Animal Welfare
Animal Welfare
Animal health is an essential component of animal welfare. In
sheet
the absence of any normative framework to promote animal welfare and
at the request of its Member Countries, the World Organisation for Animal Health
(OIE) decided to develop, from 2001, the first international standards in this field.
These standards are, as always, science-based.
Fact sheet
The issues
Animal welfare is a complex subject with scientific,
Fact
ethical, economic, cultural and political dimensions.
Today, animal producers are increasingly taking
animal welfare into account and some have come
to see it as a standard of quality. There is growing
consumer interest in animal welfare worldwide,
making it an inevitable economic issue on the
world market for animals and animal products.
The challenges
The perception of what does or does not constitute
an act of cruelty to animals differs from one region or
culture of the world to another. The main challenge
is to reach a consensus among 170 countries to
establish science-based guidelines.
Furthermore, animal welfare is a concept of veterinary
ethics and must be considered as an area of expertise
in its own right. It is therefore a priority to integrate
animal welfare as a core subject in any veterinary
syllabus.
As a result, the OIE Collaborating Centre in Teramo,
Italy, has been designated to conduct training and
capacity-building missions for Member Countries
requesting help in this field.
Lastly, research in this field must be stepped up
to provide the scientific basis for any legislative or
normative framework.
An international Working Group
To cover all aspects of animal welfare and especially
to deal with scientific issues, the OIE set up an
international Working Group on Animal Welfare in
2002. Its eight permanent members, representative
of the geographical and cultural diversity of the
organisation, gather veterinary experts selected on
the basis of their scientific excellence.
Representation is also drawn from the World Society
for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), a consortium
of non-governmental organisations and from the
agri-food industry and producers‘ associations. On
a rotational basis, one industry representative is a full
member and the other two participate as observers. In
2007, the International Dairy Federation (IDF) seated
as the member. In 2008 and 2009 membership
respectively falls to the International Federation of
Agricultural Producers (IFAP) and the International
Meat Secretariat (IMS).
«Addressing the issue of animal welfare
in agriculture is a major undertaking since
standards must take religious and cultural
diversity into account: slaughter for human
consumption may for example be ’halal‘ or
’kosher‘. Likewise, recommending a particular
type of animal housing may place some countries
in difficulty by necessitating additional costs
that they are unable to meet»: Prof. Hassan Aidaros,
member of the OIE Working Group on Animal Welfare
and Professor of Hygiene and Preventive Medicine at
the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Banha University,
Cairo, Egypt.
1
 Animal Welfare
Animal Welfare
Towards the application of animal welfare
standards throughout the world
The 2nd Global Conference on Animal Welfare
will be held in Cairo, Egypt, on October 20-
22 2008. The Conference is organised with
sheet
the support of the Egyptian government and
will give the OIE an opportunity to check on
the progress made by Veterinary Services of
Member Countries since 2004 to integrate
animal welfare standards into their actions.
http://www.oie.int/fr/fr_index.htm
Fact sheet
The 1st Global Conference
The Global Conference on Animal Welfare, organised
by the OIE and held in February 2004, helped to rally
the support of representatives of governments, private
Fact
sector stakeholders and NGOs on animal welfare
related issues and to determine the most effective
ways of working together.
The Conference acted as a trigger for the elaboration of
normative texts at the OIE as well as new legislation in
many Member Countries.
In 2005, the International Committee of the OIE adopted four
chapters, now included in the Terrestrial Animal Health Code.
Ex: Depopulation and animal welfare
Recent BSE, foot and mouth disease and avian
influenza sanitary crises filled our screens
with images of thousands of animals killed for
disease control purposes.
Depopulation is applied with the aim of
controlling the spread of infection to healthy
animals and in some cases to humans, but it
must be done in appropriate conditions.
Standards and guidelines adopted by the OIE
on the slaughter of animals, including birds,
recommend methods that cause neither pain
nor distress in animals.
A major step forward:
development of legislation in countries
where it was previously lacking
Following the Conference in Paris, several OIE Member
Countries developed or improved their animal welfare
legislation, in particular countries that are members of
the Regional Commissions for Africa and the Middle
East.
Work in progress
- Stray dog control
- Laboratory animals
World Organisation for Animal Health / www.oie.int / Contact: g.mamaghani@oie.int - 2008
OIE’s guiding principles in the field of animal
welfare
1) that there is a critical relationship between animal health and
animal welfare
2) that the internationally recognised ‘five freedoms’ (freedom from
hunger, thirst and malnutrition; freedom from fear and distress;
freedom from physical and thermal discomfort; freedom from pain,
injury and disease; and freedom to express normal patterns of
behaviour) provide valuable guidance in animal welfare
3) that the internationally recognised ‘Three Rs’ (reduction in numbers
of animals, refinement of experimental methods and replacement of
animals with non-animal techniques) provide valuable guidance for
the use of animals in science
4) that the scientific assessment of animal welfare involves
diverse elements which need to be considered together, and that
selecting and weighing these elements often involves value-based
assumptions which should be made as explicit as possible
5) that the use of animals in agriculture and science, and for
companionship, recreation and entertainment, makes a major
contribution to the well-being of people
6) that the use of animals carries with it an ethical responsibility
to ensure the welfare of such animals to the greatest extent
practicable
7) that improvements in farm animal welfare can often improve
productivity and food safety, and hence lead to economic benefits
8) that equivalent outcomes (performance criteria), rather than
identical systems (design criteria), be the basis for comparison of
animal welfare standards and guidelines.
Priorities
- Inclusion of animal welfare in veterinary education
- Terrestrial animal housing and production
In the OIE Code (2008)
Chapter 3.7.:
- Slaughter of animals for human consumption
- Killing of animals for disease control purposes
- Transport of animals by air
- Transport of animals by land
- Transport of animals by sea
Code: http://www.oie.int/eng/normes/mcode/en_sommaire.htm
2