Don’t Treat Animals as Furry Test-tubes
Most of us agree that there is a moral obligation to minimize the suffering of any captive animals. In addition, there are numerous self-serving reasons why we should respect the welfare of our captive companions. However, the impact of poor animal welfare on the quality of animal science always concerns a scientist the most.
Rodents(灵长类动物) make up over 80% of the animals used in scientific procedures, and most are kept in small, barren cages. Such housing is known to constrain normal development, affecting the structure and function of rodent brains. These rodents may spend 50% of waking hours performing repetitive activities without apparent purpose. This abnormal behavior is likely to reflect what is going on inside the body. As ethnologist Hanno Wfirbel, of the Justus Liebig University of Giessen, Germany, puts it," The point that the environment might change behavior but it doesn’t change biology is ridiculous. Every behavior has a physiological background."
If welfare affects behavior, and therefore biology, it will affect scientific outcomes. As long as we continue to treat experimental animals as " furry test-tubes", ignoring their abilities and needs, we ener the quality of the work we do with them.
So, how can we improve life for other species when we cannot experience it as they do We’d better ask the animals. Ask them what they need, and what causes them suffering, through carefully designed preference tests and in-depth behavioural research.
Scientists have already begun this task, and have been told some important and unexpected facts by their study subjects. By consistently self-medicating with pain killers, broiler chickens (嫩鸡) have told us that they are in chronic pain. By moving a barrier twice their size, mink (水貂) have told us that water baths are the most important enrichment for them. By only stopping their fruitless stereotypic digging in certain circumstances, gerbils(沙鼠) have told us that they need to be able to sleep in tunneled nest-boxes. By behaving normally again, starlings have told us that they need high frequency light bulbs.
Don’t Treat Animals as Furry Test-tubesWhat is the author’s attitude towards the way most experimental animals are treated