Animal Welfare: Global Issues, Trends and Challenges. Scientific and Technical Review, Vol. 24 (2)

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• The term does not express a scientific concept but, because the scientific method is used to identify, interpret, and implement societal concerns about animal quality of life issues, animal welfare has evolved to become a scientific field.

• the notions of the animal in complete mental and physical health, the animal in harmony with its environment, the animal being able to adapt, without suffering, to an artificial environment provided by human beings and, somehow, the animal’s feelings should be taken into account

• here is an increasing body of evidence about the physiology of companion animal brains, as well as scientific studies, which support the view that there are similarities between humans and their animal companions.

• wild and captive animals, science-based assessment of animal welfare has to rely on behavior and Darwinian fitness because detailed physiological study of free-living animals is impossible and it is difficult in captive animals, as explained in the paper dealing with this subject