Biology of suffering
A human eye an animal inside a cage or one being chased by a predator appears to be suffering. But a new theory suggests that things may be different from what they appear. For a situation that brings suffering to one animal may not do so in another's case. An animal is suffering or not depends on whether evolution has designed it to deal with such a condition. If it has, then the risk of suffering may not be as great as we might imagine (New Scientist, Vol 153, No 2074).
Two British zoologists, claim that the explanation of animal suffering is not that simple. Chris Barnard and Jane Hurst of the University of Nottingham, in the LIK, argue that to unravel the puzzle of when an animal might be suffering, it is important to understand how it has evolved to value its own Survival and well-being. "Animals cannot be assumed to suffer no matter how nasty the situation may seem to us if in fact, natural selection has 'designed' them to function in that particular situation," they say.
So look at a situation from an animal's point of view, declare the scientists. The scientists claim that an animal may not dread being chased by a predator, because it is only doing what comes naturally. It does not suffer because it is a contingency that natural selection has adapted it to deal with. Interestingly, the assumption tkat a rabbit running away from the clutches of a fox is under fear, is struck down. It is suggested that the rabbit has been designed to adapt to the situation.
In contrast, a fox in a similar situation may suffer for it is a predator without a natural enemy, thus without a capacity to cope with the experience of being hunted.
Elucidating their point, the scientists claim that, "fear and hunger only lead to suffering when an animal's adaptive responses fail. Suffering is triggered when the world frustrates an animal's adaptive drives".
Bernard uses an analogy to explain his criticisms of conventional approaches to animal welfare. It is like having a Ferrari, polishing it and maintaining it meticulously for years, yet never taking it out of the garage. What we should be trying to achieve, he says, is a wellfunctioning Ferrari on the road. The animal which is performing its natural behaviors is like the finely tuned car in action. According to Bernard trouble arises when you treat the car (or animal) in a way that its designers (evolution) didn't intend.
Using a range of behavioural and physiological techniques including measurements of blood pressure, stress hormone levels and the strength of the immune system, researchers found that animals suffer onlywhcn they are forced to perform outside their'design criteria' set by evolution. This is evident in animals imprisoned in laboratory cages and farms. The captivity prevents them from acting in line with the in-built design rules guiding their behaviour. "An animal riding a hot plate to test analgesia, an animal restrained and injected - in these conditions we are self-evidently inflicting an imposition on the animal that it is not designed to cope with," say the researchers.
The scientists made an interesting observation while studying imprisoned laboratory animals. Female rats and mice make many more attempts than males to escape front their cages, when housed singly or in same-sex groups. And the males seem much more at case on their own or with other males, The explanation based on their evolutionary design criteria is equally fascinating. In the wild, mate rats and mice compete with other males as they try to establish dominance and to set up and defend territories. In a sense, males either interact with other males, or exclude them.But in nature, a mature female mouse or rat would never live alone or only with other females. She would move into a mate's territory to mate, and would then aggressively fend off other females who might threaten her offspring. Males expect direct competition with each other, but females compete for space.
In captivity, the dullness and predictability of life frustrates an animal's design rules. So what can improve matters for the hapless prisoners? Carefully planned "environmental enrichment" - propose the scientists. Increasing the apparent naturalness of an animal's surroundings may be beneficial. For example, dispersing food around cages is better than a single feeding station as it simulates the patchiness of natural resources. Further, researchers suggest that animal welfare campaigners and experimenters should consider day to day husbandry feeding regimens, laboratory housing and the like - to better suit the design criteria of individual species. "Animal welfare campaigners weak on evolution- ary theory should benefit from this discovery. For anyone wishing to promote animal welfare must first have their cvolutionary spectacles firmly in place", add the scientists.
The theory by Bernard and Hurst has met with mixed responses from fellow acadmecians. "It's a thought provoking view," says Mike Mench, who researches into the welfare of pigs at Bristol University's school of veterinary sciences. I lis misgivings centre on the difficulty of defining a 'decision rule' or 'design criterion' for a particular animal. Carolina Manser, a vet in Cambridge, who specialiscs in animal welfare issues, argues that the zoologists have no evidence that a mouse fleeing a cat, for example, is not suffering. in the circumstances, says Manser, "I would rather give the benefit of doubt to the Mouse."
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