Exploding the Myths: Mammal Welfare, Handling and Teaching

EXPLODING 

 THE MYTHS

Mammal Welfare, 

 Handling & Teaching

Marthe Kiley-Worthington 

 Jake Rendle-Worthington

Dedication

To Oberlix, Nyasha, Zulu, Barnie, Kananga, Rosie and Shatteesh

-Our tutors and icons, living and dead.

Acknowledgements

The most important acknowledgement must be to all the various mammals we have lived and worked with during our lives: horses, elephants, cattle, buffalo, zebras, waterbuck, eland, dogs, cats (big and small), sheep, goats, camelids, rhino, other antelope and deer, rats, mice, other rodents as well as human visitors, researchers, students and teachers. In particular we would like to thank Imire Safari Park, the owners John and Judy Travers, for starting us out on this road, and Knysna Elephant Park, in particular Lisette Withers for her support and allowing us extended access to animals and situations to research improvements in welfare and animal teaching. Phillip Townsend is deeply thanked for his detailed reading and editing of the script, and we are very grateful to Christine Nicol and Mary Midgeley for critically reading parts of the text, Greg Vogt for his input, helping to circulate the ideas and facilitate the publishing of this booklet, Sarah Mason and Melanie Vogt for their thorough work with the layout, Rosie Brindley and Bridget Virgo for proof reading. The senior author’s colleague and partner, and the junior author’s father: Chris Rendle is deeply thanked for the years of support discussion and ideas, for helping us with our successes and to learn from our failures.

We, the authors are however, solely responsible for all the views and opinions of this book.

Copyright © 2012 by Dr. Marthe Kiley-Worthington.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

Orders@Xlibris.com

303391

Contents

Introduction

Section 1 

 Mammalian Welfare

CHAPTER 1 

 What is Animal Welfare? What is Animal Welfare Science?

CHAPTER 2 

 Stress and Distress-Measuring Animal Suffering

CHAPTER 3 

 The Ecological and Social Knowledge of Different Species and Individuals

CHAPTER 4 

 What is a Life of Quality? Freedoms and Behavioural Restraint

CHAPTER 5 

 Enriching the Environment for Animals

Section 2 

 Improving Teaching of Animals: Large Mammal Educational Psychology

CHAPTER 6 

 Types of Contact and Training Techniques Used With Animals

CHAPTER 7 

 The Difference Between Training, Teaching and Educating: Mutual Respect and Cooperative Teaching

CHAPTER 8 

 First Steps in Handling

CHAPTER 9 

 The Differences Between Instinctive and Learnt Behaviour-What is Intelligence?

CHAPTER 10 

 Learning-The Terms Used, Their Definitions and Examples

CHAPTER 11 

 The Different Types of Learning, and How They Work

CHAPTER 12 

 Rules for Good Cooperative Teaching

CHAPTER 13 

 The Animal Industry Worldwide-Why and How Animal Welfare and Teaching Can Be Improved

References

APPENDIX I

APPENDIX II

Introduction

Why is this book necessary? After all there are plenty of books on animal welfare, and also plenty on how to train animals… What does this book do that others do not? Let us begin by outlining 5 important reasons for this book:

1.   Mixing theory and practice

There is not another book written on Animal Welfare and Animal Educational Psychology (the science of animal training) by people who are philosophers as well as animal welfare scientists and have life times of practical experience teaching and looking after large mammals. The mixture of the theoretical and practical is central to avoid misunderstandings, to challenge others’ points of view, to mesh together critically assessed information and knowledge and crucially, to ensure that we seriously advance and improve our teaching of nonhuman mammals.

2.   Improvement of animal-human relationships

This book summarizes the arguments for and against the keeping and using of other mammals whilst making the arguments as simple as possible, without losing their impact. It is intended for those from every walk of life and educational level to enable them to think about the issues and make up their own minds by using rational arguments and understanding the complexity of the debates rather than arguing from strongly held opinions (which may be formed by motivations other than understanding the truth). Scientists as well as everyone else have dogmas and beliefs; they are all mammals. Since today scientists are often listened to by those who do not know a great deal about a subject, it is doubly important that they seriously understand the rationale of the arguments and take on board the subjective content of their own positions. However, it is equally important for students studying the environment or animals, animal welfare activists, owners, and those who work in any capacity with other mammals to begin to think deeply about these issues.

