Animal welfare and animal rights - how to know the difference
I have been meaning to write this for a while, and today I saw it is almost to the day one year since I made this post, so I thought, why not.
There is hardly any greater misunderstanding in the public about animals than the misunderstanding about animal rights.
The public think animal rights activists may be a bit crazy sometimes, like when they dress up as animals on the street, or lay naked on the street with fake blood on them, but the general public perception seems to be that these are people with their heart in the right place who simply want to end animal suffering. Theyâre protesting against fur farms and the horrible conditions in factory farms, so let them be.
Animal welfare is a term the public may be less familiar with, or have not heard about at all. If they have heard it, they may think it is a synonym to animal rights.
This is where the huge misunderstanding comes in, because while animal rights and animal welfare (from here on, AR and AW) come from a common idea that we should stop abusing and torturing animals, the conclusions drawn in these two viewpoints are worlds apart.
In the shortest and simplest terms, AW wants bigger cages, while AR wants empty cages.
By the official definitions:
Animal welfare: ââŠdenotes the desire to prevent unnecessary animal suffering (that is, whilst not categorically opposed to the use of animals, wanting to ensure a good quality of life and humane death).â
Animal rights: "âŠdenotes the philosophical belief that animals should have rights, including the right to live their lives free of human intervention (and ultimate death at the hands of humans). Animal rightists are philosophically opposed to the use of animals by humans.â
âthe rights of animals to live free from human exploitation and abuse.â
There is the key word AR use. âExploitationâ. It is an extremely vague word on purpose, because it can be molded to fit any situation the ARA (animal rights activist) wants.
If you own a dog that is your spoiled little prince or princess that you take for walks every day, sacrifice huge deals of time and money to keep as happy and healthy as possible, and your dog is the happiest little animal in the world, to the AR mindset, your dog is still being exploited.
Your dog may live like a king, but he canât choose exactly when to go pee, you decide it for him. He canât decide exactly what to eat and when, you decide that. When you take him outside, you do it on the end of a leash, which to the AR mindset, is reminiscent of a slave owner with their slave. Ultimately, your dog never chose to live with you, and so he is being enslaved and exploited for your needs.
I take the common example of the dog as they are the âmost domesticatedâ animal we have, the most established and accepted animal in the modern world.
And even these animals, AR wants extinct. Not just because they think the happiest dog in the world is still nothing but a slave, but also because they think dogs, and all domestic animals in fact, are deformed perversions that should never have been created in the first place.
To be fair, there are also legitimate grievances to the AR mindset. They see, as we all do, millions upon millions of unwanted pets being abused, neglected, thrown into shelters where they live deprived or face an early death from a needle or gas chamber.
The only solution to this never-ending suffering, to the AR, is to end it all. Pull the plug. They believe that too many animals are suffering at the hands of humans, and only a dead animal will never suffer. So the natural conclusion is to kill them all humanely and turn their kind extinct, so no animal will ever again suffer at the hands of humans.
Then there is the slaughter industry (or the industry for meat, leather and fur).
One may silently ponder how a devoted ARA can one moment say that âvegan is the only solutionâ, because âthere is no such thing as humane slaughter, youâre killing a sentient being that wants to live, itâs like saying humane murder! Killing a being that wants to live is always wrong, period.â
And then in the next breath, when asked about pet animals, they say âIt is best for them to be humanely euthanized so they donât suffer. It doesnât hurt them, itâs just like going to sleep, except you never wake up.â
That was my example, but here is an actual source:
I was in Los Angeles for a speaking engagement when three PETA employees approached me. One employee explained to me that animals donât need to be suffering in order for him to be justified in killing them. He then explained that he has the right to round up and kill cats, even if they are not suffering, simply because he âbelievesâ they might suffer. In fact, he said that no matter the circumstances, killing is not unethicalâeven convenience killingâbecause it is just like being put under anesthesia for spay/neuter, with the only difference being that the animal never wakes up. [Link]
I have never heard anyone put an ARA to the wall about these extremely contradictory statements, and Iâve never had the opportunity to do so myself, but I would love to hear their explanation.
There is some consistency to this madness though, as they want to kill all dogs and other pets in order to end pets as one part of âanimal liberationâ. And they say we canât kill pigs, chickens and other industry animals⊠in order to end the industry, as another part of âanimal liberationâ. They are extremely hypocritical, but still consistent in their goal.
