The Development of an Animal Welfare Impact Assessment (Awia) Tool and Its Application to Bovine Tuberculosis and Badger Control in England
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12496293 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven McCulloch (0000-0003-2161-1911, University of Winchester, corresponding author), Steven P McCulloch, Michael J Reis (0000-0003-1207-4229, University College London) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 485-510 |
| Publication date | 2017-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1187-7863 • E-ISSN: 1573-322X |
| Publisher | Springer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10806-017-9684-5 |
| OpenAlex | W2745682140 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 16 |
Bovine tuberculosis (bovine TB) is a controversial animal health policy issue in England, which impacts farmers, the public, cattle and badgers. Badgers (Meles meles) act as a wildlife reservoir of disease. Policy options for badger control include (1) do nothing, (2) badger culling, and (3) badger vaccination. This paper argues for mandatory Animal Welfare Impact Assessment (AWIA) for all policy that significantly affects sentient animals. AWIA includes (1) species description, and (2) AWIA analysis stages. In this paper, AWIA is applied to impacts of bovine TB policy options on cattle and badgers. Over 4 years, 85,000 badgers will be culled to prevent the slaughter of ~17,750 cattle over 9 years. Hence, about five badgers are culled for every cow which avoids slaughter. The AWIA analyses the impact of badger vaccination on cows and badgers based on a set of stated assumptions. The AWIA estimates badger vaccination to reduce the number of cows slaughtered by 11,600, i.e. a 12.5% reduction. Additional to the harm of killing, culling has greater welfare impacts on badgers compared to non-culling options. Actors in animal health and welfare policy were interviewed about the concept of AWIA. Policy actors supported the idea of AWIA to provide objective data to feed into policy making. The paper concludes with the proposal that AWIA is a necessary stage of just policy making where sentient animals are impacted by government policy
Animal welfare · Badger · Biology · Bovine tuberculosis · Culling · Economics · Geography · Government (linguistics · Livestock · Meles · Mycobacterium bovis · Political science · Socioeconomics · Tuberculosis · Vaccination · Veterinary medicine · Welfare · Wildlife · Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies · Animal Disease Management and Epidemiology · Law · Medicine · Zoonotic diseases and public health · Ecology · Immunology
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| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,67 |
| Citation span | 2017 - 2024 (8) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |