Applied Animal Ethology, 5 (1979) 1-4 1 o Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands

Editorial

THE NATURE OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

A.F. FRASER Department of Veterinary Unica1 Studies, Western College of Veterinary Medicine, Uniuersity of Saskatchewan, Sask. (Canada) Editor-in-Chief, Applied Animal Ethology

The ethics of animal use constitute a source of mounting concern and dispute in both lay and scientific communities. Where natural methods of mediation between the animal and its milieu appear to be ruthlessly destroyed on a large scale by mankind, the spotlight of public attention now falls. Where the basic life style of “free-living” animals is assaulted, articulate con- cern is expressed. Pillage of animal life becomes increasingly abhorrent to enlightened man. Society today has cruelty to animals on its conscience, on a scale never previously expressed.

When cruelty occurs it sterns, by definition, from mankind. As long as men have the capacity to be cruel, society requires this trait to be policed and suppressed. Contemporary society has a relatively low tolerante of manifest cruelty, in any form, perhaps for its own protection. Global cruelty, the primary fear of civilization, may have its potential in the hearts and minds of men who espouse or permit cruelty. More than ever before, it would seem, mankind needs protection from its own inherent capacity to be cruel. Animals are characteristically perceived to be defenceless against cruelty. Actions against animal cruelty have usually been pressed according to the administrative resourcefulness of public societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals. Today there is active international development of legal architecture to supply legal statutes and standards of propriety in animal care. Increasing forces for animal welfare are reacting to such utilization of animals as they perceive as unjust exploitation. One burning qdestion is how so many perceive animal utilization in quite different lights.

It is widely understood that cruelty, with reference to animals, is infliction of unnecessary pain or suffering. Unnatural suffering might also be included, to contrast with much natural suffering in animals which lies outside man? province and is not, therefore, cruelty. Natural suffering occurs also in domestication in such circumstances as disease processes, bond-breaking events, physical accidents, and the effects of the elements. It is possible to take the classification further. The agent of cruelty may operate in an active or passive manner. The infliction of cruelty may be direct upon the animal or indirect, affecting the animal through its environment. The type of cruelty, evident in the animal, may vary from acute and subacute to chronic, accord- ing to its severity and duration. Acute types of cruelty are characteristically severe and result in clinical lesions; subacute cruelty is typically stressful and

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traumatic and/or stressful. Scope must be left for exceptions and additions to this scheme which is merely a foundation of classification.

Pain is the essence of suffering. Any conception of suffering must include an appreciation of the variety of features which relate to the experience of pain. Similarly, cruelty to animals must be recognised as being related to the mixed properties of pain which animals are caused, or permitted, to expe- rience through some measure of default in their utilization. Pain is a highly variable and subjective experience. According to Melzack (1973), qualities of pain experience include sensory, affective and evaluation properties. Melzack defines pain broadly as experiences having somato-sensory and negative-effective components which elicit behaviour aimed at stopping the conditions that produce them. It is stressed by Melzack that pain is charac- terized by noxious input (into the subject) which evokes negative effect and aversive drive. Pain certainly commands attention, by the subject and to the subject. It is the high priority signal which normally arrests al1 concurrent behaviours, with the exclusion of responses to the painful stimulus. The behaviour resulting from pain in animals is easily observed, recognized and interpreted by man using common knowledge, experience and special know- ledge.

The active and direct imposition of acute, positive cruelty lies to the right extreme of a spectrum of unnecessary and unnatural animal suffering which civilized man can comprehend without difficulty. The mores of civilized society around the world do not normally approve of this leve1 of cruelty to animals. Exceptions occur, however, when the issue becomes clouded with local or national traditions, causing regional communities to close ranks against alien criticism. The problems occurring at the extreme right of the spectrum become less wel1 defined across the remainder of the spectrum. In the centre of the spectrum is cruelty produced by assaults on the animal and its sentience. The position at the left is occupied by failures of conces- sions to refinements in animal welfare. These are considered warranted by many who demand compassion for the “dumb animal”. Some of these wel- fare advocates entertain a philosophy which holds that al1 animals merit humane consideration in full, without reference to sentience, simply because they exist. Where refined welfare concessions are not made, cruelty occurs, ipso facto, in the opinions of such purists. Although the extremes of the spectrum draw public attention, it is in the vast central span, where the industrial associations between man and animals operate, that the bulk of incidents of common cruelty are continually generated. Sometimes these occur in the heated moment, sometimes in fear or desperation, sometimes to “be kind”, sometimes inevitably and even excusably, but almost always regrettably.

