Equine welfare and legislation.
E.L. Nyhus and J.L. Albright, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN
The purpose of this paper was to collect legislation regarding the welfare
of horses. Welfare or well-being, as defined by Broom (1990), is "an individual's
state as regards its attempts to cope with its environment." Assessment
of welfare may be achieved by measuring an animal's behavior, physiological
parameters, and physical damage to the animal. Animal suffering can be
the result of four basic actions or inactions of human beings - abuse,
cruelty, neglect, and deprivation. The first, abuse, is the active or willful
participation in the physical mistreatment of an animal. Cruelty generally
refers to the abuse of an animal with an element of psychological maltreatment
which leads to suffering or grief. Neglect occurs when an animal i s not
provided with necessary provisions such as food, water, shelter, or veterinary
care. Finally, deprivation describes implied cruelties which negatively
affect the animal's behavioral and psychological needs, such as restricting
an animal's freedom or offering inadequate environmental stimulation resulting
in "stressed," "bored," or "unhappy" animals. Equine legislation is based
on the first three of these, and examples include the Horse Protection
Act, as well as horse tripping, tail docking, and state humane laws. In
cases of abuse or cruelty, the observer would likely see evidence of physical
abnormalities, such as lacerations or cuts on the horse. Assessment of
neglect can be made by body condition scoring the animal, performing a
skin test to check for dehydration, or observing the health of the horse.
However, there is very little legislation concerning deprivation in horses,
as the measurement of this is difficult. In order for solid, effective
legislation to be drafted concerning t he welfare of animals in terms of
deprivation, there is a need for more scientific studies addressing the
issue of an animal's psychological well-being.