3.   The science of educating mammals: exploding the myths of training

The second half of the book addresses the new science of Animal Educational Psychology (improving animal handling and training). Many of the techniques and ideas are based on our research over the last 15 years, which has been developed from research on the teaching of young, gifted children.

Handling or training non-human mammals is no longer something that ‘one is born with’ or a ‘gift’, it is a science which anyone can learn to do well. This must involve benefiting both the animal subject and the human teacher, that is to say

‘educating’. There has been little written on how to improve or how to handle and teach animals based on a complete understanding of how learning works. The importance of emotions and innovations from both the teacher and the animal student must be recognised. We know that this is so to become a good teacher of children, but it has been believed that other mammals can learn to do voluntary actions in an automated way without needing a mind or intelligent thought.

4.   Fostering the enjoyment of working with animals

Over the last 12 years we have been teaching people (sometimes with little or no conventional educational background) how to better handle and teach other mammals, and how to think about these questions. During this time, we have become impressed by the untapped human abilities to address these difficult questions. The enthusiasm which can be aroused when a mutually good relationship is established between the human teacher and the animal pupil is a source of great mutual delight and an experience we would like all interested people to have and to learn from; we hope this book will help.

5.   Living cooperatively with other mammals

With the growing human population worldwide, and a general belief that human interests must trump those of either the environment or other sentient (feeling) beings, it is becoming vital to recognise that we humans have a moral obligation to our relatives of other species who also have minds, thoughts, desires and needs. They are not so different from us; we share the same nervous system, linking body with brain. If we know them well, we can learn different and new ways of living and problem solving from each other. It is therefore in our own interest to seriously debate the issues of how to live and learn from other large mammals. Beyond this, finding ways to cooperatively exist with other creatures vastly adds to the richness and experience of our own lives, and improves our tolerance of others’ points of view.

Marthe Kiley-Worthington and Jake Rendle-Worthington-London, November 2011

In order to clarify the text, we have used HE to refer to the animal in any interspecies encounter with humans, and SHE to refer to the human.

Section 1 

Mammalian Welfare

CHAPTER 1: What is Animal Welfare? What is Animal Welfare Science?

Animal welfare has been a concern since people first started to keep animals, which began (for animals other than dogs) when they started to grow crops. This major change in animal human relationships started in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East around 8,000 years ago. At that time, just like today, there were some people who were empathetic towards their animals, and believed that they were in some ways like them. Since the Middle Ages and the rise of religion in Europe, questions have been asked by philosophers concerning whether or not animals are like humans, and if so, do they suffer, do they feel? If they do, then they may have rights, and if so what are these?

Questions concerning what is right and wrong have been continually discussed by moral philosophers since the ancient Greeks. Recently there have been many who discuss what we should and should not do with animals and why⁶. Most people who keep animals do think about them and their needs in order to keep and train them, even if they believe them to be nothing more than living machines.

In the last half-century there has been an awakening of concern about ‘animal welfare’, that is, how we keep and treat animals, and whether we should or should not do what we do. This concern has given rise to ‘animal welfare activists’ who have strongly held beliefs on how non-human animals must be kept and treated. Many of these people have been influential and have often harnessed the arguments of some modern moral philosophers to back their causes. They have had, and continue to have, considerable political influence in changing the laws concerning animal welfare in many countries. They have consequentially had many beneficial effects in improving animal welfare and bringing it to the notice of the public. But are they always right? To look at this question, the multi-disciplinary field of ‘animal welfare science’ was born in the middle of the last century.

