great interest to humans. As a consequence, we can find large numbers of captive chimpanzees all over the world housed in a wide array of living conditions. Chimpanzees can be found in zoos, sanctuaries and rescue centers, yet others might still be part of private unregistered animal collections, or held as pets or used in the entertainment industry. Living conditions in non-accredited housings and private homes are typically not regulated in any way to ensure minimum standards of safety and wellbeing and hence often inadequate.
Rescue centers, such as Fundació MONA, in collaboration with regional and international authorities strive to locate chimpanzees held in such illegal and/or species inadequate living conditions in order to relocate these animals to institutions that have the capacity and resources for rehabilitation and to provide lifelong care. Accordingly, most chimpanzees housed at sanctuaries and rescue centers have a history of adverse living conditions which may include traumatic events such as witnessing the death of their mothers and/or group members and prolonged social isolation, prior to their rescue. Considering the similar developmental trajectories of humans and chimpanzees, including the need for a safe base in early infancy, it should come to no surprise that we also share a certain vulnerability to trauma, reflected in the development of mental disorders and behavioral impairments caused by early traumatic life experiences.
Providing welfare promoting environments for captive chimpanzees can be very challenging considering their highly complex social and environmental demands. It is even more challenging in case of traumatized and behaviorally impaired chimpanzees, as such an environment should provide species adequate care and a habitat designed to reduce welfare compromising negative effects while eliciting welfare enhancing positive effects. Analyzing long-term behavioral data of former pet and entertainment chimpanzees housed at a primate sanctuary, allows not only to explore the long-term impact of these adverse early life experiences on the behavior but also to evaluate the effects of sanctuary housing.
Most professional institutions housing chimpanzees entertain visitor activities with the objective to promote education and conservation programs. Yet the exposition to unfamiliar visitors is a factor that potentially may have a strong (negative) impact on the chimpanzees’ welfare. Although many studies indicate a negative impact due to visitor proximity, crowding, noise and interactions, some studies provide contradicting evidence as well. As such it might not be the visitor activity itself, but rather how these visitors are granted access to the animals as well as what means the animals have to mitigate the presence of unfamiliar humans.
Based on behavioral data collected over more than 12 years, we could demonstrate that past adverse experiences during infancy produce a lasting impact on the social behavior of former pet and entertainment chimpanzees. Specifically, we found that chimpanzees who were predominantly housed without conspecifics during the first five years of their lives to spend less time on social grooming compared to those who were predominantly housed with conspecifics during infancy. We also found that wild-caught chimpanzees were significantly more selective regarding their grooming partners and spent less time grooming when compared to captive born chimpanzees. Regarding the impact of care management decisions, we found that alterations to the group composition (the integration of a new group member to as well as the removal of a chimpanzee from a group) produced a short-term effect on the allogrooming distribution from a more equal distribution during periods with a stable group composition towards a more unequal and selective distribution during unstable periods. Thus, we could demonstrate that the allogrooming networks of former pet and entertainment chimpanzees are shaped not only by long-term effects such as early life experience, but also by short-term effects such as alterations to group composition.
In a next step, by using multilayer social network analysis, we were able to analyze the sociability of these former pet and entertainment chimpanzees in more detail. For this we assessed and compared the similarity and information gain of four different social interaction types representing different levels of social stimulation from low to high: the toleration of stationary vicinity, affiliative behavior, allogrooming and the toleration of passive close proximity. By investigating these low-to-high level social interaction types simultaneously, we managed to improve our understanding regarding these chimpanzees’ toleration of the different levels of social interaction. As expected, the results showed that some social interaction types were more similar to each other than other ones, yet each social interaction type imparted different information. Furthermore, we found the chimpanzees’ early life experiences to affect the two middle to high social interaction types – allogrooming and affiliative behavior – in the long run.
Regarding the potential (negative) impact caused by the exposure to unfamiliar humans, we did not find visitor groups at the sanctuary to have any effect on the chimpanzees’ behavior. We detected only a slight increase in locomotion and a decrease of inactivity during visitor activities, with chimpanzees exhibiting more interest towards groups of larger size. Thus, visitor activities that are severely restricting the visitors’ possibilities to interact with or call the attention of the animals, as well as an enclosure design that guarantees the chimpanzees’ privacy and control of being visible or not, may enable housing institutions to entertain educational visitor programs without producing a welfare compromising effect.
Each piece of information allows us to further improve our understanding of an ideal welfare promoting environment. It might also help to improve the evaluation of chimpanzees’ behavior and welfare in future study designs and may serve caregivers to take even better decisions regarding the rehabilitation and social integration of severely impaired chimpanzees with their special needs.
A phenomenology of factory farms and slaughterhouses, as well as associated animal sanctuaries, is mounted. It is found that other animals in the former situations are reified into machine-like beings, as are the workers who deal with them. In terms of critical hermeneutics, it is found that alienation from the process and product of work and from each other and themselves happens for both human and nonhuman denizens of these contexts. In animal sanctuaries, it is found that a contrary movement of “subjectification” occurs. The ethical ramifications of these patterns are that animals become bereft of moral standing in the former institutions and are restored to moral considerability in the latter context.
