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The
Welfare of the Horse Animal Welfare and Human Responsibility Most people care about the welfare of domestic animals such as the horse in a way that they are not concerned for the well-being of the animal’s wild cousins. For example, we may be fascinated and intrigued by the hunting, killing and evisceration (often whilst still alive) of a plain’s zebra by a pride of lions on a wildlife documentary. Contrast this with the image of feeding live horses to lions in a zoo. The latter would be considered immoral, inhumane and cruel by the majority of people, even though the capacity to experience pain, stress or fear is likely to be similar for both domestic and wild equids. The main difference between the two situations is not the animal’s capacity for subjective experiences or feelings, but rather the moral imperative we feel towards animals in our care. In general, we feel responsible for the welfare of animals in zoos, and domesticated species such as farm, laboratory and companion animals, but considerably less responsible for the subjective experiences of animals in their natural environment. The horse occupies a privileged position in relation to our concern for its quality of life since it is a domesticated species with a relatively high value, both for economic and for emotional reasons. As a human society, we should be concerned about the well-being of all animals in our care, but not all species receive treatment of equal quality. Horses have a high profile and are viewed in western society as symbols of wealth and prestige or as dearly loved individuals, a role shared with other companion animals, such as cats and dogs. This elevated status of the horse can lead to greater concern about the welfare of horses that are reared and kept for other purposes, such as for racing, as transport animals or for meat or hormone production, than for other species with similar roles. This level of concern contrasts markedly with the public perception of other farmed animals, such as the broiler chicken, or other mammals used for medical purposes, such as the rat. Owners of horses used for sport or recreation demonstrate their concern for the quality of their horse’s lives through the considerable time, effort and money spent on housing and management. However, we should not be complacent as welfare problems do exist within equestrianism and there is a need for sensible solutions. The horse industry includes many well-meaning people who are willing to make changes to current practice but good intentions do not necessarily result in changes that are most beneficial from the horses’ point of view. Horses are one of only a few domestic species that are used as athletes, often required to undergo extensive training before being pushed to their physiological limits for what are essentially entertainment purposes. Under these circumstances, decisions about horse welfare may be strongly influenced by the potential benefits to the owner or rider, the economic or sentimental value of the horse and traditions or currently accepted practice, with less emphasis given to the costs to the horse. In this context it is perhaps interesting to note that, in the UK, there is stringent legislation covering the housing and management of horses used for research purposes (Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986) such as the development of veterinary products or fundamental research into equine physiology. Such research often involves procedures that are far milder than those imposed on equine athletes to satisfy owner’s expectations, yet sports horses are covered by only general legislation aimed at preventing cruelty (Protection of Animals Act, 1911). What do we mean by Animal Welfare? Before discussing situations where welfare problems may exist for the domestic horse we will describe how animal welfare is assessed and the reliability of these measurements. The majority of work in this area has been conducted on farm animals. Nevertheless, the principles apply just as well to horses as to any captive animal. Broadly speaking, there are three stances that are adopted when considering animal welfare. These are the naturalness of the environment, the functioning of the animal (its productivity and pathology) and its subjective state or feelings (Fraser et al, 1997). All three aspects are included in the ‘Five freedoms’ (Ewbank, 1988) which acknowledge subjective experience in terms of freedom from fear, pain, hunger and thirst, biological functioning in terms of freedom from injury and disease and, finally, naturalness through freedom to express normal behaviour (Fraser et al, 1997). These ‘Five freedoms’ underpin the guidelines for assessing farm animal welfare in Britain (e.g. FAWC, 1997), but also have relevance for the measurement and interpretation of animal welfare in any system. Welfare and the Natural Environment The argument that the animal’s quality of life is related to the naturalness of its environment seems fairly straightforward. Animals will be adapted to the environment in which they evolved and the animal may not be able to adapt or cope with any significant deviations from this environment. This argument has been used with zoo (Hediger, 1950) and farm animals (Harrison, 1964) and was the basis of early attempts to introduce legislation to cover intensive agricultural systems (Brambell, 1965). Scientists that support the natural living model of animal welfare commonly relate quality of life to performance of the full behavioural repertoire. The emphasis on the natural living model and full behavioural repertoire has been criticised both by welfare scientists and by those directly involved in the animals’ care for the reasons given below. Firstly, domestic animals are not the same as wild