Almost all people who have written about animal welfare have not outlined carefully what type of animal they are considering. Animals include not only primates, birds, whales and dolphins, horses and dogs but also tadpoles, crayfish, sea urchins and insects, among many other types. So does it make sense to make grand generalisations about ANIMALS in this way? How insects feel about the world, if they feel about it at all, is probably very different from how you, an elephant or a hyena does, so perhaps it is not helpful to place Humans in one category and Animals in another. For this reason, this book considers only Mammals. Since we humans are also mammals, we have much in common and therefore it is a good starting place for trying to understand other mammals’ welfare.

This chapter outlines the history of animal welfare science and summarises the arguments that are used by those interested in animal welfare. Many arguments for or against what we do with non-human mammals have not always been very well thought through so here we give the counter arguments in order to help towards a better understanding. Finally, in order to make appropriate judgements about another mammal’s welfare, we must be able to understand the subjective world in which another lives.

1.   A short history of animal welfare science

1.1   Concern about physical suffering

‘Black Beauty’ by Anna Sewell is a novel about the life of horses in London, published in 1877 when horses were used for transport. It became a best seller and a benchmark book for animal welfare. Its effect was to alert the public to the cruelties that horses were suffering in 19th century London. The result was questions in parliament and the introduction of new animal welfare laws in Britain towards the end of the 19th century. These laws outlined ways of assessing physical cruelty, such as evidence of beatings, neglect and malnutrition. These became the concern of veterinarians, whose responsibility is primarily to reduce physical suffering.

The next benchmark, when Ruth Harrison’s 1964 book ‘Animal Machines’ which described in horrifying detail the way animals were being treated in intensive farms. This again resulted in many questions in parliament. Generally, intensively farmed animals were not physically abused, starved or neglected, but people became concerned because they recognized that all mammals and birds have feelings, emotions, desires and needs, and should not be treated like robots or machines.

1.2   The concept of psychological suffering

It was generally known how to assess physical suffering, but the important question that now had to be addressed was: how can psychological cruelty be measured? The result was the beginning of animal welfare science-the scientific study of animal welfare. The British government directed research money to finding out about behavioural problems in intensive husbandry systems, and how to measure psychological suffering. The first modern review of animal welfare problems was published by the British government in 1965¹. This was followed by

a review of the major behavioural problems found in farm animals and horses which suggested ways of measuring psychological suffering or ‘distress’²

1.2.1   The 5 Freedoms

To prevent the psychological suffering of animals, it became evident that it was necessary to outline what was important to different species. This gave rise to the idea of the ‘5 freedoms’ (reworked by UK Farm Animal Welfare Council, 1992). The 5 freedoms based on similar judgements to those made for human welfare are:

1.   Freedom from hunger and thirst

2.   Freedom from discomfort

3.   Freedom from pain, injury and disease

4.   Freedom from fear and distress

5.   Freedom to express normal patterns of behaviour

But these are too vague. How can these ‘freedoms’ be measured for a particular species in a particular environment? Thus, although widely quoted, the ‘5 freedoms’ approach has been of little value in helping scientists make rational judgements concerning individual animal welfare.

1.2.2   ‘Coping’ with the environment

Another approach was then suggested. This was to assess whether the animal could ‘cope with’ (that is ‘adapt to’) the environment³: when an animal is unable to ‘cope’ with the environment, it will show distress. By this time there had been some progress made in the measurement of ‘distress’⁴. However, animals often became able to ‘cope’ with the environment by adopting abnormal behaviours, for example by increasing sleeping time or performing abnormal activities such as stereotypies, repetitive behaviours that appear to perform no function. ‘Coping’ therefore proved to be an inadequate measure.

1.2.3   Meeting the animal’s needs

Another judgement on the animal’s psychological suffering could be made by assessing whether or not his needs were being met. Efforts were then made to outline exactly what different species’ needs might be, and research projects were undertaken with cattle, horses and pigs ⁵.

1.3   Quality of Life

Because of their concern with what is right and what is wrong, it is mainly philosophers who have encouraged serious thinking about animal welfare issues. The first modern book on Animal Welfare was Peter Singer’s ‘Animal Liberation’ (1976) which became a best seller. It sparked off the first group of animal liberation activists committed to banning what they believed to be cruel practices. Singer’s book was followed by other benchmark books on the animal welfare issue⁶.

