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Animal Welfare

Animal rights and animal welfare cover a huge spectrum of ideas and beliefs.

The animal rights viewpoint is basically that humans do not have the right to use animals for their own gain at all—in the laboratory, on the farm, in entertainment or in the wild. The animal welfare viewpoint advocates for limiting or preventing cruel treatment of animals. According to the animal welfare perspective, human use of animals is acceptable if animal suffering is preventable. In practice however it is not always that simple to make this distinction between animal rights and animal welfare positions. In many cases, organizations or individuals who describe themselves as animal rights advocates may support animal welfare efforts as an intermediate step on the path to a true animal rights solution. While the perspectives differ, both involve a concern for the suffering of others.

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Some of the information and action ideas on our site are from the animal welfare perspective and others are closer to animal rights. Read about the issues and figure out how you personally feel on this topic.

Animal Cruelty

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Cruel treatment comes in many forms - learn about them and see what you can do.

Animal Homelessness

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There are 4-6 million homeless pets in the U.S. in need of a good home. Learn more about the cause…

Animal Testing

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An estimated 2,000,000 animals are used in research in the U.S. each year.

Endangered Species

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Since 1600, more than 700 species of plants and animals have gone extinct.

Factory Farms

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These operations treat animals with hormones and antibiotics to prevent disease.

Puppy Mills

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Behind the cute pet store showroom is an entire industry of inhumane animal breeding.



Related Animal Welfare news

Shelter Animals Go to Research

Lots of people think that shelter animals that aren’t adopted are euthanized or if they’re in a no-kill shelter, they remain their for their rest of their lives. News is this may not always be true.

Five U.S. states require shelters to send un-adopted animals to research facilities. So if those homeless kitties or doggies aren’t adopted in Minnesota, Oklahoma and Utah, they’re sent to research facilities where they’re often subjected to all sorts of tests. In Iowa and Ohio, un-adopted animals are shipped off only if a research facility makes a request.

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Cheetahs to help disabled?

Don’t look for seeing-eye cheetahs anytime in the near future, but the agile cats may help disabled people in a surprising way – by inspiring better artificial legs.

One athlete has already benefited from research on animals: South African paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius sprints on carbon fiber artificial feet called the "Cheetah".

Researchers are studying cheetahs hoping that by discovering what makes the cheetah the fastest land mammal in the world they'll discover the key to more sophisticated ways of helping humans run faster and designing human prosthetics.

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