animals as the former will have experienced selection through domestication, and taming through exposure to humans (Dawkins, 1980). The horse, for example, has been domesticated for approximately 6,000 years and during this time it will have been selected both intentionally and unintentionally to adapt to a man-made environment (Clutton-Brock, 1992; Levine, 1999). As a consequence, it is unwise to draw direct comparisons between the behaviour of domestic horses and their wild ancestors. Nevertheless, aspects of the ancestral horse’s behaviour have survived domestication. Studies of feral horse populations in America (Berger 1977, 1986), France (Duncan, 1980) and the UK (Tyler, 1972; Gates, 1979) show they adopt similar behaviour patterns to ancestral horses (e.g. Kownaki et al, 1978; Boyd and Houpt, 1994). For example, free-ranging horses form stable social groups, they spend much of their time grazing or foraging and they avoid or flee threatening or predatory stimuli. These activities are useful as a baseline for the types of adaptive behaviours horses would be expected to use in captivity, though this does not in itself mean we need encourage their entire, natural behavioural repertoire. Secondly, the domestic horse will have very different environmental experiences from that of free-ranging or feral equids. Consequently they may learn to cope with their unnatural environment. For example, feral horses avoid humans, but captive horses are exposed to humans from an early age so will have plenty of opportunities to habituate to our presence and to learn to associate us with rewarding experiences such as feeding. Similarly, horses may learn to adapt to the unnatural environment in which they are kept. Finally, allowing horses to express their full behavioural repertoire could mean exposing them to extremes of heat and cold, hunger or predatory stimuli, all of which may include negative experiences and may be completely avoided in a man-made environment (Dawkins, 1980; Hughes and Duncan, 1988). The horse is a good illustration of how domestication and housing in captivity can, in fact, enhance the welfare of animals compared with their wild ancestors. In contrast to the free-ranging conditions of the feral horse, the stable is a very unnatural habitat, but stabled horses are protected from predators, from hunger and thirst, from disease and from extremes of temperature. Consequently domestic horses do not need to spend time looking for food or responding to predatory stimuli for ultimate biological functioning or fitness. Furthermore, we spend considerable funds ensuring the comfort of horses. If they are ill, we provide veterinary treatment. If they are likely to overheat we clip them to help with thermo-regulation, and we provide blankets to prevent them feeling cold. We provide shelter from inclement weather and we turn horses out for exercise in fields that we have sown and managed to produce appropriate grassland forage. These all protect the horse from potentially noxious stimuli, though perhaps at the expense of loss of control over environmental choices. Biological Functioning and Welfare This argument against emphasis on the naturalness of the environment leads to the stance relating welfare to functioning. This is commonly adopted by those directly involved in the care of animals, such as farmers and veterinary surgeons, and accords significance to the animals’ health and “satisfactory” or “normal” functioning of the animals’ biological systems. It has also has been recommended by those welfare scientists who do not recognise the validity of measures based on feelings (e.g. McGlone, 1993). Again, there are good logical reasons for this stance. Firstly, as discussed already, a well-designed husbandry system will protect an animal from extremes of disease, injury, malnutrition and other disturbances to biological functioning. Secondly, the approach relies on the use of objectively measurable parameters such as health, growth rate, fertility and mortality, which a well-run husbandry system would closely monitor. For example, in the racing industry, the athletic performance, health, nutrition and physiology of such valuable equines will be closely monitored throughout their racing lives and any remedial actions required will be taken promptly in order to maintain the horse at the peak of its performance. This, however, may illustrate the primary practical problem with this approach. The tendency is to focus on those performance criteria, which are most relevant to the goals of the horse owner rather than the individual horse’s welfare. Furthermore, whilst we may expect an association between welfare and performance (e.g. animals that were failing to cope with an adverse environment would not perform well), the relationship is not direct. Failure to cope can be masked by veterinary intervention, or ignored where there is a compromise between emotional state and the goals of the owner. For example, performance horses can be pushed hard and may incur many hidden costs, in terms of animal welfare, as a result of over-training as young horses, demonstrated by the high injury rate amongst race-horses (Williams et al, 2001; Riggs, 2002) and the high incidence of heart defects seen in horses that have undergone intensive exercise regimes (Kiryu et al, 1999). Subjective Feelings and Welfare In addition to these practical problems, there are theoretical issues related to a focus on biological functioning or performance. Even when all an animal’s primary needs appear to have been met by its man-made environment and the animal appears to be performing well, the animal itself may not realize this. Consequently, whilst there may be no physical signs of distress, the animal may, nevertheless, be experiencing psychological suffering. So, the final approach to