I guess youâre starting to see the hypocrisy of the AR. Killing is okay when they do it. All other forms of killing, not in the name of animal liberation, is murder. In their mind. [Link]
But itâs not just about killing.
Note the images I used in the beginning of the post. The left column is meant to display AW, while the right is to display AR.
The top images are Kevin Richardson in South Africa with a jaguar (he keeps and saves big cats, hyenas and other animals on vast landscapes in South Africa, and the AR sanctuaries hate his guts and say heâs âexploiting animalsâ, simply because he does not share their ideology), and a leopard at Tampaâs Big Cat Rescue, a well-known âscamtuaryâ that has said itâs better for cats like tigers to go extinct than be bred in zoos, that zoos are prisons that enslave animals, and that only they and similar scamtuaries should be allow to own these animals.
All while their animals live in an absolute dump and any zoo that looked anywhere near the state of BCR, would have been shut down a long time ago.
âItâs okay when we do it.â
The second row of photos shows a man hugging his circus elephants (close contact with elephants that are treated like kings, and loved literally like family members), and to the right, an elephant at âThe Elephant Sanctuaryâ in Tennessee. Note the mask of the person in the image. They need this because the scamtuary is infected with tuberculosis, which has already killed several of their elephants.
They donât believe in close contact, in training (which allows safe interactions for things like routine medical procedures and health checks), or in any kind of human-animal bond. The elephants live part-time in cramped, concrete cages, part time in freezing conditions outdoors, and they deny deaths, mutilation and disease occuring in their animals, all the while pretending to be the best facility in the country, believe they are the only ones who should be allowed to own elephants, and beg for money from an unsuspecting public (and only spend a tiny fraction of this money on the animals). [Link]
These are people who tink elephants should not be âexploitedâ, not live in âcaptivityâ, and certainly not in concrete and metal stables.
Again, âitâs okay when we do itâ.
The third row is more obvious. To AR, the right picture showing a pile of dead bodies, is preferable to the picture on the left, of a happy pet dog.
Animal welfare (AW) is not as hard to define and explain.
It says that we can use animals for our own ends, such as food (meat, dairy, eggs), clothing (fur, leather, fiber), health (research, service and support animals), and entertainment (circuses, zoos that are open to the public, and pets - yes, pets are for entertainment).
We can do it, but we have to do it ethically, and not cause the animals unnecessary suffering. You can kill an animal to feed your family, but you have to make sure it is killed swiftly and painlessly, and that its life until that point is free from fear, pain and suffering, and that it can exercise all of its natural behaviors, within reason.
(A bird needs to fly for example, but it does not need the entire sky. A pig needs to be able to dig, but it does not need to be in mud. A cat needs to be stimulated as the intelligent predator it is, but you donât need to let it hunt and kill other animals, in fact that would be anti-animal welfare for the prey animals.)
We also have âthe five freedoms of captivityâ, or as you could call it, the animalâs bill of rights. They were established in the late 1970s, and have been adopted by veterinarians, the World Health Organization, the RSPCA and ASPCA. They are, as follows:
Freedom from hunger or thirst by ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour
Freedom from discomfort by providing an appropriate environment including shelter and a comfortable resting area
Freedom from pain, injury or disease by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment
Freedom to express (most) normal behavior by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animalâs own kind
Freedom from fear and distress by ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering
Now I want to get on to why exactly Iâm making this post. I am writing it because I have seen many proponents of AW shy away from and be hostile towards any advances in animal welfare, because they see it as encroaching AR.
For example, dog owners and breeders with breeds that are intentionally bred to increasingly deformed and sickly dogs that canât live full lives, because of this intentional breeding.
This is usually referred to as the German word âqualzuchtâ, meaning âtorture breedingâ. This refers to (the following is my own definition, written now, and not a quote):
Breeding for direct deformity which limits the animalâs life in things such as running, washing itself, mating, giving birth, even breathing and eating.
Or,
Inbreeding which causes genetic illnesses to spread rapidly through a population and severely decreases the quality and length of life in the affected animals.
I have seen many breeders and owners propagating qualzucht reject any single effort made to enhance the welfare of these dogs (such as demanding vet checks on shows, banning excessive deformity, or altering breed standards). Even if you lay it out completely for them, what you want to do and why, and they understand that they are breeding sickly animals, some of them will blatantly refuse and call you âanimal rights nutjobsâ.
