Treated Like Animals

Improving the Lives of the Creatures

We Own, Eat and Use

Alick Simmons

Pelagic Publishing
 Contents
Preface xii

  1 The Exploitation of Animals 1

  2 Why Aren’t All Animals Treated the Same Way? 21
  3 The Welfare of Farmed Animals: an Overview 44
  4 Grazing Animals: the Best, and Some of the Worst 57
  5 Pigs, Poultry and the Rest 76
  6 Snares, Guns and Poison: the ‘Management’ of Wildlife 101
  7 Conservation: Exploitation with Clear Limits? 127
  8 Recreation, Sport and a Little Food 144
  9 Pets: Exploitation Begins at Home 157
10 Animals Used in Research 166
11 A Personal Ethical Framework 181
12 Making Sense of It All 190

Notes 213
Glossary and Abbreviations 238
Further Reading 244
Acknowledgements 245
Index 247
About the Author 254

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 1

The Exploitation of Animals

This book is about the way that humans exploit other animals, for good or
bad, and how we could and should hold ourselves better to account for that
exploitation. Apart from a tiny minority, we all do it – we are all complicit
in the exploitation of animals. So much so that our dependence on animals
and their products has become integral to our society and our economy. That
dependence has developed slowly over time, from the hunting of animals for
food and skins by the first humans, to the development of pastoralism, to
today’s industrial-scale food animal production.
Alongside food animal production, we exploit animals for other reasons –
for companionship, to further the cause of science and health, for sport and
entertainment, and to conserve threatened species. Because much of this
exploitation takes place some distance from where we live or goes on behind
closed doors, many of us have little or no experience of or direct involvement
with animals, except perhaps for a few dogs or cats. But make no mistake: it
goes on, at scale, and it is increasing. More animals are exploited than ever
before.
As well as tolerating large-scale animal exploitation, we tolerate different
types of exploitation in some species but are aghast when the same treatment
is meted out to others. There is something irrational about relishing eating
a 16-week-old lamb while being appalled at the notion of consuming a
six-month-old puppy.
In the developed world, we’re fortunate. We have used animals as part of
the fuel for the economic and social miracle that gives us the standard of
living we enjoy today. For the most part we are well fed, well housed and enjoy
good health. When it comes to food from animals, sophisticated rearing and
efficient food processing and distribution systems mean low prices, choice
and abundance. But that abundance, and our health and comfort, comes
at a price. Animal use in the twenty-first century is almost inconceivable in

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its scale. Unless husbandry, care and our other interactions with animals are
consistently good, the potential for real and sustained suffering is great.
To be clear, exploitation isn’t necessarily always a bad thing. Yet although
many interactions are relatively benign, there are very few that can be
considered wholly for the benefit of the animals involved. Exploitation can
be subdivided, according to one’s values, into ‘use’ and ‘abuse’, with ‘use’
covering what might be considered benign interaction and ‘abuse’ standing
for something that is detrimental in some way. It doesn’t take much thought
to realise that these are rather loaded terms. One person’s use is another’s
abuse. For this reason, I believe ‘exploit’ is a better term – we exploit animals.
A narrow definition of exploitation covers just ‘unfair or underhand use’,
although what types of exploitation that includes is controversial because of
the way in which values vary across and between societies. Therefore, when
I employ the word ‘exploit’, I use the widest dictionary definition, that is,
we ‘make full use of and derive benefit from’ the interaction. It includes
everything from the best to the worst, from the least interaction such as
observing conserved wildlife through to more significant interventions such
as eating the meat of animals and wearing their skins. And, of course, it
includes interactions that many find abhorrent, such as bull fighting, and
more common interactions which we choose to ignore or are generally hidden
from sight. The latter includes the use of rodenticide poisons that are known
to be markedly inhumane.
Some of us, including livestock farmers and racehorse trainers, make a living
from exploiting animals, and some, such as riders, shooters and hunters, gain
satisfaction and excitement from using animals. Some make a ritual of using
animals, relying on the defence of ‘tradition’ to justify its continuance. Many
people are comforted by the companionship of dogs, cats or other pets – a
form of exploitation, albeit one that appears largely benign.
Exploitation of animals includes benefiting from medical advances that
have relied on the use of research animals – for example, avoiding infectious
disease by using a vaccine previously tested on animals. It includes the killing
of animals for sport and the killing of other animals that are perceived to be
a threat to that sport or other activity. It includes the removal of animals that
are considered to be ‘pests’ and believed to represent a risk to safety, public
health or an individual’s business interests. And because we are covering all
exploitation, we must also consider the conservation of animals in zoos,
reserves and national parks, including where populations are monitored by
trapping, ringing and other forms of tagging, and manipulated by culling and
reintroductions.
For a few people, the exploitation of animals – whether for farming,
hunting, research, tourism or conservation – may be their whole life. However
distasteful we might find some of these activities, from their point of view

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their interactions with animals are simply a reason for being, for living. At
the other end of the spectrum, there is a small but growing number of strict
vegans who might just be able to claim that they do not exploit animals at
all.1 But for the rest of us, because of the way animals and their products have
become part of our lives, it is difficult to make a similar claim.

