Articles tagged with 'Understanding animal welfare'

How do you feel today? As humans, our welfare at any point in time is affected by many different things, including our health (do you have a cold? do you have any aches or pains? ), our social life (are you lonely? ), work (is it stressful?

RSPCA Australia considers that the welfare of an animal includes both physical and mental states.

The Five Freedoms was the first widely accepted evidence-based framework to capture the key aspects of animal welfare in one model.

In 1994, Professor David Mellor and Dr Cam Reid proposed a new model to think about animal welfare and its assessment.

There are no national laws applying to animal welfare, but all states and territories regulate animal welfare in their jurisdiction. The legislation in each state and territory is shown in the table below.

Animal sentience is the capacity of an animal to experience different feelings such as suffering or pleasure. Negative feelings or emotions include pain, fear, boredom and frustration, whilst positive emotions include contentment and joy.

RSPCA Australia acknowledges that there is scientific consensus that climate change is caused by greenhouse gas emissions from human activities including electricity generation, agriculture (including livestock farming), industry, waste, and land use. Climate change can have a negative effect on animal health and welfare directly (e. g.