Species justice and harm to animals - Environmental Harm: An Eco-justice Perspective - page 105

• deliberately or unreasonably causes the animal unnecessary pain
• fails to provide it appropriate and adequate, food, water, shelter, or
exercise
• fails to take reasonable steps to alleviate any pain sufered by the
animal
• abandons the animal
• neglects the animal so as to cause it pain
• releases the animal from captivity for the purpose of it then being
hunted or killed by another animal
• organises, participates in, or is present at an event at which the animal
is encouraged to fight with another animal
• having injured the animal, fails to take reasonable steps to alleviate
any pain suffered by the animal
• kills the animal in a manner that causes the animal unnecessary pain
• unless the animal is unconscious, kills the animal by a method that
does not cause death to occur as rapidly as possible.
Animal welfare laws aim to provide legal protection for animals in two
ways. General animal welfare laws - those relating to animal cruelty for
example - provide broad prohibitions against animal abuse and require
the humane treatment of animals. Specific animal welfare laws may also
be in place that requires the protection of animal interests in specific
'use' contexts, such as the use of animals in experiments or the slaughter
of animals for food (Francione, 2010; Francione and Charlton, 2010).
A key part of animal welfare is the prevention of animal suffering.
Animals are not simply construed as property (with which the owner
can do as they wish), but are deemed to be sentient creatures that, as
such, demand a certain 'duty of care' on the part of humans. Human use
thus should not reduce the status of animal to solely that of commodity.
Rather, there are obligations that flow from a conception of animals that
view them as having feelings that matter (Webster, 2010). Put simply,
the aim should be to give animals under human protection a sense of
wellbeing in life and a humane death, as part of positive welfare.
Animal welfare can be conceptualised as having three distinctive
dimensions (see Fraser, 2010):
• the afective state of animals: how animals feel, as relected in their
experiences of comfort and being free from prolonged or intense
pain or hunger
• the biological condition of animals: how animals function, as
reflected in their growth and reproduction, and being reasonably
free from disease and malnutrition