A change of heart?
My career as a veterinarian could mark me out as being part of what might be
described as the ‘animal exploitation establishment’. Veterinarians working
in farm practice and for the government are, arguably, part of a system that
exists to make animal husbandry efficient and profitable. We manage endemic
disease on farms, control and eliminate epidemic disease, and reduce the risk
of exotic disease incursion and threats to public health. It would be wrong
to say that we lack compassion for the animals raised for meat and milk, but
that compassion is constrained within tight bounds. Sure, we care about the
welfare of animals on the farm, in transit and at the slaughterhouse, all of
which is governed and protected by detailed regulations. But this is designed
to protect the status quo – the business of producing meat and milk – and
while it would be wrong to say that government veterinarians (and, in my
experience, successive agriculture ministers) were not interested in animal
welfare, wholesale reform was never on the agenda.
I was a government veterinarian for over 30 years. I’ve had a wealth of
opportunities and a wide variety of roles in that time – some of which were
challenging, some of which were tough. A series of jobs like that changes
you. And that’s why I wrote this book. I think about animals differently
now. Did I have a Damascene moment? Was there any particular event that
brought about that change of heart? Was it the secondment to Australia,
where I was exposed to cultural differences in the treatment of animals that
almost turned me vegetarian? Or was it the 2001 foot-and-mouth disease
epidemic, where it seemed the whole country was expected to support an
objective of eradication to be secured by killing millions of animals? Or the
BSE crisis which ran for several years from 1996, during which, truth be told,
I became worn out with it all? Perhaps working with broiler chicken farmers,
where the sheer scale of production was hard to grasp? Or was it leading a
team collecting data to determine whether the killing of badgers was likely to
be useful in controlling bovine tuberculosis?
Well, it was none of these and all of these. However, I had become sceptical
of many of the interventions from early in my veterinary career. As a student,
I was working in a veterinary practice in the Midlands. It was a mixed
practice dealing with horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, cats and everything else.
I became good friends with another student, Neil Burnie. We were passionate,

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enthusiastic and keen to learn, and over beer in the evening we’d discuss the
day’s cases and our reaction to what we had seen. Neil once said: ‘I can’t help
thinking that most of the treatments we give are either for the convenience
of the owner or because of something the owner has done.’ Neil believed
that much of what veterinarians were treating was a consequence of how we
exploit our animals: breeding dogs for a desirable physical shape, keeping
dairy cows to maximise milk yield or riding a horse over jumps to prepare
for a competition. It was a profound observation for a slightly inebriated
20-year-old student. But that was Neil. In essence, Neil’s argument was that,
in each case, the problem is caused by how we treat the animal that we keep,
whether it is respiratory problems in the inbred dog, mastitis in the dairy cow
or lameness in the horse.
Inevitably, as with so many of the people I ran into during my itinerant
youth, we lost contact with each other. The last I heard of Neil was from his
obituary after he had drowned in Bermuda, the island where he had lived for
30 years, while working on a shark protection project. His passion for animals
lives on in a foundation in his name (www​.nei​lbur​nief​oundation​.com). And
his wise observation has stayed with me.
Now I’ve reached a point where through experience, while I am not an
abolitionist, I have become an advocate for better, much better treatment of
the animals we exploit. This book draws on that experience and argues for
change – change that can lead to more humane treatment of the animals we
keep and interact with and, in some cases, argues for prohibition of certain
practices known to be inhumane.

A sense of scale
It will be helpful at this point to consider the scale of animal exploitation.
The mass of kept animals now considerably exceeds the mass of those left
in the wild. For instance, farmed poultry today accounts for 70% of the
mass of all birds on the planet, with just 30% made up of wild birds. The
picture is even more stark for mammals – 60% of all mammals on Earth, by
biomass, are livestock, mostly cattle and pigs, 36% are human, and just 4%
are wild mammals.2
This mass of kept animals translates into huge numbers. Britain’s annual
production of broiler (meat) chickens is around 1 billion (1,000 million),3
which means that on average we grow, kill and eat 20 million chickens each
and every week. That doesn’t include imported chicken meat – we import
around 450,000 tonnes of poultry meat annually (because most imports are
in the form of chicken portions, it is not possible to determine the numbers of
birds involved – but it’s a lot).4 Globally, around 66 billion birds are produced
annually,5 which equates to around 100 million tonnes.6 The numbers of pigs,

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 The Exploitation of Animals

cattle and sheep reared and slaughtered in the UK are much lower, but none of
these figures are trivial. We’ll come back to this in Chapters 3, 4 and 5.
When it comes to ‘wildlife’ – or, more precisely, shooting – the numbers
are similarly huge. Annually in the UK, around 47 million non-native ring-
necked pheasants and 10 million non-native red-legged partridges are released
into the countryside, although a much smaller proportion of these totals is
eventually shot.7 There is more about this in Chapter 6.
An unknown number of rats and mice, perhaps numbering in the
millions, are killed annually using techniques many of which are known to be
inhumane.8 There is more about rodent poisons and other, mainly inhumane
methods of killing rodents in Chapter 6.
In 2020 approximately 2.88 million scientific procedures involving living
animals were carried out in Great Britain: 57% of procedures used mice,
14% used rats and 13% used fish.9 I go into the detail of the use of research
animals in Chapter 10.
Whether it is farming, research or wildlife, the sheer scale of these figures
should give us all pause for thought, for two reasons. First, you risk slipping
into thinking that these are just numbers and not individuals; if we assume
that each of these animals has the capacity to suffer, rounding the figures into
millions doesn’t change that. Second, even if, say, only 0.5% of these animals
suffers in one way or another, that’s a lot of suffering.

