Sonia Shah in The New Yorker (2023) on Free-Range Lab Mice

 Sonia Shah, “The Case for Free-Range Lab Mice,” The New Yorker, February 18, 2023.

• The subtitle is "A growing body of research suggests that the unnatural lives of laboratory animals can undermine science." [In an unwise attempt to appear more particular than The New Yorker, let me mention that I usually balk at the phrase "a growing body of research," for multiple reasons that will remain undisclosed for the time being.]

• This excellent piece of journalism opens with a tale of a 2006 false negative, where an experimental drug that was safe at high doses for rodents and monkeys proved life-threatening at much lower doses for humans.

• For new drugs, the FDA requires tests on (two species of) anymals prior to human trials. Most of the drugs that pass the animal tests fail for humans with respect to efficacy, while some prove toxic to humans.

• Most (some 88%), it seems, of the drug tests conducted on anymals cannot be replicated successfully; that is, it is not just psychology and behavioral economics that is facing a replication crisis.

• Lab experiments around the globe are undertaken on some 120 million rats and mice annually.

• More on replicability: the same animal experiment conducted in multiple labs can have different results. The results can differ based on the specific diet of the lab animals, their housing conditions, smells, the gender of researchers, … and just about anything else.

• For decades there have been efforts to produce genetically standardized animals, to ensure research results come with reduced noise from individual animal idiosyncrasies. This effort has not led to the expected research improvements: there is higher variance in drug effects with near-identical mice than with a broader mix. Further, there is lots of variance even among “identical” mice with respect to their basic physiology.

• The standard lab housing of rodents makes them sick, pessimistic, sleepy… "Imagine a study in which subjects are chronically cold, sleep-deprived, inbred, and held captive in cramped conditions. If the subjects were human, the scientific establishment would dismiss such a study as not only unethical but also irrelevant to normal human biology. Yet, if the subjects were non-human, the study could be treated as perfectly valid."

• Since humans are "free-range," it might be that the best animal models also are free-range -- and this thought has led to some researchers now testing lab mice that have been released in the wild, and comparing the results with their unfree brethren.

LaFollette (2011) on Animal Experimentation

 Hugh LaFollette, “Animal Experimentation in Biomedical Research.” Chapter 29, pages 796-825, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, Tom L. Beauchamp and R. G. Frey, editors, Oxford University Press, 2011. 

• The Common View: animals matter, but we (humans) can use them for our purposes when the benefit to us is significant.

• Lenient Views (animals barely matter) and Demanding Views (animals matter a lot) also exist – and for these, the potential benefits to humans are essentially irrelevant: the Lenient view allows animal exploitation for trivial human benefits, and the Demanding View forbids animal experimentation even for large human benefits.

• The Historical View was an extreme form of the Lenient View, one in which animals were essentially things, like rocks.

• Almost everyone now believes that it is wrong to cause an animal unnecessary pain, and that animal lives are valuable to them.

• For many people, these various starting points lead to a consideration of balancing costs imposed on animals with benefits to humans -- but some animal advocates suggest that such a balancing is unethical.

• The Argument Supporting Experimenting on Animals: (1) the research works, we can generalize from the anymals to humans; (2) animal experiments have been essential historically for medical advances; and (3) scientific methodology (controlled experiments and the need for “intact systems,” not just a hunk of cells) bolsters claims (1) and (2).

• There's an information bias: we hear about the seeming successes but not about the failures, the blind alleys we have been led down by inappropriate animal models.

• The similarity problem is the question of whether the animals condition is sufficiently like the human condition being examined. Given similarity, the inference problem is whether we can draw reliable conclusions about humans from the animal experiments. [These problems to some extent parallel internal and external validity concerns.] Much animal experimentation fails similarity or inference.

• When animal experimentation is presented as a choice something like choosing between the life or your baby and the life of your dog, the dog will not win. But the actual choice we are faced with is not between your baby and your dog – it is the institution of animal experimentation that is in the balance. 

