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At the conference we ask attendees to list questions they had for the speakers. Following are the replies.
Gail Golab
Q - How do you define welfare evolution?
A - What I’m really talking about is an evolution in how we approach animal care practices and animal welfare assurance. In making decisions about how to best care for animals, we need to consider what information is available from science, what society’s expectations are, and what practicalities exist that may influence what knowledge and social expectations we can and cannot directly accommodate. We also need to recognize that just because we have done something for 30 years and it works well it doesn’t mean that we can’t do a better job using another approach—we always need to be on the lookout for the better way.
Incremental change (evolution) has historically been shown to be a better approach to improving animal welfare than making major and immediate shifts from one set of animal care practices to another (revolution). When we do the former, it gives us the opportunity to change those aspects of systems that are problematic, while retaining those aspects of animal care systems that are good. On the other hand, when we do a dramatic shift from one type of system to another, we run the risk of simply exchanging one set of animal welfare concerns for another.
Q - Where is the AVMA’s stance on horse slaughter for human food?
A - We believe horse owners have a responsibility to provide humane care throughout the lives of their horses; however, we also recognize that a small percentage of horses are ultimately unwanted because they are no longer serviceable, are infirm, dangerous, or their owners are no longer willing or able to care for them.
The AVMA has endorsed the American Association of Equine Practitioners’ policy on transportation and processing of horses and agrees with them that “the processing of horses is currently a necessary aspect of the equine industry and provides a humane alternative to allowing the horse to continue a life of discomfort and pain, and possibly inadequate care or abandonment.”
We encourage responsible ownership and management that will reduce the number of unwanted horses and commend the efforts of equine retirement facilities and adoption groups in related efforts.
Q - Issues
A - Humane Transportation?
Formal AVMA policy on the humane transport of horses is available here: www.avma.org/issues/policy/animal_welfare/equine_transport.asp.
A - Horses being abandoned?
So far, there have been an increasing number of media reports of horse neglect and abandonment. In addition, there are many articles about equine rescue facilities, already understaffed and underfunded, turning away horses because they are already at full capacity. For a compilation of articles, please go to www.avma.org/issues/animal_welfare/unwanted_horses/default.asp.
We acknowledge there are many factors at play in these situations. Recent droughts have caused hay prices to soar, and more and more people are having trouble finding affordable hay for their horses. Hay prices have at least doubled in many areas of the United States. As more unwanted horses remain in the horse population, hay shortages and high costs will increase the cost of care and further deplete resources. It will cost more to care for these horses, and many rescue facilities are already financially strapped. This adds to the AVMA's concern that these animals may be more likely to be abandoned or neglected.
A - Overpopulation of or by horses?
The American Horse Council estimates there are 9.2 million horses in the United States. We do not have reliable statistics on the total number of horses that become unwanted each year. We do know that 90,000 to 100,000 unwanted horses were sent to slaughter annually, when slaughter was a disposition option for horses in the United States, and that the total number of unwanted horses is substantially greater than this.
Q - Did the AVMA support closure of the slaughter facilities?
A - No it did not.
AVMA believes that rescue and euthanasia are preferable dispositions for unwanted horses; however, there are simply more unwanted horses in the United States than can be accommodated by these options. Slaughter is another, although less desirable, means by which horse owners have chosen to dispose of their unwanted horses. With the closing of the equine slaughter plants in the United States, horse owners choosing slaughter as an option must arrange to have their horses shipped to either Canada or Mexico; the additional cost of shipping reduces the value of these horses even further. Recent media reports describe horse auctions where horses have been shot by the owners of the auction house because the horses were not sold and were abandoned at the auction by the sellers. The costs involved in feeding, caring for, and shipping these horses simply exceeded their market value. As much as we wish this were not the case, it is the reality.
Dan Weary
Q - What do we know about what is the natural life of every species?
A - As I reviewed in my talk, animal welfare includes three types of concerns.
- is the animal functioning well,
- is the animal feeling well, and
- is the animal able to live a reasonably natural life. For some, judging the natural living criteria may seem clear – simply allowing animals to live as naturally as possible. But this approach as probably naive; some natural conditions such as exposure to climatic extremes, disease, parasite infections and predator attacks cannot be seen as good for the animals. Thus we need to know which aspects of the natural life are really important to animals and how might this be evaluated.
We might like to know a great deal about the natural life of every species, or at least the key domestic animal species we work with, but our approach has been to focus on a few clearly identified welfare problems and use the study of natural behaviours to help inform solutions to these problems. For example, dairy calf calves often fail to gain weight during the first few weeks in life, and this is a time when mortality rates are very high. Dairy producers typically feed calves just twice a day, a total of about 4-5 L /d. In contrast, when calves are left with the cow they will often nurse 4-8 times a time and consume 10 or more L milk / d. Keeping the calves with the cow is not practical for many producers, but feeding more milk through a simple nipple-based feeding system can allow the same behavior. Calves fed with this system gain much more milk, and also do not show the same signs of hunger that are shown by the conventionally fed calves.
This example shows how knowledge of the animals natural behaviour can sometimes provide simple and practical solutions to important welfare problems.
Jennifer Woods
Q - Are you addressing poultry industry human transport / handling audits?
A - "Poultry are not currently addressed on the AMI Transportation Audit" as poultry are not considered livestock in the U.S. and do not fall under the umbrella of the AMI. There are some existing transportation audit points for poultry though through the U.S. poultry audit program that is taught by PAACO. I do think we will see the poultry industry develop a more comprehensive transport audit program as the red meats are released and as customers begin to demand it as part of the existing verification programs."
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