Animal Welfare And Relative Welfare - 4014 Words

Organic Animal Welfare By Jason Hubing University of Wisconsin River Falls ANSC 115 Animal Welfare Dr. Kurt Vogel Scientific Journal Report #2 12/16/2014 Introduction Much can be said about animal welfare, many aspects are relatively new. New topics and avenues of potential research are constantly surfacing. For starters, one idea I’m going to attempt to tackle is an ethical one. Subjective at best in my opinion, it usually doesn’t warrant serious scientific research. The topics I’m suggesting are organic welfare and relative welfare. I’m talking about the range of emotions animals have and how they can be interpreted to best adapt an animal’s environment to maximize their welfare. Several institutions would†¦show more content†¦A consumer could be more inclined to purchase/use a product if they can believe that their product lived a full and happy life. The same criteria can be said for a prospective pet, an owner would want an all-around healthy companion that can display a full range of emotion during the course of its life. Welfare can certainly be relative when you take into account the definition in context. I’m going to pose an argument that for instance an organically raised, grass fed cow can claim a higher quality welfare than a â€Å"stock† cow; one that has been raised in a warehouse, outside of a â€Å"natural† frame of reference (conditions the animal could exist in with minimal human intervention). I’ll even go so far as to say the physical presence of the sun may be a vital component in welfare. It has been documented that lack of sun exposure can lead to vitamin D, and calcium deficiency, various diseases because of that and even depression.[5] The definition of welfare can be measured by the accumulation of positive and negative experiences. Objectively weighing the satisfaction of every need (and possibly want) of the animal in question versus; illnesses, pain, abnormal behavior, and chronic stress, etc. Through these objective measures, an animal’s level of wellbeing can be properly gauged. [3] This makes it fairly easy to me asure welfare since each of these events or categories probably has