• The harm we do to animals in experiments is present and real; the claimed benefits are down the road and uncertain. Maybe researchers have special obligations to those future humans down the road – but they also have special obligations to the captive animals in their labs.

• Would we use the “balancing test” in considering whether to experiment on nonconsenting humans? Isn’t this inconsistency a devastating counter to the “pro” case for animal experimentation?

• Speaking of inconsistency, there is the basic one of needing anymals to be similar to humans to scientifically justify experimenting on anymals, but not similar to humans to morally justify experimenting on anymals. [Peter Singer, for one, noted this paradox in 1973.]

• The fact that animal experiments might have value to humans is not in itself dispositive. More telling is the question of whether those benefits are procurable in ways that do not involve animal experiments.

Contreras and Rollin (2021) on the Disregard of Lab Rats

Elena T. Contreras and Bernard E. Rollin, “The Convenient Disregard for the Rattus Species in the Laboratory Environment: Implications for Animal Welfare and Science.” Journal of Animal Ethics 11(2): 12-30, Fall 2021.

• In nature, “rats live in colonies. They are very social and playful animals....[p. 13].” 

• Rats roam a bit, over blocks and neighborhoods; they forage and dig and burrow and climb and, frequently, stand up!

• Rats display a wide variety of emotions.

• Rodents dominate the US animal research industry, with tens of millions used for research annually.

• Rats bred for research are excluded from the Animal Welfare Act, nor are they counted in official laboratory animal stats.

• If we conditionally “accept” that rats will be used for research, we still want to know about (and control) the conditions under which they are kept. Their current living space typically is in a “shoebox” container, often with one or two rats, and is, of course, completely inconsistent with their natural range and sociability.

• The conditions under which lab rats are generally kept is bad for their wellbeing and bad for the validity of the experiments they are subjected to. “One might wonder how the rats feel about living in small rat boxes for eternity [p. 16].” The trend toward “enriched” environments provides little improvement for the living conditions of lab rats.

• “Satisfaction of telos leads to happiness” while “impediment of telos leads to unhappiness [p. 16].” (Five Freedoms and Five Domains (nutrition, environment, health, behavior and mental state) are indices of telos.) In research labs, “rats live in a constant state of deprivation of their telos and positive experiences [p. 18].”

• Just moving rats around, along with other types of handling, leads to stress and fear. Lighting and daytime experimentation are other sources of discomfort.

• The barren environment of lab rats does not reduce variance in behavior, it doesn’t make them more comparable or useful to science: Replacement, Refinement, Reduction – better lab rat welfare is also better science.

Maple and Perdue (2022), "Zoos and Aquaria"

 Terry L. Maple and Bonnie M. Perdue, “Zoos and Aquaria.” Chapter 15, pages 190-202, in Routledge Handbook of Animal Welfare, Andrew Knight, Clive Phillips, and Paula Sparks, editors, Routledge, 2022.

• This article offers quite a contrast to Randy Malalmud's "The Problem with Zoos."

• "Elite modern zoos provide innovative operating standards and best practices for achieving animal welfare [p. 190]"; furthermore, “many zoo animals are indeed thriving [p. 190].”

• “Normal social development requires mother-rearing, peer experience, and sufficient space to comfortably socialise with others [p. 190].” [The authors argue that we know how to provide such normal development in zoos, even if we often fail to. But modern animal agriculture (not covered by Maple and Perdue) is incompatible with "normal social development."]

• New (large) zoos are not common, but new aquaria are, and they often adopt an amusement park model, where dolphins, orcas, and whales do not fare well.

• The authors provide brief summaries of contributions by earlier animal behavior researchers, including Harry Harlow (he of the social deprivation experiments). "While Harlow was vilified by animal rights groups for his cruel experiments, his findings greatly benefitted zoo primates as he identified the variables that controlled socialisation [p. 193]." [One might wonder how a similar statement directed at cruel experiments on humans would be received.]

• The authors identify zoo landscape immersion at Seattle's Woodland Park and the "species-appropriate social group [p. 194]" for gorillas at Zoo Atlanta as important institutional developments for promoting animal thriving.  