A moral imperative
The risk of individual suffering and the potential for amplification of that
suffering as a result of the scale imposes on us a moral duty: do we, as the
beneficiaries of animal exploitation, have an obligation to make decisions,
that is, to get this right? Or do we not bother and stop caring, carry on and
leave everything to trust? Do we walk away and have nothing do with animals
and their products in any circumstances, or do we try to make and influence
better decisions?
If we believe in better decisions, in essence there are two questions here:
we need to ask ourselves ‘whether?’ but we should also be asking ‘how?’
That is, as well as doing our best to decide whether any use of animals is
acceptable, we should also consider what types of animal exploitation, what
procedures and what privations are acceptable. As we will see, although this
involves evidence-based decisions that you as an individual are encouraged
to make, there is an argument for bringing in wider society to influence
the outcome.
Answering these questions is a matter of ethics. Can the inevitable impact
of human intervention on each and every animal ever be justified? And if
the answer is ‘yes’, under what circumstances? Of course, circumstances

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which might be acceptable to you might be unacceptable to me, and in

some, perhaps many, circumstances the decision might best be left to the
individual. On the other hand, the nature and scale of the exploitation might
lead society to reach a conclusion that legislation to prohibit or license that
activity is necessary, or that other sanctions are justified.
Animal exploitation can be defended in two main ways:

● First, because wild animals can suffer terribly – starvation, predation

and exposure to the elements are major causes of mortality – why bother
to protect the animals we exploit? The answer is simply this: humans
are moral beings, and morality brings with it responsibilities, and this
extends to the animals with which we interact. Because an impala is
pulled limb from limb by a pack of wild dogs, that does not mean we can
abrogate our responsibilities to the animals with which we interact.
● Second, by breeding them for food or research, these animals are given
the ‘gift’ of life. Isn’t that enough? Again, given that the animals have not
been given the choice and there is evidence of their capacity to suffer, as
soon as we take control, we take on a duty of care.
This brings us to consideration of ‘abuse’. I’m clear where abuse of animals
starts, or so I used to think. Yet as soon as you gather a little knowledge and
apply a little thought, it is less clear-cut than we might suppose. The line
between ‘use’ and ‘abuse’ is not easily drawn. Is it acceptable to grow broiler
chickens in groups of 20,000 and more, housed at a density of 20 birds per
square metre, when in the wild they might live in groups of 10–15 spread
over hundreds of hectares? The farmed birds might grow quickly, mortality
might be very low, and the enterprise might be profitable, but at what price to
the birds? On the other hand, perhaps the chicken is so lacking in intelligence
that inhibiting its natural behaviour through environmental management
and genetic selection means little or nothing to the individual.
Whether we accept that animals, particularly those kept under close
confinement, have behavioural ‘needs’ is a key issue in animal husbandry.
One can imagine that if those needs are genuine then keeping animals in a
barren and unstimulating environment is potentially a source of considerable
suffering. The behavioural needs of animals will be discussed in more detail
in later chapters.
Is it acceptable to perform invasive neurosurgery on a rhesus macaque to
insert electrodes in its brain and perform experiments on it, intermittently,
for several years, if the results of the research lead to more effective treatments
for dementia? What if the research is basic science and simply intended to
provide a better understanding of how the brain works, with no immediate
practical application? Would you prohibit the latter but not the former?

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Wherever the intervention lies on the spectrum between good and bad,
there ought to be an abiding concern about the welfare of animals in almost
every circumstance where humans intervene. As we saw earlier, animal exploi-
tation is not confined to agriculture and research. It includes anything where
humans intervene in the life and fate of animals. Animal exploitation, therefore,
includes the keeping of animals in zoos, as pets and companions, intervening
against ‘pests’, conservation activities, the impact of the built environment,
hunting and trapping, wildlife ‘management’, and any other activity where an
animal’s life and experience are altered – and not in every case for the worse.
In choosing to rely on animals for food, clothing, companionship, sport or
anything else, we are accepting and condoning some degree of intervention
in their lives. This might be direct intervention – I adopt a stray cat, you
shoot a pheasant, he keeps cattle. Or perhaps it is indirect – I buy leather
shoes, you go to the races, she gets a new heart valve.
Each of those interventions has an impact. The animal might be killed
prematurely so we can eat its meat, it might be prevented from breeding
and displaying its full range of normal behaviour, it might be mutilated (for
example, castrated), it might be trapped, poisoned or shot, or it might be
surgically implanted with a device to aid scientific research.
Whatever the nature of the intervention, I believe concerned people ought
to give it some thought. Like it or not, we each have a stake and hence an
interest in farms, zoos, households, the countryside, research facilities and
other places which keep and exploit animals even if we are not directly involved
in their care, management or survival. And however you care to describe it,
these animals are exploited; the relationship is inevitably one-sided, with few
of the benefits falling to the animals. We can and should look after them
well, use humane means when killing is unavoidable, and rear and eat fewer
of them. The only alternative is to stop exploiting animals altogether – but
how realistic is that?

The development of values

Assuming we choose not to stop making use of animals altogether, we have
a moral responsibility to make rational decisions about animal exploitation.
That responsibility obliges us to be better informed. Better information
isn’t always easy to come by, but that shouldn’t be an excuse for making
arbitrary decisions.
Periodically I run into people who have made decisions about food and
animals and what they’re prepared to accept. It’s not uncommon for these
decisions to flow from almost no information, or to be based primarily on
some ill-informed posting on social media. We can do better than this. It
might mean a little bit more effort, but it’s worth it.

