National Institute of Animal Welfare, Ministry of Environment and Forest, New Delhi, India.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
Animal Welfarists supports the view that human's do nothing wrong when they use animals in experiment, raise them to be sold as meat or used for milk production or even hunt and trap them for sports and profit. On contrary animal rightists have strong conviction that all above three activities are wrong in principle and should be abolished in practice.
Animal Welfare as per the definition recorded in Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary is “The avoidance of abuse and exploitation of animals by humans by maintaining appropriate standards of accommodation, feeding and general care, the prevention and treatment of disease and the assurance of freedom from harassment and unnecessary discomfort and pain.” The above definition highlights the fact that Animal welfare is interpreted merely as satisfying essential physical needs of an animal while completely ignoring its psychological and emotional needs. And at the same time the above definition is criticized by animal activist that this accepts that some degree of pain and discomfort may/will be inflicted on animals as they are there to serve humans as food, fur, entertainment or farm labor and research tool.
The current paper discusses problems of only three groups of animals used by human beings. However, there are many other animal uses. They also have several problems. Views expressed by the stakeholders on issue and prospective of animal welfare and animal wellbeing of three groups of animals were recorded while they were undertaking training on Animal Welfare and Norms and Standards of supervision of animals in experiments and research.