assessing animal welfare is based on the view that the animal’s welfare is entirely related to its subjective experiences or feelings. These may include avoidance of negative states such as pain, fear, hunger, anxiety and frustration or enhancing positive states such as comfort or even pleasure. Whilst most welfare scientists accept these are important considerations when assessing an animal’s quality of life, it is also recognised that there are problems with this approach in isolation. Firstly, it requires acceptance that animals are sentient and capable of consciously experiencing their emotions. Secondly, even if you accept that, for instance, horses are sentient, there is a major difficulty in objectively measuring subjective experience. The biological basis for accepting that animals experience their emotions is that feelings are part of the mechanism for helping animals to adapt to environmental challenges (Dawkins, 1980). However, such adaptive mechanisms operate on a continuum, and animals and people do not always consciously experience environmental challenges, even if they behave as if they do. For example, when a horse is getting accustomed to the use of the bit to control its movement it is likely to experience pain (Cook, 1999), discomfort or frustration during the early stages of training. Once it has learnt the signals that predict pulling on the bit, in the hands of a skilled rider it will have learnt to behave so as to avoid any pain and may not even be consciously aware of why it is behaving in response to these signals. Faced with these difficulties, Fraser et al (1997) suggest an integrated approach to satisfy both animals and those who care for them. This approach assumes that an animal’s welfare is ultimately its subjective state, but that as this cannot be measured directly we must infer this state from measures that can be taken directly, including productivity, health, physiological measures and behaviour. Within this framework we should be concerned both about the animal’s species-typical adaptive mechanisms and the challenges that it faces in the actual environment. These challenges can take three forms: firstly, they can be challenges that have been solved in the captive environment, but nevertheless the animal is still motivated to perform appropriate adaptive responses. Stabled horses, for example, may be provided with a nutritionally adequate balanced diet, but may still be motivated to express foraging and feed selective behaviour, which may be expressed as apparently undesirable behaviour in the stable. Secondly, there are environmental challenges which have not been fully controlled in the man-made environment, the animals must be allowed to express their natural adaptive coping responses. For example, in social housing, allowing horses to choose their social group and control their own personal space not only allows positive interactions with other horses but also provides opportunity for the horse to express control over its own environment. Thirdly, there are aspects in the man-made environment, which involve challenges for which the horse may not be able to adapt, in which case it is our responsibility to reduce the impact of these challenges or provide opportunities to adapt. For example, early weaning followed by social isolation may exceed the foal’s capacity to adapt to environmental change, whereas later weaning into a mixed social group may reduce the impact of separation from the dam. This integrated approach should provide a scientific framework for pragmatic assessment of the impact of alternative husbandry practices on equine welfare, irrespective of the value of the horse under consideration or its place in our society. References Berger J (1977) Organisational systems and dominance in feral horses in the Grand Canyon Behaviour, Ecol and Sociol 21: 131-146. Berger J (1986) Wild Horses of the Great Basin. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. Boyd L, Houpt KA (1994) Przewalski’s Horse. State University of New York Press, New York. Brambell FWR (1965) Report of the Technical Committee to Enquire into the Welfare of Animals kept under Intensive Livestock Husbandry Systems HMSO: London. Clutton-Brock J (1992) Horse Power: History of the Horse and Donkey in Human Societies. Harvard University Press, Boston.. Cook WR (1999) Pathophysiology of bit control in the horse. J Eq Vet Sci 19: 196-204 Dawkins MS (1980) Animal Suffering. Chapman and Hall, London. 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Kiryu K, Machida N, Kashida Y, Yoshihara T, Amada A, Yamamoto T (1999) Pathologic and electrocardiographic findings in sudden cardiac death in racehorses. J Vet Med Sci 61: 921-928. Kownaki M, Sasimowski E, Budzynski M, Jezieski T, Kapron M, Jelen B, Jaworska M, Dziedzic R, Seweryn A, Solmka Z (1978) Observations of the 24-hour rhythm of natural behaviour of Polish primitive horse bred for the conservation of genetic resources in a forest reserve. Genetica Polonica 19: 61-77. Levine MA (1999) Investigating the origins of horse domestication. Eq Vet J Suppl 28: 6-14. McGlone JJ (1993) What is animal welfare? J Agric Environm Ethics Suppl 2: 26-36. Riggs CM (2002) Fractures – A preventable hazard of racing thoroughbreds? Eq Vet J 163: 19-29. Tyler SJ (1972) The behaviour and social organisation of the New Forest ponies. Behav Mono 5: 85-196. Kiryu K, Machida N, Kashida Y, Yoshihara T, Amada A, Yamamoto T (1999) Pathologic and electrocardiographic findings in sudden cardiac death in racehorses. J Vet Med Sci 61: 921-928. Williams RB Harkins LS Hammond CJ, Wood JLN (2001) Racehorse injuries clinical problems and fatalities recorded on British racecourses from flat racing and National Hunt racing during 1996, 1997 and 1998. Eq Vet J 33: 478-486. |
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