Lecture 9, Feb 3rd: EA's Approach to Alleviate Animal Suffering

Types of Animal Welfare Advocacy

1) Wild life suffering

- 20 billion billion wild animals

- Constant fear and hunger, eaten alive

- Highly neglected

- We do not know an effective way to do address

Most people: we should only address the suffering that humans cause to animals

2) Sanctuary for pets

- Few animals suffer from mistreatment

- Their suffering is relatively low

- Relatively expensive

- Few animals involved by definition

- Most important gains done

3) Endangered species

- Not cost effective

- EA is welfarist (biodiversity is not accounted for)

- Few animals involved by definition

4) Animals in labs and for fur

- Historically not neglected

- 192 million animals in labs (few)

- Most important gains done

5) Animals in entertainment

- zoos, circuses, rodeos, and television

- Few animals

- Very visible / suffering creates pleasure

6) Industrial farming (EA’s focus)

- Suffer immensely

- Numerous

- Strong track record

- Comparatively neglected

Why care for industrial farm animals

1) Animal-centred reasons

Suffering: The evidence is very strong that

animals feel pain. I will not argue this is the

case; we will assume it.

- Large amounts of animals killed each year:

• 7.6-76 trillion shrimps (at least 1,000 times humanity)

• At least one trillion fish ( at least 100 times humanity)

• 75 billion chickens (almost 10 times humanity)

• 300 million cattle are slaughtered

• 1.5 billion pigs

• 1 billion rabbits

• 3 billion ducks

  Vast amount of pain

• Conditions in which they live are atrocious

• Large numbers of animals killed per year

We have a good track record:

- Previous successful campaigns

- Free-range

- Cage-free Etc.

- “Humane” killing

2) Human-centred reasons

Health

• Eating animal products is not necessary for human life or health

• Some studies: vegans live significantly longer (between 5 and 15 years) than omnivores

• Other studies: no significant differences, never vegan live shorter lies

• Some nutrients might be challenging to obtain on a vegan diet

• We can safely assume that veganism is not detrimental to human life

Pandemic

• Most human infectious diseases and pandemics originate through cross-

species transmission

• Bats are the main contributors, followed by industrial farm animals

Environment

• 25% of greenhouse gas emissions are from food production

• Animal products are responsible for 75% of this 25%

• Animal products account for 83% of all agricultural land use.

Ex: swine flue, bird flu, h1n1, etc.

Quantifying the good done for animals

• For the species ‘human’, we have QALYs, but there are many species of Animals, so quantifying good is more difficult on an interspecies level

- Different lifespans

- their suffering might have a different weight

- many technical issues

- the number of neurons per animal

Many metrics have been developed

- the size of their brain

- the ratio of the size of their brain to their body

- Shrimps tend to dominate the metrics because they are so numerous (even compared to humans!!)

Pro human initiatives and pro animal initiatives are separated in the movement

The kinds of interventions

1) Corporate advocacy

• Securing a pledge by large corporations

• Large outreach with a single pledge

• Even a small commitment can cumulate a lot of good

• Many successes in the past

2) Systemic change

• Abolish industrial animal farming

• Large demand for animal products

• The animal industry is lucrative

• Culturally embedded

• Employs many people

3) Persuasion to change diet

• If nobody wants animal products, industrial farming collapses

• It was invested in by EA before, but not anymore

4) Alternatives to products

• Non-animal substitutes to animal products

• Lab-grown meat (painless)

  • “Meat grown independently from an animal

nervous system, is one of the most promising

interventions for reducing animal suffering.” But clean meat would cost about US$63 a kg

to produce in a large scale facility.

EA’s Supported Interventions (Top 3)

1) Aquatic Life Institute (ALI):

• Carries out a range of strategies to help reduce the significant suffering endured by trillions of farmed and wild-caught aquatic animals. These are among the most neglected animals in animal advocacy despite being more numerous than all land animals combined. ALI develops strategic campaigns that are likely to bring both significant short-term benefits and longer-term systemic change to relieve the suffering of aquatic animals. They do this through successful engagement with a range of influential stakeholders throughout the supply chain, including policy-makers, retailers, and certifiers.

• ALI has a strong track record of success and has been able to help many animals at relatively little cost

• For example, through their corporate outreach program, we estimate they have reduced the suffering of thousands of shrimps per dollar spent

2) Çiftlik Hayvanlarını Koruma Derneği (ÇHKD):

• ÇHKD is the only organization working to improve the lives of more than 109 million egg-laying hens and 680 million farmed fishes that suffer at any given time in food production systems in Türkiye. ÇHKD strategically develops programs that maximize the number of animals that can benefit by pushing for welfare improvements for egg-laying hens and farmed fishes

• They do this by securing cage-free commitments from companies via

corporate outreach and targeted pressure campaigns ...

3) Faunalytics:

• Faunalytics is a U.S.-based organization that connects animal advocates with important information relevant to advocacy.

• Their work mainly involves conducting and publishing independent research, working directly with partner organizations on various research projects, and promoting existing research and data for animal advocates through their website’s content library.

• Faunalytics work helps fill the current evidence gap in animal advocacy, which is

important to fill so we can grow an evidence-based, resilient movement