Published in 2020
Report on the use of animals for experimental purposes in the Member States of the European Union from 2015 to 2017. Data on the number of animals used, types of use, and the number and uses of genetically modified animals.
Document types: Regulation/Certification
Animal categories: Mammals, Fish
Keywords: Societal issues
Published in 2018
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Fish
Published in 2019
Discussion of factors and processes in aquaculture that may be critical to welfare, synthetic overview of issues for welfare assessment, accompanied by various recommendations
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Fish
Published in 2007
Special issue on Animal Welfare, containing 14 original articles on aims, methodology and purpose, ethical foundations, variants for different species, how it is perceived by the animal industries.
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Bovines, Caprines, Equines, Ovines, Fish, Porcines, Poultry
Keywords: Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Adaptation of the environment to the animal, Animal-based measurements, Consciousness, Pain, Societal issues, Welfare indicators, Living environment,Cognitive processes, Human-animal relationships, Stress
Published in 2015
The origins of the animal welfare sciences can be found in the debate on the moral status of animals in philosophy, the introduction of the notion of stress in physiology and the description of animal behaviours by ethologists.... We believe that the issue of animal welfare needs to break down the boundaries between and across disciplines and to engage stakeholders and society as a whole, in order to build a holistic approach towards animal welfare and improve it in an effective way.
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Mammals, Monogastrics, Fish, Poultry
Published in 2015
This article aims to bring together in a single document the knowledge acquired over recent years on the mechanisms of the appearance and modulation of pain in animals. The review is divided into three parts. The first describes the different stages of development, transmission and integration of the nociceptive messages involved in the onset of pain (sensory and emotional components). The second describes the different types of modulation that can activate or inhibit the transmission of nociceptive messages. The third describes the different neurophysiological processes that accompany pain and can modulate it (inflammation, activation of the autonomic nervous system and the neuroendocrine system).
Document Types: Scientific review
Animal categories: Bovines, Caprines, Equines, Mammals, Monogastrics, Ovines, Fish, Porcines, Rodents, Ruminants, Poultry
Keywords: Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Adaptation of the environment to the animal, Animal-based measurements, Pain, Experimentation, Welfare indicators, Brain integration, Mutilation, Cognitive processes, Stress
Published in 2018
Are animals conscious beings? How do they perceive their own worlds? These questions are being debated in the scientific community for both academic and practical reasons. Accordingly, on 7 July 2012, a group of leading scientists in England headed by Philip Low felt it necessary to publish The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. This manifesto states that "a convergence of evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuro-anatomical, neurochemical and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states as well as the ability to express intentional behaviour...". It calls for further research to learn more about this capacity in animals. In 2015, INRA carried out a multidisciplinary scientific expertise in order to provide a critical review of the literature on animal consciousness. This work was executed at the request of the European Food Safety Authority (request EFSA-Q-2015-00390, contract no. EFSA/Inra/2015/01).
This study is an overview based on the report from INRA's collective scientific expertise (Le Neindre et al., 2017). It is divided into six chapters:
––the social, ethical and legal context for the expertise (chapter 1)
––consciousness in the animal kingdom: historical perspectives, epistemology and definitions (chap. 2)
––overview of current knowledge on human consciousness, with a discussion of the main current innovative concepts given their usefulness for our understanding of the available data on animals (Chapter 3)
––behavioural and neurobiological components in animals that allow us to talk about more or less elaborate content of consciousness. This chapter constitutes the core of the expertise (chap. 4).
––the positive consequences of taking consciousness into account on our understanding of welfare, suffering and pain (chap. 5)
––the importance of consciousness in the adaptive capacities of animals, especially in their phylogenetic components (Chapter 6)
The book concludes with proposals for future avenues of research resulting from the deliberations of various scientific bodies.
Document Types: Scientific work
Animal categories: Bovines, Canines, Caprines, Equines, Mammals, Monogastrics, Birds (except poultry), Ovines, Fish, Porcines, Primates, Reptiles, Rodents, Ruminants, Poultry
Keywords: Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Anxiety, Learning, Training, Consciousness, Pain, Societal issues, Enrichment, Brain integration, Metacognition, Cognitive processes, Evolutionary processes, Stress
Published in 2013
There is growing public sensitivity to animal pain across a variety of human activities: animal experimentation, pet cruelty, live performances such as in circuses, and the rearing of animals for human consumption. This situation gives rise to a sometimes difficult dialogue between animal rights campaigners who refuse to accept any exploitation of animals, those who advocate improvements to the living conditions of animals, and businesses who point out the financial constraints within their sectors. The contents of this expertise are intended to inform public decision-making and, beyond this, to provide a robust reference framework to argue positions and decisions in the public debate, and to identify the needs of research in this field in order to better respond to the questions raised.
Document Types: Scientific work
Animal categories: Bovines, Caprines, Equines, Mammals, Monogastrics, Ovines, Fish, Porcines, Ruminants, Poultry
Keywords: Adaptation of the animal to the environment, Adaptation of the environment to the animal, Animal-based measurements, Pain, Precision farming, Experimentation, Force-feeding, Welfare indicators, Brain integration, Mutilation, Cognitive processes, Stress
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