• Zoo animal wellness is about thriving, not just coping. Scientists and zoos should work together to achieve optimal wellness.

• Zoo hippos, except at Disney(!), tend to have poor wellness (due to lack on riverine habitats); snakes don’t get enough room in zoos.

• 24/7 outdoor access can add to wellness; vertical space can perform a similar function for apes.

• Capture as well as confinement are very costly for whales and dolphins; the treatment of bears for harvesting bile is vile.

• Animal training can promote wellness; so can computers [compare with the iPad commentary in Malamud (2017)].

• Maple and Perdue are keen on zoo accreditation (from the best accrediting organizations) for assuring compliance with high animal welfare standards.

Malamud (2017) on Zoos

 Randy Malamud, “The Problem with Zoos.” Chapter 21, pages 397-410, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Studies, Linda Kalof, editor, 2017.

• Professor Malamud opens this chapter with a zoo dialectic, a description of a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

• Thesis: Zoos offer rescue and conservation and build connections between humans and anymals – connections that lead to better outcomes for our planet.

• Antithesis: “Zoos and aquariums are prisons for kidnapped, alienated, tortured specimens who are forced to live their lives in vastly unsuitable compounds for the titillation of ignorant crowds brought in by marketing and advertising campaigns that promise highbrow ecological experiences but actually pander to audiences’ less noble cravings for amusement parks, or even freakshows [p. 397].”

• Synthesis: A happy medium?

• Malamud's chapter offers a full-throated defense of the Antithesis: "[A]ll zoos are bad zoos [p. 398]."

• Zoos reinforce speciesism, especially the notion that humans have the power (and are entitled) to control.

• Capitalism and ecology are inconsistent, despite the efforts of zoos to greenwash.

• The zoo spectators are free, the animals are captive, in an unnatural environment, forever: “the animals don’t want to be there [p. 401]…”

• "...And the people don't care."

• Modern public zoos have their origins in imperialism: witness Stamford Raffles. Sometimes humans were exhibited, too.

• “zookeepers will tell you that zoos were bad in the bad old days but are lately much improved [p. 403].” Malamud believes that zoos have been and remain bad.

• The true conservation mission of zoos is self-conservation (p.403).

• "Every species suffers its own particular pain in zoos [p. 405]."

• Gimmickry like having orangutans play with iPads is anthropocentric, sending to humans the coded message that the zoo dwellers are better off than their wild cousins. "If we like to waste our own days playing with iPads, we reason, why wouldn’t they [p. 407]?" By “giving” zoo animals stuff, we try to justify their captivity.

• We frame zoo animals in our terms, not theirs; “we have to learn to leave these animals alone [p. 407]."

• “Zoos, unfortunately, perpetuate misinformation [p. 407]...”

Norwood (2020) on Intensive Animal Agriculture

 F. Bailey Norwood, “The Economics of Intensive Animal Agriculture,” Chapter 10, pages 127-140, in The Routledge Handbook of Animal Ethics, Bob Fisher, editor, Routledge, 2020.

• Farms used to produce “a variety of foods [p. 127]” – it was economical, by spreading risk and combatting disease and maintaining soil quality. Crop rotation was one manifestation of this intra-farm diversification.

• Tech change (pesticides, feed…) undermined the economic advantage of farm diversification. 

• Farms also have become more intensified, with more product for a given area. Farm animals, many of whom used to need to graze outside to acquire a nutritious diet, can now be housed indoors all year long, receiving adequate nutrition thanks to advances in livestock feed.

• Again, the result of decades of technical change is specialization and intensification – and often, indoor-ization for both the animals and farm workers.

• Barns have changed, too – cages or slatted floors allow manure to be removed – and antibiotics can be added to feed; both of these measures reduce problems associated with parasites.

• Economies of scale emerge in the specialized farms, resulting in intense crowding for the animals – witness gestation crates.