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I advocate developing your own values based on hard information. It

pays to think about it and keep thinking about it. It’s the way I did it –
although I did have access to good information. I forged a career from animal
exploitation, so there has been ample opportunity. Whether it was surgically
neutering a cat to prevent it breeding or controlling avian influenza (AI or
bird flu) in enormous flocks of poultry, it is clear that much of what I did was
to facilitate more efficient exploitation of animals. Arguably, a cat does not
directly benefit from being spayed, and the chickens might well have avoided
bird flu had they not been kept in such large groups.
I am not recanting. To be clear, as long as we intervene in the lives of
animals, then a substantial proportion of those interventions will be for our
convenience. But being uncomfortable with one type of animal exploitation
should not automatically mean that the rest is beyond the pale.
I am not advocating veganism or adopting an absolutist position but,
rather than shrugging it off, I am an advocate for intelligent and well-
informed decisions. In some cases I will accept certain types of exploitation.
In others I won’t. Accordingly, I still eat meat, albeit less and less, and certain
types I avoid altogether. I go fishing (admittedly with not much success),
I’ve killed animals for food and to relieve suffering, and I have directed mass
killing of farm animals to control epidemic disease. I’ve ridden horses and I
keep cats. My very survival, following a life-threatening illness, was ensured
by the results of experiments on animals, many of which were completed
decades ago. But I am a passionate conservationist, birdwatcher and wildlife
photographer, and I have a strong interest in animal welfare and animal
ethics. Having recently retired from public service, I am in a better position
to do something to further these interests. This, in part, explains why I have
written this book.
Now that I am no longer working full time, I agonise over this issue
constantly. Why are there inconsistencies in my behaviour? Why worry
about badger killing and its humaneness when I go fishing with barbed
hooks? Should I become vegetarian and campaign against animal experi-
mentation? I sometimes mull over the things I’ve done, seen, colluded in
and failed to stop. Despite that, over the years and almost without conscious
effort, I’ve developed values that set the boundaries of the nature, extent and
duration of animal exploitation that I am prepared to accept. These values,
shaped by experience and knowledge, are not fixed. Influenced by events,
new information and science, and in discussion with experts and friends,
I keep them under review and, occasionally, they change. You could call
it a personal ethical framework – and I provide more detail about this in
Chapter 11.
If you are reading this book, it is likely that you similarly are interested
in animals and their welfare. You might have questioned whether it is right

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to eat meat, and you might worry about whether animal experimentation
is justified. You might have qualms about certain types of livestock farming
and be sceptical about fox hunting or fishing. There is every chance you have
developed a set of values, a personal code that establishes your own boundaries
for animal exploitation, even if you don’t call it that. But, like the majority
of people not directly involved in animal exploitation, getting information
to set those boundaries is hard. How can you be sure your code is informed
by fact and not overly influenced by others’ dogma and propaganda? Is it
consistent, defensible and coherent? Is it up to date? Are you confident that
you have complete and accurate information? Or do you worry that have you
been captured or hoodwinked by pressure groups and commercial interests?
Thanks to ever-increasing knowledge and transparency in our society, we
are better able to scrutinise and regulate animal use than ever before, should
we choose to. As a result, you would expect that the citizen was able to make
granular choices based on information from a variety of sources. And this
is in addition to any regulatory framework that governs the use of animals.
However, the ability to scrutinise is neither consistent nor uniform. Much
animal exploitation takes place behind closed doors or, on the grounds of
security, in secret, and is simply unaccountable.
Some people choose not to look; perhaps they worry that if they visited
an intensive poultry farm or a slaughterhouse, they might not like what they
saw. However, for those of us committed to informed choice, despite living
in a democracy, exercising that choice is all too often hindered by a lack of
transparency and public accountability.
Where do you start? Let’s start at the extremes, at the very boundaries
of a spectrum of ethics. At one end is the absolutist position which has it
that any and all animal exploitation is wrong since it will inevitably cause
the animal to suffer at some stage. It holds that in an environment which
we share with animals, most and perhaps all interactions and interventions
between animals and people should be prohibited or avoided. It is a rational
position, but it is obviously inflexible. Of course, this includes veganism
and an avoidance of all animal products including leather, down jackets and
the new banknotes finished with animal protein as well as meat and dairy
products. I can appreciate the motive but it strikes me as too rigid a position
as it takes no account of the enormous differences between the best and worst
of animal care. Further, it ignores the benefits. For instance, the absolutist
would have us keeping no pets. I am really not comfortable with that. I gain
a great deal of pleasure from my cats and, subjectively, I think they gain
pleasure from me.
The absolutist has no truck with animals in research whatever the
objective. This is difficult territory. Few of us, I believe, would defend the
use of animals to research the safety of cosmetics. Our lives do not depend

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on the development of a new skin moisturiser, particularly if ensuring it is

‘safe’ involves using several hundred rabbits. And in any case, the alternatives
to using animals to determine the safety of new cosmetics are effective in
ensuring safety.10
What about research into disease? The absolutist, abolitionist view
dismisses the benefits that accrue – for example, the human (or animal)
lives saved by dint of increased scientific knowledge. Many of the significant
advances in medicine, including vaccine technology, cancer treatment, organ
transplantation and cardiac medicine, would not have been possible without
using animals at some stage. Although better nutrition and hygiene have
contributed, the sustained reduction in child mortality and our increasing
longevity are thanks in no small part to the results of research on animals.
Increasingly there are alternatives such as cell culture which allow for
research using sophisticated systems that recreate conditions necessary for
research but in ‘glass dishes’ (in vitro) rather than in a live animal. However, the
alternatives have limitations; complex problems require complex solutions,
so researching, for instance, heart disease – where in most cases the entire
circulation has to be taken into account – inevitably involves live animals.
At the other end of the spectrum there is the argument that animals have
no value beyond being a commodity – as a piece of meat, as a research tool,
as a hunter’s quarry. Suffering does not need to be considered, since animals
cannot suffer – or the suffering endured is overridden by the perpetrators’
pleasure, wants or needs. Thankfully, few people now subscribe to such a
position.
Between these two extremes lies the utilitarian argument. Utilitarianism
is the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of
a majority, and it would hold that some but not all animal exploitation is
acceptable. Hence, animal experimentation is justified provided the research
advances, for example, medical knowledge and no alternative exists. It follows
that the minimum number of animals must be used and that the procedures
must be carefully regulated to minimise suffering. A more difficult question
is whether it is justifiable to use animals in the quest for knowledge and with
no immediate prospects of a practical application – known as basic research.
I will return to this in more detail in Chapter 10.
Another difficult question concerns food animal production. Can
a utilitarian argument be made for eating meat? There are alternatives to
animal protein, so why rear animals, often in conditions detrimental to their
welfare, so they can be killed and eaten? I explore the farming of animals in
Chapters 3, 4 and 5.
There are no easy answers. We need the ability and knowledge to make
a choice from a wider appreciation of how animals are kept, cared for and
killed. And from an appreciation of what we as individuals and members of