In a general way, suffering also includes the denial of basic needs in the animal. Today we can recognize significant behavioural needs. Some of these have previously been outlined as the behaviour of maintenance. The black of oehaviours of association, for example, shows the major role of social activities in the total system of behaviour. Wilson (1975) has given a compre- hensive account of animal sociology, detailing the behaviour in such cate-

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gories as communication, aggression, territorialism, dominante and symbiotic relationships. Failure to comprehend the rich fabric of social behaviour in animals may be fostered by a Cartesian attitude, which sees the animal as a biological machine. In some incomprehensible instances of active and direct cruelty, the crime of commission may have its basis in a comparative concept. Experiences of ubiquitous human cruelty might entourage the relegation of humane rights in animals to a very low order of priority. One problem is that the nature of anguish in animals is intangible. It stil1 bas to have its case proven to the scientific jury, although substantial anecdotal evidente attests to its existance. Animals can be made to suffer in very real ways, with which we can identify. If this is anthropomorphism, perhaps this is a raison d’etre for this remarkably common form of empathy. So much highly organised social behaviour is now recognised, in animal socio-ethograms, that this can be seen as a major part of the genetic programming of each social species. Complex social behaviour in such animals has been shown by Wilson (197 5) to have numerous major divisions. This richly patterned innate behaviour represents a necessary behavioural output of the animal. Social opportunity can therefore be recognised as meeting certain ethological needs, in the interests of the organisms functional integrity. Radicai suppression of social opportunity and the destruction of the principal social methods, under such circumstances as separation and crowding (Freedman, 1975), are stress- ful. As stressors, these social disruptions are implicated in the etiology of common and serious clinical disorders such as neonatal diarrhoea in pigs and calves, shipping fever in cattle, and foal pneumonia. Such clinical conditions create manifest suffering. In the light of improved understanding, the incidences of these and similar syndromes must be considered unnecessarily high. To this extent, therefore, destruction of important social facilities for animals leads, indirectly, to substantial cruelty.

Wel1 advised husbandry, of positive value to the animal’s maintenance and utility, results from the application of reliable knowledge, stemming from experience and study. Since the educational foundation to husbandry is subject to change, from new knowledge, it is inevitable that schools of animal use are not always similarly advised. At any given moment in a con- ceptual evolution not al1 those in its pursuit can be in step. Since early educa- tional effects are greater within groups than between groups, disparities in attitude to a challenging international issue tend to exist regionally and to become consolidated nationally. National differences in public tolerante of suffering in animals are not, therefore, uncommon. Again, within a composite society differences in the socially tolerated threshold of cruelty may occur between socio-economie classes, due to variation in available information anti to relative differences in cultural values.

Of al1 the managemental factors consequent to domestication, movement of animals is probably the greatest source of attrition. This procedure appar- ently causes more episodes of stress than any other common husbandry prac- tice. Commercial movement of animals usually involves bond and territorial disruption, crowding, forced driving, loading, constraint, transporting, un- loading and relocating. Each of these steps is physically hazardous to animals.

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Al1 make movements occasions of excessive “noxious input” as a result of coercion, trauma, fatigue and fear.

Intensive husbandry practices have the potential to generate some of the attritive and aversive elements characteristic of shipment. Since reduction in either commercial method is not likely, the opportunities in these activities for active and passive, direct and indirect, cruelty need to be widely appre- ciated in the livestock industry.

The capacity for cruelty to animals may persist in man but it would appear that passive and indirect forms of cruelty could be reduced by improvement in knowledge. In particular, an improved understanding of the quality of behaviour, evident in their social patterns, could change many reactionary attitudes into opinions more favourable to animals. To this extent, therefore, much of the long term prospect for the control of cruelty to animals probably lies in the continual pursuit of applied ethology.

TABLE OF CLASSIFICATION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS

Feature

Manner

Type

Active

Passive

Direction Direct

Indirect

Manifestation Acute

Subacute

Chronic

REFERENCES

.~__ Genera1 forms

Imposition of unduly severe management

Failing to provide relief of evident suffering

Aversive stimulation

Provision of poor hus- bandry environment

Inflicted trauma, hunger, thirst, severe thermal episodes, asphyxia

Mismanaged malnutrition, infestation, fatigue

Unattended persistent clinical conditions, starvation, cachexia

Examples

Excessive goading and crowding of livestock

Absente of nursing or therapy for cases of manifest illness such as systemic infections

Striking animals with an offensive instru- ment

Lack of bedding or resting facilities, for confined animals

Heat stroke/suffocation in enclosed animals

Clinical parasitism in any evident, recog- nisable form

Neglect of excessively overgrown hooves

Freedman, J.L., 1975. Crowding and behaviour. Animal Theories. W.H. Freeman, San Francisco, Chap. 3, pp. 24.--40.

Melzack, P., 1973. The Puzzle of Pain. Basic Books, New York, pp. 41-48. Wilson, E.O., 1975. Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Part 11. Social Mechanisms. The

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 130-377.