• The old-style, extensive and diverse farms, became economically obsolete, and the new specialized farms often compromised animal welfare.

• The indoor work altered life for farmers, too, who became more like factory workers. Farmers often became contract employees, with processors owning the animals and providing inputs such as feed. The processors need uniformity in the “product,” and farmers have very limited choice among potential buyers.

• Consumers generally object to the conditions on factory farms (p. 130).

• Ameliorating the worst features of factory farms raises the costs of production, though not drastically – but retail prices for higher-animal-welfare products can easily double or triple. Why? Because currently, higher-welfare animal products are “a niche market serving affluent customers [p. 132].”

• Though most people don’t pay the premium for higher-animal-welfare products, those same people often want to ban slaughterhouses, a policy which would eliminate their ability to purchase meat. (Or do they just say they want to ban slaughterhouses, falling prey to “social desirability bias [p. 133]”?)

• As the behavioral economists note, virtually everything can affect individual “preferences” for animal products: are you in a grocery store or a voting booth (p. 133)?

• With inconsistent individual preferences (and internal conflicts), there is no way to unambiguously determine the costs and benefits of a policy change. Consumers simultaneously support (with their purchases) and protest factory farming.

• Some people want to remain ignorant about animal farm conditions.

• California’s Prop 2, in 2008, passed with 63.5% of the vote, required more space for hens, and (with an additional law that applied the more space rules to eggs produced out of state but sold in California) raised egg prices (in 2016) by some 10%. 

• A person who doesn’t purchase cage-free eggs might still vote for a ban on cages – maybe the ban serves as a commitment device for sophisticated, inconsistent consumers?

• "The cost of paying more for cage-free eggs is about the same regardless of whether it is voluntary or forced [by a ban on sales of caged eggs], but the benefits of it being forced can seem much larger because so many others are doing it also [p. 136]." 

• Referenda like Prop 2 [or now Prop 12] might permit consumers to coordinate in a way that they cannot easily achieve with their market purchases – even vegans, who don't purchase any eggs, can vote in the referenda!

Meyer, Forkman, Fredholm, et al. (2022), on Pet Dog Welfare

Iben Meyer, Bjorn Forkman, Merete Fredholm, Carmen Glanville, Bernt Guldbrandtsen, Eliza Ruiz Izaguirre, Clare Palmer, Peter Sandøe, “Pampered Pets or Poor Bastards? The Welfare of Dogs Kept as Companion Animals.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 251: 105640, June 2022. 

• In the past, human interactions with dogs were primarily with free-roaming "village" dogs. This article employs the lives of modern village dogs as a standard against which to consider the welfare of companion dogs.

• Village dogs tend to have a high pup mortality rate and a relatively low life expectancy of 3-to-4 years. (Companion dogs live, on average for more than 10 years (page 5).) Nevertheless, village dogs are rather healthy and well-adapted to village life. 

• Pet owners generally control the amount and nature of social activities for their dogs. 

• Pet dogs often are considered to be family members. They typically receive shelter, adequate food, and health care.

• Pet dogs often suffer from separation anxiety, and also often spend considerable time alone. (The pandemic tended to reduce or eliminate alone-time, and the end of the pandemic introduced separation for dogs with little or no prior experience of it.)

• Pet dogs are expected to behave well when socializing with other dogs, though the owners generally decide the (limited) extent and nature of socialization; crucially, unlike village dogs, sometimes exiting the situation is not an available strategy for a pet dog. Aggression towards other dogs seems to appear more frequently with pet dogs than with village dogs. This dog-on-dog can lead to dogs being put down, so it is a serious welfare issue for pet dogs (page 3).

• Pet owners often expect an unrealistically high tolerance from their dogs for some forms of social interactions, such as hugging; further, owners might not notice signs that their dog is perturbed by the interaction, and aggression might be the eventual result.

• "Ultimately, few dogs embody the ‘ideal’ companion dog that can both tolerate social isolation for many hours a day and meet the high expectations of social interaction with the family and unfamiliar dogs [p. 3]." Again, the result can be the sundering of the pet relationship, and possibly the death of the dog. Better informed owners with more appropriate expectations could help reduce this problem. 

