Phillips Clive J C, Molento Carla F M
Centre for Animal Welfare and Ethics, School of Veterinary Science, The University of Queensland, Gatton, QLD 4343, Australia.
Animal Welfare Laboratory, Animal Science Department, Federal University of Parana, Curitiba, R. dos Funcionarios 1540, Brazil.
Animals (Basel). 2020 May 18;10(5):877. doi: 10.3390/ani10050877.
Animal welfare has emerged as a scientific discipline only in the past 30 years, but a significant body of scientists has developed worldwide in this time. Over the past quarter century, several aggregations of scientists, centres of animal welfare, have become established. This can bring the benefits of the recognition of expertise and an opportunity to support animal industries in improving welfare, but it also brings the risk of scientists being influenced by these industries and failing to identify animal welfare problems as such. We conducted a bibliometric search of the scientific literature with the purpose of comparing the characteristics of publications on animal welfare that were or were not from animal welfare centres in academic institutions. We found that the number of publications on animal welfare from centres of animal welfare increased, initially, in the early 2000s and again in the last decade. Significant funding was obtained from the livestock industries for these centres. In a second search, we identified that only about 8% of scientific publications on animal welfare came from animal welfare centres, and the rest were mainly supported by funding sources other than the animal industries. It is concluded that the emergence of significant animal welfare centres, often with significant funding from industry, allows clusters of scientists to develop that could advance animal welfare knowledge more effectively than disparate scientists in isolated institutions. However, industry funding risks these scientists being aligned with industry goals that may not include animal welfare improvement to the extent required by the public. Further research to identify any ethical conflicts for scientists in animal welfare centres would be warranted.
动物福利作为一门科学学科仅仅是在过去30年才出现的，但在此期间全球已涌现出大量的科学家。在过去的四分之一世纪里，已经形成了几个科学家群体，即动物福利中心。这能够带来认可专业知识的益处，以及为动物产业改善福利提供支持的机会，但这也带来了科学家受到这些产业影响，无法识别动物福利问题本身的风险。我们对科学文献进行了文献计量学检索，目的是比较来自学术机构中动物福利中心和非动物福利中心的动物福利相关出版物的特征。我们发现，动物福利中心的动物福利相关出版物数量在21世纪初开始增加，并且在过去十年再次增加。这些中心从畜牧业获得了大量资金。在第二次检索中，我们发现关于动物福利的科学出版物中只有约8%来自动物福利中心，其余主要由动物产业以外的资金来源支持。结论是，重要动物福利中心的出现，通常伴随着来自产业的大量资金，使得科学家群体得以发展，这可能比孤立机构中分散的科学家更有效地推进动物福利知识。然而，产业资金存在风险，即这些科学家可能会与产业目标保持一致，而这些目标可能没有达到公众所要求的动物福利改善程度。有必要进行进一步研究，以确定动物福利中心的科学家是否存在任何道德冲突。
