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Naturalness and Animal Welfare.

James Yeates1

  • 1RSPCA Wilberforce Way, Southwater, Horsham, West Sussex RH13 9RS, UK. james.yeates@rspca.org.uk.

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Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This study defines "naturalness" in animal welfare, differentiating it from species-typical behavior and wellbeing. It proposes a quantitative method to assess animal naturalness, aiding ethical and practical decisions in animal care.

Keywords:
animal welfarenatural behaviournaturalnessspecies-specific behaviourwellbeing

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Area of Science:

  • Animal Welfare Science
  • Ethology
  • Applied Ethics

Background:

  • Naturalness is a key, yet ambiguous, criterion for animal welfare assessment.
  • Existing definitions lack scientific rigor and practical application for ethical considerations.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To define and operationalize the concept of naturalness for scientific and ethical evaluation of animal welfare.
  • To differentiate naturalness from related concepts like species-typical behavior and wellbeing.
  • To propose a quantitative framework for assessing animal naturalness.

Main Methods:

  • Conceptual analysis differentiating naturalness from species-typical behavior and wellbeing.
  • Identification of five contingent uses of naturalness in welfare assessment.
  • Development of a quantitative, reality-based approach to assess naturalness by degrees.
  • Proposal for comparing affected animal populations to unaffected wild populations.

Main Results:

  • Naturalness can serve as a prompt for welfare assessment, a hypothesis for wellbeing, an acceptability threshold, a constraint on unacceptable improvements, and a demarcation of non-wrongdoing due to lack of agency.
  • A quantitative method is proposed to evaluate animal behavior and assess naturalness.
  • Unaffected wild populations are proposed as the baseline definition of naturalness.

Conclusions:

  • A scientifically rigorous and practically applicable definition of naturalness is proposed.
  • The proposed approach allows for the scientific assessment of naturalness and informs practical decisions regarding domestic animal behavior.
  • This framework enhances the ethical evaluation of animal welfare by providing a clearer understanding of naturalness.