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its rewards. It is a first-class work that will be the standard against which any to follow must be measured.

S.E. CREGIER University of Prince Edward Island

Charlottetown Prince Edward Island

CIA 4P3 Canada

REFERENCES

MacDonald, G., ca. 1890. A Rough Shaking. A.L. Butt, New York, pp. 19, 26-27. McBane, S., 1984. Keeping a Horse Outdoors. David and Charles, London, pp. 100-102.

INTENSIVE FARM ANIMAL MANAGEMENT

Ethical, Ethological and Legal Aspects of Intensive Farm Animal Management by E. yon Loeper, G. Martin, J. Miiller, A. Nabholz, G. van Putten, H.H. Sambraus, G.M. Teutsch, J. Troxler and B. Tschanz. Animal Management Vol. 18, 1987, Birkhiiuser Verlag, Basel, paperback, 1987, 158 pp., price sfr 49.00, ISBN 3-7643-1930-5.

A book that attempts integration of the ethical, ethological and legal aspects of animal management deserves special attention. Whether integration of these aspects, rather than separate coverage of them, was intended in this book is not clear from the title; fortunately, most of the authors accepted the challenge to integrate. Few books set out to forge links between these disciplines, yet this is a very necessary task if a balanced view of all implications of animal pro- duction is to be developed. For this reason alone, and there are others, this collection of papers makes an important contribution to the currently turbu- lent fields of animal production and welfare.

That said, it would be fair to point out that the book is not easy to read. A slightly jarring translation of some sections makes for slow progress. In other parts, the presentation is intimidating, with paragraphs more than a page long. An even more significant impediment is the inclusion of sections with no dis- cernable progression of ideas, so that the reader is given simply a succession of comments rather than a coherent argument. However, with a resolve to persist, most readers can expect to retrieve many useful and some new ideas.

The first paper, entitled Intensive farm animal management seen from an ethical standpoint by G.M. Teutsch, comprises comments on ethical, theolog- ical and philosophical attitudes to animals. The attempt to integrate these perspectives with animal production is, unfortunately, not entirely successful.

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The paper finally stands not as a balanced review, but as a discussion of sep- arate concepts such as the ethics of Schweitzer, the "fellowship of creatures", the concept of"humaneness" as a basis of animal protection, and many others. Amidst some commendable statements about concern for animals, one also catches glimpses of the political handicaps encountered in developing animal protection legislation; one footnote acknowledges that no restrictions on ani- mal production will be enforced by legislation, even if ethically justified, if they impose on the competitive strength of national agriculture!

Ethology and animal protection by B. Tschanz is the short second paper. It discusses the role of ethologists in providing standards of normal animal be- haviour. The proposal that behavioural activity should be quantified and used as a basis of assessing animal management is sound. However, one of the ideas, that members of a wild population in a traditional habitat could be used to indicate the norm because they "make effective use of what is available in accordance with their requirements and without coming to harm", is surely not realistic. It does not acknowledge the harsh realities of life in the wild, nor the extent of the changes wrought in animals by domestication. There also remain the problems of accurately recording from wild animals.

The paper by G. Martin, Animal welfare in chicken management: obtaining knowledge and evaluating results, makes a concerted effort at integrating ethics with applied ethology. There is some lack of coherence in the presentation, but assorted useful points are raised. The innate tendency of chickens to peck for many hours a day, if frustrated by a battery cage, is seen to be related to the high incidence of animals pecking themselves and others. Similarly, the innate drive to dust-bathe, if frustrated by cage confinement, leads to a variety of abnormal substitute activities which damage rather than maintain the plu- mage. The need to understand the ethological basis of such welfare problems is highlighted in a section explaining the importance of adopting and clearly defining appropriate terms for incorporation into animal protection laws.

A similarly detailed (and better organised) paper on Animalprotection reg- ulations forpig management by J. Miiller follows. Clear descriptions, tables of data, and illustrations contribute to a useful review of pig husbandry. Ironi- cally, it may be that this paper gains some of its coherence by largely avoiding the problematic integration of ethology with ethics and law.

The final paper on The struggle against cruel intensive animal management systems in the European Community ~ seen from a legal point of view by E. von Loeper uses far more emotive language than earlier papers. As a result, readers may be tempted to skip the more turgid paragraphs. However, to do so would risk their missing several useful discussions, such as how individual countries in a free-trading market can be driven to adopt the lowest possible standards of animal protection, because of economic competition from prod- ucts entering across the border.

This book is as much about human behaviour as animal behaviour. The

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authors are all aware of the difficulties of trying to capture details of biological complexity with legal precision. In their own ways, they have sought to unravel problems at this difficult end of the spectrum of animal protection; they de- serve commendation. The book, despite its shortcomings, will repay the effort spent in reading it.

KEN JOHNSON School of Veterinary Studies

Murdoch University Murdoch

W.A. 6150 Australia