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society gain as a result. In other words, there is a balance to be struck. Striking

that balance requires each of us to be better informed.

Should we treat all animals the same way?

For reasons that I hope are obvious, I don’t subscribe to an argument that
animals can’t suffer or, importantly, that only certain species have the capacity
to suffer. There is an enormous variety of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and
invertebrates. They exhibit a wide variation in anatomy and physiology,
particularly of the nervous system. Physical differences can be huge and the
way that different species behave varies considerably. There is, I believe, a
natural tendency to believe that animals that share a broadly similar anatomy
with ourselves are more intelligent, and have a greater capacity to feel and to
suffer, than those that are very different. Hence we assume that chimpanzees
are capable of feeling pain and suffering. Most people would assign the same
capacity to most other mammals, although to varying degrees; and when it
comes to mice and rats it is not consistently applied. We as a society tolerate
or, perhaps more accurately, choose to ignore the most extraordinary but
generally legal abuse of intelligent rodents when control of their numbers is
deemed necessary. We use manifestly inhumane poisons and inhumane traps
to kill the mice in our kitchens. And yet any suggestion that similar types of
traps, albeit scaled up and more powerful, could be used for killing surplus
populations of deer that are threatening forestry would have many of us up
in arms.
The evidence that chimpanzees have complex societies, can make and
use tools and show intuitive learning is somehow not surprising. Much of
the knowledge about chimp learning and tool use derives from studies in
which the chimps are rewarded for problem solving. In his book Are We
Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? primatologist Frans de Waal
describes how it was concluded that various species of gibbon were ‘backward
primates’ because they failed to solve problems that chimps could easily
complete.11 This view didn’t change until a different approach was taken, one
that took into account that gibbons were exclusively arboreal and hence were
anatomically quite different to chimps. By a simple redesign of the problem,
which involved placing the object central to the study in a hanging position
rather than lying on a horizontal surface, it was established that the gibbons
were capable of solving many of the problems previously solved by chimps.
De Waal argues that we need to think smarter if we wish to understand
the extent of animal cognition, and we are destined to fail in that endeavour
if we make assumptions about the behaviour of animals. There’s a lesson here
for those with an interest in animal behaviour: making assumptions about an
animal’s needs solely from extrapolating what we know about ourselves and

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from other better-studied animals is likely to lead to serious mistakes when it

comes to determining their needs and wants. And as science pushes back the
boundaries of our knowledge and we understand better the behaviour of the
less well-studied animals, it is becoming increasingly clear that some animals
with a very different anatomy, behaviour and physiology to those with which
we are more familiar, such as lobsters and octopuses, are very far from being
automata.
We should not therefore treat all animals the same way, but striving to
gain a better understanding of their behaviour and needs will ensure that
we are better placed to meet the challenge of providing them with a safe
and stimulating environment. This brings us to a consideration of whether
animals can think, feel and suffer.

The capacity to suffer

A great deal of effort has been expended, by scientists and philosophers, in
an attempt to determine whether animals have the capacity to suffer. As yet
there is no universally accepted definition of pain, although this one from the
International Association for the Study of Pain is widely used:
an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual
or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage.12

However elegant this definition, it does not solve the problem. It’s effectively
impossible to know whether animals feel pain and have the capacity to suffer,
because pain (and pleasure) are subjective. You cannot be certain an animal
is suffering, frightened or in pain. It is equally difficult to determine whether
an animal is experiencing pleasure. This is because pain and other feelings
are experienced only by the subject, and it applies even to other members of
our own species. If I fall and break my leg in front of you, I might howl and
writhe and you might conclude that I am in pain. But you don’t feel my pain.
You have simply extrapolated from your experience of pain, seen how I have
behaved and concluded, ‘He is in pain’. Making that assumption is the basis
of empathy and compassion in society.
It’s no different with animals. A dog with a broken leg might limp and
howl. Although we can never be certain, for the same reason that you would,
I hope, empathise if the same accident befell me, most people would conclude
the dog was in pain and want to relieve its suffering. It wasn’t always that
way. The seventeenth-century French philosopher René Descartes denied
that animals had reason or intelligence; in effect animals were automata. He
argued that animals did not lack sensations or perceptions, but these could
be explained mechanistically. In contrast to humans, animals by virtue of
not having a soul could not feel pain or anxiety. If animals showed signs of

