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Animal testing •
Abandoned pets •
Bambi effect •
Behavioral enrichment •
Blood sport •
Cruelty to animals •
Feral cat •
Hunting •
Overpopulation in companion animals •
Overview of discretionary invasive procedures on animals •
Poaching •
Puppy mills •
Whaling •
Hypertype Farmed animals A major concern for the welfare of farmed animals is
factory farming in which large numbers of animals are reared in confinement at high stocking densities. Issues include the limited opportunities for natural behaviors, for example, in
battery cages,
veal and
gestation crates, instead producing
abnormal behaviors such as tail-biting, cannibalism, and
feather pecking, and
routine invasive procedures such as
beak trimming,
castration, and
ear notching.More extensive methods of farming, e.g.
free range, can also raise welfare concerns such as the
mulesing of sheep and predation of stock by wild animals.
Biosecurity is also a risk with free range farming, as it allows for more contact between livestock and wild animal populations, which may carry
zoonoses. Farmed animals are artificially selected for production parameters which sometimes impinge on the animals' welfare. For example,
broiler chickens are bred to be very large to produce the greatest quantity of meat per animal. Broilers bred for fast growth have a high incidence of leg deformities because the large breast muscles cause distortions of the developing legs and pelvis, and the birds cannot support their increased body weight. As a consequence, they frequently become lame or suffer from broken legs. The increased body weight also puts a strain on their hearts and lungs, and
ascites often develop. In the UK alone, up to 20 million broilers each year die from the stress of catching and transporting before reaching the slaughterhouse.This stress can be measured by the high level of heart rate and its cortisol levels, but it can also be seen in their behavior or physical changes. In situations where they are threatened, alone, or can't interact with others, these results are common. Animal welfare violations have been observed more in intensively bred chicken, pig and cattle species, respectively, and studies and laws have been enacted in this regard. However, animal welfare in semi-intensive species such as sheep and goats is nowadays being scrutinised and gaining importance. Another concern about the welfare of farmed animals is the method of
slaughter, especially
ritual slaughter. While the killing of animals need not necessarily involve suffering, the general public considers that killing an animal reduces its welfare. This leads to further concerns about premature slaughtering such as
chick culling by the
laying hen industry, in which males are slaughtered immediately after hatching because they are superfluous; this policy occurs in other farmed animal industries such as the production of goat and cattle milk, raising the same concerns. A 2023 report by the
Animal Welfare Institute found that animal welfare claims by companies selling meat and poultry products lack adequate substantiation in roughly 85% of analyzed cases.
Cetaceans Captive cetaceans are kept for display, research and naval operations. To enhance their welfare, humans feed them fish that are dead but are disease-free, protect them from predators and injury, monitor their health, and provide activities for
behavioral enrichment. Some are kept in lagoons with natural soil and vegetated sides. Most are in concrete tanks which are easy to clean but echo their natural sounds back to them. They cannot develop their own social groups, and related cetaceans are typically separated for display and breeding.
Military dolphins used in naval operations swim free during operations and training and return to pens otherwise. Captive cetaceans are trained to present themselves for blood samples, health exams, and noninvasive breath samples above their blow holes. Staff can monitor the captives afterward for signs of infection from the procedure. Research on wild cetaceans leaves them free to roam and make sounds in their natural habitat, eat live fish, face predators and injury, and form social groups voluntarily. However, boat engines of researchers, whale watchers and others add substantial noise to their natural environment, reducing their ability to echolocate and communicate.
Electric engines are far quieter, but are not widely used for either research or whale watching, even for maintaining position, which does not require much power. Vancouver Port offers discounts for ships with quiet propeller and hull designs. Other areas have reduced speeds. Boat engines also have unshielded propellers, which cause serious injuries to cetaceans who come close to the propeller. The US Coast Guard has proposed rules on propeller guards to protect human swimmers, but has not adopted any rules. The US Navy uses propeller guards to protect manatees in Georgia.
Ducted propellers provide more efficient drive at speeds up to 10 knots, and protect animals beneath and beside them, but need grilles to prevent injuries to animals drawn into the duct. Attaching satellite trackers and obtaining biopsies to measure pollution loads and DNA involve either capture and release, or shooting the cetaceans from a distance with dart guns. A cetacean was killed by a fungal infection after being darted, due to either an incompletely sterilized dart or an infection from the ocean entering the wound caused by the dart. Researchers on wild cetaceans have not yet been able to use drones to capture noninvasive breath samples. Other harms to wild cetaceans include commercial
whaling,
aboriginal whaling,
drift netting,
ship collisions,
water pollution, noise from
sonar and
reflection seismology,
predators, loss of
prey, and
disease. Efforts to enhance the life of wild cetaceans, besides reducing those harms, include offering human music. Canadian rules do not forbid playing quiet music, though they forbid "noise that may resemble whale songs or calls, underwater".
Wild animal welfare In addition to cetaceans, the welfare of other wild animals has also been studied, though to a lesser extent than that of animals in farms. Research in wild animal welfare has two focuses: the welfare of wild animals kept in captivity and the welfare of animals living in the wild. The former has addressed the situation of animals kept both for human use, as in
zoos or
circuses, or in rehabilitation centers. The latter has examined how the welfare of non-domesticated animals living in wild or urban areas are affected by humans or natural factors causing
wild animal suffering. Some of the proponents of these views have advocated carrying out conservation efforts in ways that respect the welfare of wild animals, within the framework of the disciplines of
compassionate conservation and
conservation welfare, while others have argued in favor of improving the welfare of wild animals for the sake of the animals, regardless of whether there are any conservation issues involved at all. The welfare economist
Yew-Kwang Ng, in his 1995 "Towards welfare biology: Evolutionary economics of animal consciousness and suffering", proposed
welfare biology as a research field to study "living things and their environment with respect to their welfare (defined as net happiness, or enjoyment minus suffering)."
War The
Sudan Animal Rescue Centre, whose sanctuary is located southeast of the capital near a military base that saw heavy fighting during the
war starting in 2023, warned that the situation at its facility was "critical", with no permanent staff to take care of its 25 lions and other animals, shortages of food and no electricity to power electric barriers for its enclosures. == Legislation ==