It is often veterinarians who are asked and who make the practical decisions about animal welfare as they swear the Hippocratic oath (similar to doctors) in which they promise to reduce animal suffering. But until the 1960s they were concerned only with physical suffering (pain), because at the time it was believed by most scientists that animals did not have minds and therefore could not suffer psychologically. Even today some still believe this, although contact with animal welfare scientists has had influence on their thinking and training.

Today, as a result of many scientists’ and philosophers’ research, we have ways in which we can measure an animal’s mental or physical suffering. We can identify when the environment is inadequate or wrong for an animal, and we also have some idea on the different species’ needs (see Chapter 5). The emphasis in the development of animal welfare science has changed from measuring when we have it wrong, towards measuring the degree to which we may have it right for that animal-that is, assessing whether the animal has a life of quality.

The animal welfare scientist’s job is to accumulate evidence to determine whether the various views held by philosophers, and some of the general public, are rational ones from what we know about the animals concerned. But remember that the scientist is human and will also have views, so his results will never be completely objective. What animal welfare science has concentrated on is observational and experimental evidence to help make practical rational judgements concerning the welfare of animals in all types of environments. One of the results is that ethologists, experimental psychologists, zoologists and animal keepers have shown that mammals have social, emotional and cognitive needs as well as physical ones. If mammals are to have a life of quality as well as one free of suffering, then it is necessary to fulfil most of these needs.

Farm animals have been the focus for much of animal welfare science research because of the enormous changes in their environments from the wild or free range to intensive factory farming. However, the lives and living conditions of laboratory animals, pets, animals kept for companions or human therapy, working animals, animals used in films and captive wild animals in zoos, safari parks and circuses have also been scrutinized by animal welfare scientists and animal welfare activists.

The most common approach taken by activist groups is to work politically, using selective scientific evidence to try to prevent animals being used in certain ways, sometimes with serious justification, sometimes without. Some activists are committed to banning the use of all animals, some to the banning of some uses of animals, some to banning animals in all captive environments. But what is almost universal is that a distinction is made between the way domestic animals can be treated and the way captive wild animals should be treated (e.g. ‘Zoo Check’, ‘Born Free’ and many other organisations). This distinction, has become a general belief, but is backed up by little, if any, serious scientific evidence, and is not in line with current ideas on evolution. The arguments on both sides concerned are set out in 2.1 below.

2.   Arguments against keeping animals in a captive environment, and responses to these arguments

2.1 Argument: "Domestic and wild animals are

genetically different"

Animal rights activists and some scientists argue that, because this is so, it is acceptable to treat ‘domestic’ animals differently from ‘wild’ animals. Many people believe that there is a great genetic difference between the needs, both physical and psychological, of wild and domestic animals. Consequently, it is believed that some environments will not cause suffering to domestic animals, but will cause terrible suffering to those animals that are ‘traditionally wild’ whether or not the wild animals were born and raised in captivity.

2.1 Response

The above view is widely held by many scientists as well as animal welfare activists. It needs very careful examination. It implies that whether the animal is traditionally wild or domestic is far more important to that animal than its lifetime experiences. Those who hold this belief consider that an animal’s lifetime experience is merely an overlay, and not of central importance to that animal.

But for another mammal: humans, it is recognized that it is lifetime experience that is more important than genetic difference such as those related to race. As a result, distinction made between people on grounds of race (that is genetic difference) is generally unacceptable.

However, it is acceptable to make distinctions between ‘races’ that is different breeds, of other mammals.

It is assumed that Rottweiler dogs will be aggressive, rather than an examination made of whether or not they have been taught to be aggressive by their owners!

There are, of course, differences between species of mammals in their needs and desires, but these must be very carefully considered before different husbandry and treatment is accepted. The first question is whether the difference in the way they can be treated is because of their genuine species differences, or because it is a ‘ belief of convenience’. By ‘ belief of convenience’ we mean a culturally acceptable distinction made