Study On The Development Of British Animal Welfare Opinions

The British farming began in almost the same way as those of other countries,from hunting activities to holding captive wild animals as conservation for food,finally to domesticating such captive animals into what we today defined as farm animals.It took considerably long time to do this.During the history of humanity,animals were always the major source of human food.There are adequate records about such human-animal relation.The Bible is surely the first record that described the human-animal relation,in which the human occupied the center of the world,but offered consideration,to some degree,to animals.Such idea has vastly influenced the opinions of British people on animals.In recent era,the debate on human-animal relation has been fueled partly by an assertion of Rene Decartes that animals are mere automata.Many British scholars,from the perspective of sentimentality,expressed positive views on such issue that both animals and humans are sentient beings.Such debate reflected the foundation of social inclination to be considerate on animals in Britain,which gradually evolved later into the ground for animal welfare development.An immediate consequence of such social inclination led to the emergence of first animal welfare legislation of the world-Martin's Act,which guided further amendment and establishment of other animal welfare legislation.In 1926,the UFAW(University Federation of Animal Welfare)was set up to use science,rather than the former sentimentality,as the key to solve animal welfare problems.Scientific approach contributed much to the development of animal welfare.During the 1960's,intensive farming system has greatly weakened the welfare of farm animals.Animal machine of Ruth Harrison comprehensively described the situation of such farming method and then aroused outrage in British society.Having known the facts of such cruelty on animals,the British public expressed great condemnation.As a reaction to public demand,the British government set up a committee,later known as "The Brambell Committee",to investigate the specific problems in intensive farming system.The investigation report,later known as "The Brambell Report",put forward renowned "5 freedoms",which has been guiding the scientific research on animal welfare till today.On the other hand,warned by the newly revealed facts about intensive farming method,it was realized that the existing legislation could not solve the new problems,which need to be addressed by either amending the existing laws or establishing new laws in which more scientific evidences can be found.Fortunately,the husbandry science,animal science,and veterinary science have all achieved great development,which made it possible that relevant scholars could integrate such fields into a more complex discipline—animal welfare science.The animal welfare science can provide scientific evidence for competent authorities to establish new laws and regulations protecting animal welfare.Nowadays,the animal welfare concept has been widely accepted by British society,of which the relevant NGOs,big retailers,and producers have been collaborating with each other,with more and more advanced ranges of animal welfare products emerging.The commercial competition has been stimulating the more advanced animal welfare standards adopted by the animal product supply chain,and such standards are always higher than those stipulated in legislation.The highest animal welfare standards originated from RSPCA,who has always been pioneering at the animal welfare endeavors in Britain.With more and more animal welfare standards being accepted by British public,the government are still working on amending the previous laws and stipulating new laws with the goal of solving emerging animal welfare problems.The British animal welfare laws are confronting some challenges,which,especially,primarily come from international organizations such as WTO and European Union,whose animal welfare standards,for accommodating majority of member states,are still far lower than what Britain has accomplished.The Britain has to consider such newly emerging challenges as the world has become more and more globalized.The British government,FAWC,and UFAW has established their prospective plans on animal welfare respectively.The UFAW advocates fundamental research on animal welfare and makes effort to promote the animal welfare development all around the world,whereas the FAWC,in higher level,integrates the research findings to form more complex conclusion and finally practical evidences so as to counsel the British government,which,then,acts as the final performer to legislate and make policy.After scrutinizing the development route of British animal welfare enterprise,it can be seen than the British have gone through a path from "care to anticruelty to legislation to science to social standards",which we can borrow experiences hen we make effort to improve our own animal welfare enterprise.Moreover,it should be noted that there is an extra obstacle in China that the scientific connotation of animal welfare is always ignored so that many people may misunderstand the concept of animal welfare by mixing it with animal ethics.Thus,it is essential that the scientific implication of animal welfare be popularized during the early stage of our animal welfare works.