Animal Welfare: Legislation and Responsible Structures
Animal welfare
Animal protection is an act of the human being while animal well -being is a quality that varies in any living animal. The animal’s environment is adequate if it allows you to meet your needs. Animals have a variety of functional systems that control body temperature, nutritional status, social interactions, etc. At the same time, these allow the individual to control their interactions with the environment and therefore maintain each aspect of their state within an acceptable field.
When an animal is possible or really unbalanced, homeostatically speaking, or when it acts in a certain way of an environmental situation, we say that it has a need. A need can be defined as a requirement, which is part of the basic biology of an animal, to obtain a particular resource or respond to a specific environment or a body stimulus.
There are needs due to concrete causes such as lack of water or heat, but control systems have evolved in animals in such a way that the means to obtain a specific objective have become important for the animal at the individual level. For example, pigs need to hozate on the ground or similar substrate, chickens take dust baths and both species need to build nests before giving birth or put eggs. In these different examples, the need itself is in the brain and is not physiological or behavioral but can be satisfied only when the physiological imbalances are avoided or rectified or when some concrete behavior is expressed.
The effects of animal welfare legislation.
Legislation has effects on how people take care of animals. It is usually initiated by voter pressure in elected politicians. In that scientific area, politicians need to know the true state of scientific knowledge on the subject. Information on these issues have formed the basis of legislation and codes of conduct in many countries.
Worldwide, the Organization Internationale des Epizooties (OIE) or World Organization for Animal Health is now establishing blocks of recommendations that will probably be laws in most nations of the world, while respecting the recommendations of the OIE on theAnimal diseases. The real effect of animal welfare legislation depends on the responses of those who are responsible for them. This answer, in turn, depends on the nature of any application. Some systems for the production of farm animals will not continue if they are illegal because they depend on large producers that are forced to change to a legal system.
Other aspects of the legislation can be applied only with inspections carried out on farms, in transport vehicles, in markets, in slaughterhouses, etc., and the measure of violations of the law is significantly affected according to the frequency and quality of inspections. In many cases you have to carry out inspections without prior notice to discover the infractions. There are regional differences and nations regarding the seriousness with which those involved in the animal production business contemplate the legislation.
Obligations to animals: Animal rights have?
Moral acts are directed more towards those we identify as that we consider. In countries that are relatively poor but with good education, they are interested in animal welfare can be such that people are willing to incur some degree of economic loss rather than in a poor quality of life of animals.
All human behaviors and laws should be based on each person’s obligation to act properly towards each person and each misused animal. It is better to base life strategies on our obligations than mixing the concept of rights: many called rights can damage others. The most accepted obligation to our animals is related to avoiding a poor quality of life, so that the learning of animal welfare and its scientific basis is very important for all those who frequently have contact with animals.
Interest in animal welfare.
Farm animals are affected by their entire environment, such as management practices, physical limits, enrichment factors, ventilation, temperature, social interaction with other animals and reproduction programs aimed at selecting production characteristicssuch as faster growth, greater milk production, eggs, etc. This breeding technique has been successful from a point of view of production but its negative effect is an increase in production -related diseases. These problems may be more obvious if animals are given a substance that increases their producing capacity. An example is the use of BST in dairy cows that was prohibited in the United States according to the recommendations of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Welfare (1999).
When the needs of an animal are not satisfied, their well -being will be worse than when their needs are met. Malnutrition, injuries and diseases are obvious signs of well -being deficiency, other indicators include abnormal behavior such as stereotypes. The two factors of intensive breeding systems that have given rise to most criticisms are surely the reduced space and the sterile environment provided to animals. These land deprive animals to perform at least some of their natural patterns of behavior. The reduced space limits the possibility of movement and activity and can interfere with normal social interactions that include the possibility of appearing from other animals. All animals including, humans need the possibility of keeping minimal distance from others when they wish. The British Council for the Welfare of Farm Animals carried out this task and formulated the next five freedoms:
- Do not suffer hunger, malnutrition or thirst: animals have to have access to clean water and a balanced diet.
- Do not suffer discomfort and discomfort: provide an environment that includes shadows and adequate rest areas.
- Establish measures that minimize pain, injuries and diseases: guarantee prevention and rapid treatment.
- Be able to express natural behavior: provide enough space and appropriate facilities for animals to establish social relationships with other group members.
- Protect them from fear and stress: ensure conditions and treatments that avoid the mental suffering of animals.
The five freedoms must be considered as a set of principles for all those who are involved in one way or another in the well -being of farm animals such as farmers, agricultural advisors, veterinarians, consumers, organizations for well -being, politicians, etc.
Animal experimentation
Animal experimentation is a unique issue when we analyze the relationship between human beings and animals. In animal experiments, pain, suffering and anguish are deliberately inflicted on animals while this would be considered illegal abuse in other fields. But even when we admit that animal experiments can provide results that give us valuable knowledge and contribute to biomedical or toxicological research, from an ethical perspective it does not seem acceptable that we, as human beings, put sensitive beings in states of suffering thatWe would never accept for ourselves. Despite all this, animal experimentation has become a cruel reality in today’s world.
Structures responsible for animal protection
The Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for all problems related to animal protection while the Ministry of Environment deals with the protection of species. It exercises its supervision powers both through regular inspections, which follow a program established at the national level, or through directed investigations, at the request of the central authorities, which pursue specific objectives: checking the conditions in which animals are transported:
- Inspections in simple animal stores
- inspecting the conditions that are taken to the slaughterhouse and how they are sacrificed
- inspections of establishments that provide animals for experimental purposes
- Inspections in pig breeding conditions, calves, laying hens, etc.
They are also responsible for inspections in accordance with authorizations (Animal Experimentation Institutes, cattle carrier attributing adequate certification, etc.) And they have as responsibility the total control of contagious diseases.
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