Animals have fundamentally contributed to the development and growth of different cinematographic and audiovisual activities. As established in article 13 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the basic text that establishes the objectives of the EU and from which the regulations or directives emanate, animal welfare is protected for the good of the general interest and therefore, must be taken into account when developing different European Union policies, especially those that may affect the internal market. This work aims to analyze each of the European regulations on animal protection and welfare to subsequently focus on each of the animal protection codes of the different countries of the union, trying to determine those premises related to the protection or the welfare of the animals that participate in these types of activities. We also wanted to make a brief comparison with countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) or the United States of America (USA), which are highly relevant to this topic. As a result of this analysis, the absence of standardized norms in the European Union has been revealed; however, in the UK and the USA, specific laws related to animal use in film media exist. Therefore, to develop new standards that guarantee the protection of animals in audiovisual productions in the EU are necessary, and these standards could also be expanded to other sectors or activities related to working animals.
Animals are the focus of public policy around the world. Nonetheless, animal policy has not been established as a separate domain. This article describes the elements of animal policy to clarify its scope for public discourse and to give it a distinct research status. Three perspectives on animal policy are identified—anthropocentrism, animal welfare, and natural rights. Each of these ideas shapes the responses to the policy issues of animal cruelty, species disruptions, and the use of animals for public service. By ordering various problems and solutions within animal policy, an illustration is provided of how policy coherence can inform public discourse and governance.
The 'livestock revolution' has seen the lives and livelihoods of peri-urban peoples increasingly intertwine with pigs and poultry across Africa in response to a rising demand for meat protein. This 'revolution' heralds the potential to address both poverty and nutritional needs. However, the intensification of farming has sparked concern, including for antibiotic misuse and its consequences for antimicrobial resistance (AMR). These changes reflect a micro-biopolitical conundrum where the agendas of microbes, farmers, publics, authorities and transnational agencies are in tension. To understand this requires close attention to the practices, principles and potentials held between these actors. Ethnographic research took place in a peri-urban district, Wakiso, in Uganda between May 2018 and March 2021. This included a medicine survey at 115 small- and medium-scale pig and poultry farms, 18 weeks of participant observation at six farms, 34 in-depth interviews with farmers and others in the local livestock sector, four group discussions with 38 farmers and 7 veterinary officers, and analysis of archival, media and policy documents. Wide-scale adoption of quick farming was found, an entrepreneurial phenomenon that sees Ugandans raising 'exotic' livestock with imported methods and measures for production, including antibiotics for immediate therapy, prevention of infections and to promote production and protection of livelihoods. This assemblage - a promissory assemblage of the peri-urban - reinforced precarity against which antibiotics formed a potential layer of protection. The paper argues that to address antibiotic use as a driver of AMR is to address precarity as a driver of antibiotic use. Reduced reliance on antibiotics required a level of biosecurity and economies of scale in purchasing insurance that appeared affordable only by larger-scale commercial producers. This study illustrates the risks - to finances, development and health - of expanding an entrepreneurial model of protein production in populations vulnerable to climate, infection and market dynamics.
El artículo analiza las reformas introducidas o proyectadas, en las últimas décadas, al régimen jurídico de los animales en algunas codificaciones civiles de Europa y América, en consonancia con la legislación sobre el bienestar animal, que califica a los animales no ya como cosas sino como seres sintientes. Este nuevo paradigma ha conducido a la superación de la tradicional dicotomía personas-cosas, mediante la configuración de un tertium genus a ellos dedicado, así como a la elaboración de un régimen jurídico especial, con repercusiones –principalmente– en materia de propiedad, responsabilidad civil, familia y sucesiones.
A produção animal e as condições de criação desses indivíduos geramimportantes preocupações e debates. A primeira forma de avaliação de bemestar de animais de produção que tomou proporções globais e que tinha a óticado animal no centro da avaliação foi o Princípio das Cinco Liberdades, em1965. Mais recentemente, foi proposto o Modelo dos Cinco Domínios paraavaliar o bem-estar animal. Ao analisar esses dois métodos sob a perspectivada bioética, observa-se que o Princípio das Cinco Liberdades tem relação maisdireta com o princípio da não maleficência, enquanto o Modelo dos CincoDomínios relaciona-se mais com o princípio da beneficência. Ao prezar pelobem-estar e atender aos anseios dos animais, respeitando-os como indivíduos,o imperativo bioético de Jahr e a bioética profunda de Van Potter estarão sendorespeitados.
Since the 1960s, the European Union (EU) has made efforts to ensure the welfare of farm animals. The system of EU minimum standards has contributed to improved conditions; however, it has not been able to address the deeper factors that lead to the intensification of animal farming and the consolidation of the processing sector. These issues, along with major competitive pressures and imbalances in economic power, have led to a conflict of interest between animal industries, reformers, and regulators. While the priorities of the European Green Deal and the End the Cage Age initiatives are to induce a rapid phasing out of large-scale cage-based farming systems, the industry faces the need to operate on a highly competitive global market. Animal farmers are also under pressure to decrease input costs, severely limiting their ability to put positive animal-care values into practice. To ensure a truly effective transition, efforts need to go beyond new regulations on farm animal welfare and address drivers that push production toward a level of confinement and cost-cutting. Given the right socio-economic and policy incentives, a transition away from intensive farming methods could be facilitated by incentives supporting farm diversification, alternative technologies, and marketing strategies.
This chapter focuses on a type of protein machine, the chicken, linked to the Chicken of Tomorrow Contest from the 1940s. This contest sought to solve problems associated with producing chicken through technological interventions into the body of the chicken itself, and less obviously in the surrounding ecology. The chapter examines the historical trajectory of making chicken, as the chicken of tomorrow became the chicken of today and led to an array of problems: physiological, environmental, economic, epidemiological, ethical, and political. The chapter catalogues the problems that emerge with these historical developments. At the same time, I show how they are linked to a specific technological approach that makes assumptions about what animals are, who humans are, and how food systems should work.
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