Recent public-opinion polls indicate that Americans have shown a decline in support for animal experimentation, and several reports suggest a relationship between people's knowledge of animal welfare regulations and their attitudes toward animal research. Therefore, this study was designed to assess respondent's knowledge of several provisions in the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) and Animal Welfare ...

Background Animal welfare research programs are seldom integrated into the mainstream activities carried out in schools of veterinary science. Our goal at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science (NVH) is to fully integrate our animal welfare research program with the training of veterinary students and with the regular activities carried out at the school. In my previous team we successfully...

Animal welfare is often cited as a classic public good, which implies market failure and, thus, that government intervention is required. However, the current literature does not provide an accessible account of how governed markets are supposed to cope with the issues of animal welfare. This paper seeks to fill this gap by re-considering the political economy of animal welfare. Conceptual anal...

The existence of unowned, free-roaming dogs capable of maintaining adequate body condition without direct human oversight has serious implications for disease control and animal welfare, including reducing effective vaccination coverage against rabies through limiting access for vaccination, and absolving humans from the responsibility of providing adequate care for a domesticated species. Mark...

Human beings with diminished decision-making capacities are usually thought to require greater protections from the potential harms of research than fully autonomous persons. Animal subjects of research receive lesser protections than any human beings regardless of decision-making capacity. Paradoxically, however, it is precisely animals' lack of some characteristic human capacities that is com...

This point reflects today’s holistic understanding of welfare as the state of the animal’s mind and body and the extent to which its nature is satisfied (3). If veterinarians are to do more for animal welfare, it is not enough for them to identify that herd productivity is down, that an animal is sick, or that the environment predisposes animals to illness. Even when an animal is healthy and th...

Whether animals, especially companion animals, count as friends depends on the conception of friendship as well as on the conception of animals. Some accounts of friendship can include (other than human) animals more easily than others. I present an argument in favour of characterising some animal-human connections as friendships, and address some of the standard objections to this characterisa...

Progress has been made towards eliminating Rowan's "statistical black hole" regarding pet populations and their dynamics, although deficiencies remain. The challenge in the coming decade will be to continue the progress, and generate meaningful epidemiologic data. Veterinary epidemiologists will continue to play an important role in the generation, dissemination and translation of results from ...

30 The assessment of animal welfare relates to investigations of how animals try to cope 31 with their environment, and how easy or how difficult it is for them to do so. The use of 32 rigorous scientific methods to assess this has grown over the past few decades, and so 33 our understanding of the needs of animals has improved during this time. Much of the 34 work in the field of animal welfar...