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 The Exploitation of Animals

distress then this was to protect the body from damage, but the innate state
needed for them to suffer was absent.
Descartes’ views became widely accepted in Europe and North America,
allowing animals to be badly treated with impunity, and it was not until the
middle of the nineteenth century that society’s view and ultimately the law
changed to provide a modicum of protection. Those laws have changed over
time, and now in Britain and the rest of Europe there are comprehensive laws
that govern our use of animals. Current legislation in Britain provides general
protection through a duty of care, while more specific and detailed legislation
covers farm, research and other animals. However, as we will see, these laws
are inconsistent and in need of amendment to take account of our increasing
knowledge of sentience and the capacity of animals to suffer.
The eighteenth-century philosopher Jeremy Bentham was influential in
changing the way we treat animals. He argued that the question is not ‘Can
they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk?’ but ‘Can they suffer?’ In other words, in
the absence of better information, animals need the benefit of the doubt.
And despite an enormous continuing research effort we are still no closer to
a conclusion about consciousness in animals.
In 2017, the animal welfare scientist Marian Stamp Dawkins argued that
‘although the pursuit of consciousness … is one of the most fascinating in the
whole of biology, the extreme difficulty of the search means that understanding
is still a long way off’.13 She contended that we should not ‘base the science
of animal welfare on the assumption that we understand consciousness or
can decide which species are or are not conscious. Animal welfare is far too
important to be made to wait until the hard problem of consciousness has
been solved.’ She suggested ‘two criteria – what keeps animals healthy and
what they themselves want – that together constitute a necessary and at least
partly sufficient basis for an objective, consciousness-free science of animal
welfare’. In essence, Dawkins presents a more modern argument for giving
the benefit of the doubt to animals and their welfare.
But to which animals should we give the benefit of the doubt? Which
animals have the capacity to suffer and which do not? Surely there must
be some animals that we needn’t worry about, species that are so poorly
developed, with such a small brain and so lacking in intelligence that they
lack any capacity to suffer. For other animals, the smart ones with a large
brain, if society deems it necessary or desirable to exploit them, we will look
after their needs and strive to stop them suffering. The rest of them, those
creatures with poorly developed central nervous systems and that don’t look
at all like us, we can stop worrying about and do the minimum necessary to
keep them alive. We can exploit them to a conclusion – a fish pie or a scien-
tific paper, for instance. Surely science can give us the answers we need? ‘We
will allow these animals to suffer, but not those.’ If only it were that simple.

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To play safe, we could apply to all animals Dawkins’s plea to give animals
the benefit of the doubt. That way, you can avoid any risk of suffering by
avoiding all interactions with animals. An alternative, slightly more flexible
approach would be to avoid eating ‘anything with a face’. That means you’d
still be able to eat shellfish, but you’d have to avoid fin fish and crustaceans as
well as mammals and birds. Is the presence of both a nervous system and an
anatomy similar to humans sufficient to conclude that an animal is capable
of feeling pain (and, in this comparison, the anatomy of a fish sufficiently
similar to that of a human – in comparison to a cuttlefish or a cockle)?
In an important paper published in 2014, Sneddon and colleagues reviewed
the evidence of pain in animals and concluded that although it cannot be proven
that animals experience pain, it also cannot be proven that they do not.14 Fish,
cephalopods and decapods all demonstrated responses in experimental condi-
tions that were analogous to responses that are well recognised in mammals
and birds and which are generally accepted as evidence of a pain response. This
gives the lie to the argument that only vertebrates are capable of feeling pain. In
contrast, arthropods (mainly insects) do not exhibit similar responses.
In Britain, the use of cephalopods was, in 2012, brought within the scope
of the law governing animal research – although, curiously, and despite the
evidence, neither decapods nor cephalopods are included within the scope of the
general animal protection law.15 However, the recently enacted Animal Welfare
(Sentience) Act 2022 includes decapods and cephalopods, paving the way for
regulations that would protect these animals in a similar way to vertebrates.16

Sentience
Animal sentience refers to the ability of animals to feel and experience
emotions such as joy, pleasure, pain and fear. The degree to which animals feel
these positive and negative states is contentious. While there is consensus that
most mammals are sentient, or at least they are given the benefit of the doubt,
the extent to which the same view is applied to other groups of animals such
as birds, fish, and reptiles remains the subject of vigorous debate.
The belief that animals have the capacity to suffer drives the animal welfare
movement. It is the reason why animal protection laws exist. But, in addition
to the capacity to suffer, should we assume that these same animals have other
feelings? That is, the ability to feel, perceive or experience? In other words,
are they sentient?
There’s a difference between sentience and the ability to think and reason.
It’s clear that vertebrate animals, or most of them, can think. I’ve watched my
cat stalk a vole in the overgrown field behind my house. It is clear, at least to
me, that a stalking cat is making decisions continuously. The vole is buried deep
in long grass and is stock still. It is making no sound but the cat can smell it.

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 The Exploitation of Animals

Should the cat continue, or is the effort not worth the prize? Should the cat dive
into the rank grass following the scent trail of the vole, or simply wait to see if
it reappears? That looks to me like the cat is thinking, all the while weighing up
the risks, effort and potential reward. Others might argue that the cat is simply
following a set of inbuilt instructions, that is, acting purely instinctively. That
argument falls over when you consider how a kitten’s behaviour changes as it
gains experience, learns and grows. At the age of 16 weeks or so, a kitten will
chase and pounce on anything that moves, but with experience it will become
much more selective and ignore those stimuli that don’t lead to something worth
hunting. It now takes a great deal of persuasion to get my middle-aged cats inter-
ested in anything moving unless it leads to an early meal. Clearly, cats can learn.
But what, if anything, do cats feel? Let’s return to my hunting cat – and
assume that it is experienced and wants to catch something tasty. Successful
or not, does the cat feel exhilarated, frustrated, pleasure or nothing at all? In
over 30 years of keeping and observing cats, I have concluded that cats are
not particularly smart – they are extremely finely tuned hunters but seem to
exhibit limited capacity to learn from experience in the same way that, say, a
raven does. But that is not to say that we should assume that the cat, or any
other mammal, does not have the capacity to feel.
These feelings, if indeed that is what the cat is experiencing, can be
described as sentience. If we assume the cat is sentient, then it follows, in the
absence of other evidence, that we should assume the other animals we are
responsible for are sentient too. And if these animals are capable of feeling
pleasure and frustration, then we have a duty to consider whether these
feelings have a bearing on animal welfare.

