Animal welfare law: pros and cons?

So­cial sen­si­tiv­ity to­wards an­i­mal rights is grow­ing, and this leads to all kinds of changes. On the one hand, changes re­lated to human be­hav­iour cause a se­ries of rel­e­vant trans­for­ma­tions, unimag­in­able just a cou­ple of years ago. Whether it is do­mes­tic an­i­mals or farm an­i­mals, the num­ber of peo­ple who de­mand a de­cent treat­ment for an­i­mals is grow­ing ex­po­nen­tially. On the other hand, gov­ern­ments are start­ing to pro­mote more re­stric­tive and at the same time more ef­fec­tive leg­is­la­tion, which ends up caus­ing cul­tural clashes that are still dif­fi­cult to re­solve.

The lat­est such leg­is­la­tion, the an­i­mal wel­fare law, came into force last Sep­tem­ber 29 (for more in­for­ma­tion, see pages 12-15 of this issue) and has al­ready sparked a lively con­tro­versy due to the changes it will bring. From now on, leav­ing your pet alone while shop­ping in a store can be sub­ject to a con­sid­er­able fine. On the other hand, the new law also bans the dis­play of an­i­mals in shop win­dows and out­laws the prac­tice of putting stray an­i­mals down in dog ken­nels after they have been there un­claimed for 20 days. And should hunt­ing dogs and bulls be ex­cluded from the law’s pro­tec­tion? And so on...the con­tro­versy has only begun.

While on the one hand so­cial con­sen­sus on the need to erad­i­cate prac­tices such as aban­don­ment and abuse is on the rise, on the other the most ex­treme mea­sures pro­voke a re­jec­tion that en­dan­gers the progress that has been made. Al­though com­pan­ion an­i­mals play a very im­por­tant role in our so­ci­ety, the ten­dency to hu­man­ise re­la­tion­ships with do­mes­tic an­i­mals is a mis­take that can lead to un­de­sir­able con­se­quences.

It is clear that a whole busi­ness has been built around the hu­man­i­sa­tion of com­pan­ion an­i­mals; one only has to look at the pro­lif­er­a­tion of so­phis­ti­cated ser­vices and prod­ucts ded­i­cated to pets to re­alise that be­hind the dis­course of rights and pro­tec­tion there are also in­ter­ests that go far be­yond an­i­mal rights.