• Modern dog breeding only dates to the Victorian era. Breeding has brought some serious welfare issues. Canine physical characteristics popular with humans, such as flat faces and skin folds, can be detrimental to the health of dogs.

• Limited gene pools (inbreeding) can also lead to welfare problems, so ensuring a wide gene pool (for example, by not having just a handful of male dogs as sires) can help dogs. 

Bok (2011), "Keeping Pets"

Hilary Bok, “Keeping Pets.” Chapter 26, pages 769-795, in The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics, Tom L. Beauchamp and R. G. Frey, editors, Oxford University Press, 2011.

• Pets have interests that should be taken into consideration.

• Pets live in environments that are not designed for them, and pets are dependent on their human partners.

• When a human elects to sever a relationship with a pet, it often implies imprisonment or death for the pet -- this is not the case for intra-human sunderings.

• We cannot explain to our pets why we need them to follow certain rules, nor come to an explicit understanding about allowable behavior; again, these limitations do not similarly mark intra-human relationships. 

• "...we are responsible for ensuring that our pets do not pose a danger to other humans. This is a duty we owe not just to those humans but to our pets, since nonhuman animals who attack humans are normally killed [p. 772]."

• Unlike wild animals, dogs are trainable and care about how we feel about them. Dogs can control their behavior, and are sufficiently reliable that we might let them interact with small children. (Chimpanzees are not so reliable.) But the lack of a common language still puts a limit on the extent of agreed-upon reciprocity we can expect with dogs.

• Bok does not think that pet ownership is ethically wrong, even given the property status of pets. Current legal structures do not require that we treat our pets in a morally questionable manner (p. 776) -- though those structures might grant rights to humans that they should not have. 

• "...if someone who wants to take a dog into her home allows the law to describe her as 'owning' that dog, but does not allow this fact either to affect her treatment of her dog or to perpetuate that legal system, and if the alternative is allowing domestic dogs to die out altogether, it is hard to see how her action harms her pet in any way [p. 777]."

• The decision to acquire a pet is rather high-stakes and requires careful consideration: "To adopt an animal as a pet is to undertake to meet her needs, and to accept the responsibility of ensuring that one's relationship with her is good for all concerned [p. 778]." Again, wild animals do not make suitable pets, and when they nevertheless are adopted, they often end up in cages.

• Pet dogs have to be taught, though this teaching need not involve the exercise of power. "The most basic function of training is to enable us to tell dogs not to do something when it is very important that they not do it, to teach them to avoid behavior that is dangerous to themselves or to others, and to teach them how to function in human society [p. 783]."

• Sometimes dog training does require the exercise (but not abuse) of power. It is an unkindness to your dog not to make sure that it can live a "safe and decent life [p. 783]."

• Pet dogs that remain vicious and pose a danger to humans need to be put down -- our efforts to otherwise shield humans from our dog will prove insufficient. The issue is whether the dog is put down before or after it attacks someone (p. 785). 

• Despite emphasizing the occasional need for pet owners to make difficult decisions, Bok's article ends on an upbeat note: "For the most part, owning pets involves not serious moral dilemmas but minor inconveniences set against a background of wonder, delight, and the joy of opening our hearts to animals who are so willing to open theirs to us [p. 791]."

Hessler, Jenkins, and Levenda (2017) on the Wild-Caught Fishing Industry

Kathy Hessler, Becky Jenkins, and Kelly Levenda, “Cruelty to Human and Nonhuman Animals in the Wild-Caught Fishing Industry.” Sustainable Development Law & Policy 8(1): 30-38 and 56-63, Fall 2017.

• Something like 1 to 3 trillion fish are caught each year for human consumption (fishcount.org.uk).

• The wild-caught fishing industry encompasses the catching of finfish; crustaceans (including shrimp); mollusks (snails, clams, etc.); cephalopods (octopuses, etc.); and cetaceans (whales, dolphins, etc.).

• Some wild-caught fish are consumed by humans, but much is consumed by livestock and pets, too; most fishmeal and fish oil is now used for aquafeed.

• Common fishing methods include trawling (dragging a net); purse seining; gillnetting; tangle and trammel netting; rod & line, trolling; pole & line, longline (often with bait fish). [Each of these fishing methods has its own set of welfare concerns, but all of the methods seem quite horrid to me, alas.]

• Underappreciated(?) welfare issues with capture include: by-catch; exhaustion and high mortality of captured fish pre-slaughter; decompression; crushing; predators; hooks; and ghostfishing. 

• The slaughter of wild-caught fish is often gruesome: it can be long and painful, with death typically due to suffocation or live gutting. Fish are not given protection via the US Humane Slaughter Act.

• The authors offer some suggestions (pages 32-34) for improving the welfare of wild-caught fish. Among the suggested measures are: a ban on the use of live bait; limiting the duration of suffering by emptying nets and lines more frequently; banning j-shaped hooks and gillnets; permitting only near-surface-level fishing; banning gaffing and shortening the landing stage; and, rendering fish unconscious prior to slaughter.

• Towards the end of the article (pages 34-37) the authors move away from fish welfare to concentrate on the welfare of the humans who work in the wild-caught fishing industry. Commercial fishing is dangerous and often deadly, and abuses are hard to monitor on the high seas; it also is hard to provide emergency medical care in remote areas at sea.

• Forced labor seems to be commonplace in the global fishing industry. Migrant workers in fishing, who face barriers in seeking justice for violations of their rights, are sometimes exploited. 

• Seafood importers, and not just exporters, need to address production and labor issues (page 35).

Saraiva, Arechavala-Lopez, and Sneddon (2022) on Fish Farming

Joao L. Saraiva, Pablo Arechavala-Lopez, and Lynne U. Sneddon, “Farming Fish.” Chapter 10, pages 115-127, in Routledge Handbook of Animal Welfare, Andrew Knight, Clive Phillips, and Paula Sparks, editors, Routledge, 2022.

• First, a little background, drawing from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: aquaculture provides more than half of the seafood humans consume globally. Further, “The United States produced $1.5 billion worth of aquaculture seafood in 2018. The top U.S. marine aquaculture species were oysters ($219 million), clams ($122 million), and Atlantic salmon ($66 million).” About 75% of US seafood is imported, and about half of that is from aquaculture. In the US, aquaculture production by value is (only) about 20% of the overall seafood output. 

• "an estimated 51 to 167 billion farmed fishes were slaughtered for food globally in 2017 [p. 115]"; note that the number of land farm animals killed each year is on the order of 73 million. So farmed fish are multitudinous, and fish are sentient; nonetheless, little attention is focused on the welfare of farmed fish.  

• The technologies of fish farming vary considerably, and each method comes with its own welfare challenges. A traditional “land-based” form of fish farming involves the use of flooded rice paddies -- this method tends to not be particularly intensive. Other land-based options include the use of natural or artificial ponds, and higher technology versions such as flow-through tanks and raceways, sometimes with water recirculation.

• Water-based systems involve floating pens and cages but also confinement areas that must have water pumped in. 

• A few species of finfish (Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout, etc.) dominate aquaculture, along with shellfish.

• As with land animal farming, broodstocks are a key element of aquaculture. Some facilities use hatcheries and nurseries (land-based, closely controlled), and then the fish are moved to on-growing environments.

• Once again in parallel with land-based intensive animal farming, there are common welfare challenges for farmed fish. These challenges often are connected to high density and spatial restrictions. 

• Standard fish behaviors concerning reproduction, cognition, and emotions (fish have them!)  are generally compromised in aquaculture.  

• Other welfare challenges are connected to infections and parasites; stress and pain; water quality (which comprises many dimensions, including temperature, salinity, oxygen, pH, CO2, nitrogen); light (exposure to which is often highly artificial in aquaculture); and human handling and slaughter.