Animal rights
I’ve touched on the responsibilities of animal keepers and anyone else
with influence over the way in which humans and animals interact. These
responsibilities, set down in Codes of Practice, Acts of Parliament or in your
own moral code, are things you must or must not do. You must provide
the animal with food and water, protect it from disease and injury, keep it
comfortable, allow it space and a suitable environment to behave naturally.
You must kill it humanely. You must not beat it, neglect it or confine it in too
small a space. But meeting these responsibilities alone might not be enough.
Do animals have rights? And if so, which ones? Do animals have a right to
life, for instance? Remember that while the evidence is equivocal, we take the
view that most animals have the capacity to suffer.
Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation had a profound effect on me.17 I
read it in 1989 while on secondment to the Australian government, at a
time when I was already having doubts about our relationship with animals.

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Although the book has been revised several times since its first publication
in 1975, Singer’s basic premise remains constant: treating animals differently
from humans is ‘speciesism’, and we ‘should give up our claim to “dominion”
over the other species of animal’ and cease keeping animals for meat, research
and other forms of exploitation. It is a compelling argument and one that
has become more relevant as our knowledge of self-awareness in animals has
increased. However, Singer is more nuanced than the outright abolitionist.
For example, more recently he has argued that a utilitarian approach to animal
research may be justified provided the numbers involved are minimised.18
Singer also wrestles with the problem of keeping animals for food and what
some describe as the ‘ultimate harm’, that is, killing an animal so you can eat it.
While few people agree that it’s acceptable to abuse an animal while it is reared
for meat, some people suggest that it is hypocrisy to argue for better conditions
for farmed animals when the ultimate aim is to kill and eat it. There is also an
argument that if it were not for farming and the demand for meat, many of
these animals would not exist – so eating meat is good for animals. There is no
right answer to this – where you land is a matter of personal ethics. However,
even if you were to argue that the few weeks or years of life for a chicken or a
bullock is justified before it is killed so we can eat it, it surely means that the
conditions for that chicken or bullock must meet their wants and needs – and,
as we will see later, many systems of farming fail to do so.
My personal position has changed over time. While I avoid certain meats
(for environmental as well as animal welfare reasons) and I remain opposed to
the use of non-human primates in science, I still eat some meat and support
the use of some animals in applied medical research. It’s a utilitarian position.
And yet I have been described as an animal rights activist (or even extremist)
because I balk at the routine killing of wildlife using techniques that are
demonstrably inhumane and for which there is no evidence of benefit.
My preference is for decisions that affect the animals we exploit to be
backed by evidence and basic principles. In some cases, I will conclude
that the exploitation is acceptable with safeguards, and in others that it is
unacceptable regardless of any of the safeguards that might be applied. Is that
the position of an advocate of animal rights? Or of someone who believes we
have responsibilities towards animals? Or a bit of both? I’m not sure. I don’t
believe that a firm distinction can usefully be made between animal rights
and our responsibilities to animals. Which means that ascribing labels to
particular positions is probably not helpful.

Is there a line to be drawn, and where do we draw it?

Do these arguments, including Singer’s, form a case for veganism? That is,
should we forgo all exploitation of animals, including any direct or indirect

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involvement? Or, though less likely if you are reading this book, you may
follow Descartes and deny the feelings of animals. It depends on your values.
A more rational position, I believe, lies somewhere between these extremes.
That is, we apply a code of ethics based on an acceptance that many, perhaps
most animals are sentient and have the capacity to suffer, but that some
exploitation is acceptable on utilitarian grounds. The spectrum is very wide
and leaves a great deal of room to compromise (or wriggle room, depending
on your viewpoint). I don’t seek to dictate where you sit on the spectrum – I
would rather it is not at either extreme but that’s your choice. Where you
sit has to be a personal decision. There are good reasons for this. First, you
should think for yourself. You might conclude that it is unseemly for morals
to be dictated by anyone but yourself. Second, it’s complicated. There are
so many ways in which animals are exploited, and some will be of more
importance and immediate to you than others. Third, if you do it properly,
you’ll keep it under review.
If you are to make informed choices, then you need information. There
is no shortage of that. You can lose yourself on the internet for days at a
time going from one extreme to another. At one end of the spectrum, there’s
any number of detailed and sometimes lurid websites run by earnest and
often well-informed animal welfare organisations seeking your endorsement,
money or a change in your behaviour. At the other, there are farming and
food organisations and businesses extolling the welfare virtues of their farms,
the care lavished on their animals, and the quality of the meat, eggs and
clothing that they produce. You could read the animal welfare regulations
covering farm animals, pets, research animals and wildlife. You can gain
access to a wide variety of scientific literature. There are organisations like the
‘Red Tractor’ scheme and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animal’s ‘RSPCA Assured’ scheme, both of which approve farms that either
meet statutory requirements or are run to a higher standard that is claimed
to ensure better welfare.19
All of these groups and representative bodies are seeking your attention.
On the one hand, there is propaganda trying to change your mind about
eating meat and urging you to become a vegan, or encouraging you to
campaign against fox hunting or to eschew that new pair of leather brogues
you had your eye on. On the other, we are told ‘Trust us, this meat comes
from farms run well by people who care.’ Even if you give all of them the
benefit of the doubt, how do you find a way through it, distil it down and
make an informed choice? It’s difficult, and if you are just a little sceptical
about the claims, it becomes close to impossible.
Consumers making decisions about animal exploitation is only part of the
solution. Let’s not delude ourselves: my decisions about what not to eat, wear
or shoot will not make a great deal of immediate difference. I made a decision

