ABSTRACT
There are, in the literature, distinct ways to approach animal welfare. The objective of this work was to study the value attributed to farm animals in the scientific papers published in animal welfare and animal production journals at three different points in time, separated by a decade each. The first ten papers mentioning "animal welfare" or "animal well-being" in their objectives or hypotheses from each journal and each focus year were selected. The 180 papers were blindly scored by five assessors between 1 and 10, according to the degree of intrinsic value attributed to animals. The overall mean score and standard deviation were 5.60 ± 2.49, with 6.46 ± 2.29 and 4.74 ± 2.40 for AW and AP journals, respectively, and 5.37 ± 2.44, 5.68 ± 2.52 and 5.75 ± 2.41 for the focus years of 2000, 2010 and 2020, respectively. There was an interaction between focus year and publication area: papers from AW journals scored better over time, in contrast with papers from AP journals, for which scores remained similar over decades. The inter-assessor agreement is moderate, which may reflect the subject complexity, as the language used in the papers studied was ambiguous in relation to why and for whom it is performed. The low overall mean score evidenced that the animal welfare scientific publications are, on average, not prioritizing the interests of the animals. Thus, our results evidenced the presence of animal welfarism in animal welfare science, a problem that seems not to be intrinsic to animal welfare science itself, but rather to the way research is frequently conceived, conducted, interpreted, summarized and applied. Therefore, it seems urgent to further study the motivation for animal welfare research. The statement of the main justification for animal welfare papers, with an explicit declaration of the motivational priorities that constitute each scientific animal welfare study, may be an interesting recommendation for the improvement of animal welfare science.
ABSTRACT
We aimed to study the gaps between the law and sheep farmer and citizen opinions regarding animal maltreatment by discussing the risk of sheep maltreatment in regular farming practices in Southern Brazil. We surveyed the perception of 56 farmers and 209 citizens regarding general animal and specific on-farm sheep maltreatment issues. The main themes from these two groups about the key components of animal maltreatment were similar: failing to provide for the basic animal needs (27.0%; 96 of 355 total quotes) and aggression or physical abuse (23.9%; 85/355). However, citizens (19.8%; 60/303) were more sensitive than farmers (9.6%; 5/52) to animal stress, suffering, fear, pain or painful procedures (p < 0.05). The perspective of citizens was closer than that of farmers to expert definitions for three situations: emaciation, movement restriction and tail docking without anesthetic use (p < 0.05). More citizens (71.6%; 116/162) than sheep farmers (49.0%; 24/49) believed that animal maltreatment occurs in sheep farming (p < 0.05), but nearly half of the farmers recognized sheep maltreatment within regular production practices. Most citizens (86.4%; 140/162) and all farmers (100.0%; 0/51) were unaware of any Brazilian animal protection law. Most citizens (79%; 131/167) stated that they would not purchase products from animals exposed to maltreatment. We suggest painful procedures as a major risk of animal maltreatment in sheep farming and a priority issue. With the many decades of animal protection laws and scientific recognition of animal sentience and welfare requirements, the level of cognitive dissonance and practical contradictions observed in our results indicate that mitigation policies are urgently needed.