Some of these people simply donât care, and want to keep their precious hobby and are as ideologically blind as any ARA or fundamentalist religious person. But the people Iâm aiming at now are those that do care, but they are reluctant to allow change because they think any change means âARAs who donât want us to own pets whatsoeverâ. [Link]
Another time, I was googling this documentary about horses. It is a film made by a woman and horse owner who explores alternative ways of dealing with horses. She discovers great problems in the world of riding, such as the common practice of yanking, kicking and whipping horses into submission.
The dog world has arrived at a very âpositiveâ and âfriendlyâ training perspective. In my mind this sometimes goes too far, when you think saying the word ânoâ is setting boundaries is abusive, it has gone too far, but itâs great that we no longer beat or yell at dogs.
Meanwhile, even teenage girls and young women in the horse world still kick, whip and basically abuse their horses into submission, and think that is simply what you do.
What this woman discovers is that even with gentle and compassionate riding, a bit is still uncomfortable to the horse, and riding them still hurts their backs. She then reconsiders the whole way she deals with her own horses, including giving up riding altogether. Iâm not saying this is my argument, but that is the film.
I was curious to see what the horse worldâs reaction was to this film, so I googled it.
Some people, intrigued like me, brought it up on forums only to be attacked by some aggressive (it is the internet, after all) people who had not watched the film and did not want to, declaring it âanimal rights propagandaâ. âThey donât want us to own horses at all!â (Paraphrasing)
I felt like facepalming when I read that, because not only had these people not even stopped to watch the film, so they completely misunderstood the message, they were now another example of animal owners standing in the way of animal welfare for fear of animal rights.
A common problem with the general public and your average meat-eating pet owner, is that they donât understand the difference between AR and AW, they donât understand the true goal of AR, and so they happily give money to PeTA or HSUS, thinking they are doing great work for animals.
But this other problem, the reason Iâm writing this, is this other side of animal owners who know about the true goal of AR, are rightly opposed to it, but refuse to allow any advances in animal welfare and increasing the quality of life for animals, because they think it is AR coming to take their animals away.
I have seen this in pro-AW, anti-AR organizations as well (not going to name them), and it is very frustrating when they cheer on what to me are incredibly inhumane practices, simply because they have to oppose AR.
Their opposition and even hate of AR goals is being put before what should be their goals and putting animal welfare and ethics first.
This needs to change. The entire modern world, if they care about the topic of animals at all, should know the difference between these two mindsets, where they find themselves, and how to tell one from the other.
No one is completely black or white. Itâs all a grayscale, and Iâm not suggesting all ARAs believe exactly what was explained earlier in this post, but it is the goal of the ideology overall. And sometimes I find myself agreeing with even the most radical AR organizations. Thatâs when people (usually from the AW side, like SeaWorld and AZA) say âLetâs work together where we agree!â
I canât begin to tell you how dangerous that is.
Look, I agree with even some of the most controversial things PeTA says. Iâm not proud of saying that, I just happen to believe some of the same things. But their end goal is completely antithetical to my end goal.
I want animals to live, I want conservation programs in zoos to keep going to save species from extinction, and I want to live my life surrounded by animals. They want to destroy all of that.
Not just PeTA, but any AR organization like HSUS, Born Free Foundation, One Green Planet, Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, they all ultimately want to destroy that, in whole or in part (certainly they are all against zoos, the most important and least selfish of all forms of animal use).
Their perfect world is one where no human and animal ever touch or get near each other again, regardless of the pain, suffering or even extinction this causes the animals. They believe contact with humans is always bad, while suffering in nature is âjust nature, the circle of lifeâ.
My perfect world, and probably yours too, is one where humans and animals can live together as allies and friends, helping each other. Yes we eat them too, but we are capable of treating our prey animals far better than any non-human predator.
AW wants to eliminate suffering while still having animals.
AR wants to eliminate animal use, and if the animals suffer immensely in order to reach that goal⊠then so be it.
These two viewpoints start at the same place, but are ultimately opposed and cannot be reconciled. I would love to work together, but when the goal of the AR is to destroy the world of the AW⊠this is like the ducks letting the fox into the hen house, hoping or not realizing the fox will eat them too.
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