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several years ago not to eat pheasants and other ‘game’ birds because of my
concern about the way in which organised shoots arrange for the arbitrary,
routine and inhumane killing of predatory mammals and birds. But I am not
naive. That decision isn’t going to make much of a difference to the fate of
the stoat or the carrion crow that fetches up on a shoot looking for pheasant
poults. It might not even make much difference if lots of people make the
same decision.
But significant change can come eventually. Word of mouth, the efforts
of the conservation and animal welfare bodies I support and the exercise
of consumer choice all have an effect. Changes to animal welfare law in
the last 60 years have been profound. This did not come about because
parliament simply thought it a good idea. Research and public inquiries
don’t begin spontaneously. Public pressure for animal welfare reform made
parliamentarians take note – public debate, scientific inquiry and legislation
followed.
Change does not come solely via legislation. Processors and retailers,
especially the big supermarkets, study consumer behaviour carefully and
change their offer accordingly. Perhaps the apparent increase in the number
of bags of pheasant carcasses found dumped in field margins is indicative of a
change in purchasing habits; perhaps supply is outgrowing demand. Perhaps
the increasing range of vegan and vegetarian food in supermarkets is further
evidence of the collective impact of individual decisions.
Although personal decisions made by consumers may be effective if suffi-
cient numbers make the same decision, there are limits. You cannot ‘vote
with your feet’ when it comes to the use of traps to kill wildlife or the use of
animals in research. Despite the general public’s overwhelming opposition to
the use of snares to catch wild mammals, they remain largely unregulated,
freely available and widely used.20 This continued use of snares is a conse-
quence of a combination of three factors: first, the lack of an evidence base
about their animal welfare impact; second, the influence of those who seek to
maintain their use; and, third, a reluctance by governments and parliament
to introduce society’s values into any debate about the continued use of
inhumane methods of killing wildlife.
Of course, there are advocacy groups, non-governmental conservation and
animal welfare organisations all of whom can amass evidence, campaign for
change and act as a collective voice for the concerned citizen. Governments,
as a matter of course, seek views from relevant organisations and individuals
as they develop policy and legislation, although, in my experience, members
of conservation and welfare organisations are generally sceptical about the
degree of influence they exert in this context.
There’s a good case for some wider involvement of the citizen in decisions
about animal exploitation. There is scant opportunity at present. But there

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 The Exploitation of Animals

is a chink in the armour. Since 2013 all premises licensed to use animals
for research have been obliged to establish a body charged with overseeing
animal welfare and ethics.21 These are known as Animal Welfare and Ethics
Review Bodies (AWERB). While a majority of the membership is reserved
for staff of the establishment, there is a requirement for at least one lay person
to be appointed. Run well, these bodies can effect real change in procedures
and even stop work proceeding altogether. Their powers are limited, and
inevitably the deliberations are confidential. However, despite these limita-
tions, it is a step in the right direction in holding the actors to account better
than hitherto.
Although they are protected to some degree by legislation, no such body
exists for wild animals, farmed animals and indeed any other grouping of
exploited animals, although some conservation bodies are making a start.
Government departments frequently appoint individuals from a variety of
disciplines to their expert advisory bodies, although this is generally at the
national level and their involvement rarely extends to making decisions on
issues of ethics. The case for independent lay persons involvement in decisions
in other areas of animal exploitation needs to be considered further, and this
is explored in detail in Chapter 12.

Summary
Animal exploitation forms an important part of our way of life, and
contributes to our prosperity and wellbeing. The scale and nature of that
exploitation means that there is considerable risk of suffering, but, for a
variety of reasons, it is difficult for the private citizen to determine where,
how and by how much animals are suffering. There is a moral imperative on
us all to make decisions and to exert influence, but the ability to make an
objective analysis is hindered because information is either scant or absent.
However, better information can inform personal ethically based decisions
and can be used to influence the institutions and rules that govern the way in
which animals are treated.
This book is intended to help interested and concerned people to make
informed decisions. It is not solely about animal welfare, and although it
includes much about welfare, I have striven to avoid polemic. Nor is it a plea
for veganism or vegetarianism, although it might help you make the choice
one way or the other. It is not a book on animal rights, although it touches on
the notion of rights for animals since I believe we need to give greater respect
and protection to animals.
The remainder of this book addresses these issues, covering the various ways
animals are exploited, with examples from current systems of livestock and
poultry husbandry, animal research, wildlife conservation and management,

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and other animal uses. This includes the more insidious and indirect
interventions that have a bearing on the experience and fate of animals.
Chapter 2 investigates differing attitudes and anomalies in protection and
care between often closely related animals. In Chapters 3, 4 and 5, I consider
the main farmed species, detailing how practices both new and old affect
behaviour, disease, welfare and, ultimately, mortality. Chapter 6 covers
wildlife, including the dubious ethics of much wildlife ‘management’, and
considers how best to introduce a more humane approach. In Chapter 7,
I explore how the exploitation of animals in conservation is managed. Animals
used in sport, whether for racing or recreational shooting, are the subject
of Chapter 8. The knotty question of whether pet animals are exploited
is considered in Chapter 9, and in Chapter 10 I consider animals used in
research – perhaps the most highly regulated but least understood area of
animal exploitation. In Chapter 11, I introduce my own personal ethical
framework. Finally, Chapter 12 advocates more consistency in our relation-
ships with animals, based on societal governance and evidence-based rules.

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