Activity

“If we fail to regulate effectively the way fish are treated, the threat to animal welfare is not simply that one animal will be subjected to preventable pain, but that over one trillion animals per year will….Similarly, if our policy target is the regulation of animals used in scientific research, we should note that, according to European Union statistics, about 11.5 million vertebrates and countless invertebrates (at the time of writing, there are still no published figures for cephalopods, the only protected class of invertebrates) are used every year for scientific purposes in the EU alone [2013]. If we underestimate the taxonomic range of animal sentience, and thereby exclude from the scope of animal protection some species that should be included, the threat to animal welfare is not simply that one animal will be subjected to preventable pain in the laboratory, but that millions of animals per year will..the appropriate burden of proof [of sentience] has, in my view, been attained in the case of octopods, decapod crustaceans and many orders of bony fish.” http://animalstudiesrepository.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1200&context=animsent