Episode 4 – Animal welfare on the move

Intro (00:09):

Science on the menu, a podcast by the European Food Safety Authority.

James (00:19):

Hello everybody, and welcome to the latest edition of our podcast series, Science on the Menu. Today, we are going to be talking about animal welfare, and I am very happy to have an animal welfare expert with us from EFSA, Sean. Sean, hi, how are you?

Sean (00:36):

Hello, James. I am very well, thanks.

James (00:37):

Great. Very glad to have you here with us today. So, animals are sentient beings, and this is not just my opinion or anyone's opinion, but a principle recognised in EU law. And we know the topic of animal welfare, which has always been important, obviously has become increasingly relevant and prominent in the public debate in recent years. All animal welfare legislation at the moment is in the process of being updated. And EFSA is also very active in this space. So that is why we are talking about animal welfare today. Before we really jump into the topic, I would like to ask you, Sean to give us a bit of a background about who you are, where you come from, how you ended up working at EFSA.

Sean (01:25):

Oh, this is a very long story, but I will try and make it somewhat short. I am a vet, graduated in 1996, spent a few years in practice. That is working as a, you know, a real-life hands-on vet in the west of Ireland for about four years. Then I joined the Competent Authority in Ireland, which is the Department of Agriculture. Worked on various things there. And in 2020, I was asked to come along and do some work here at EFSA subsequent to a new mandate arriving from the European Commission on the welfare of animals during transport.

James (01:59):

Ah, okay. So is that an area that you are particularly familiar with or specialised in?

Sean (02:05):

I was involved in live animal trade in the Department of Agriculture in Ireland, the policy side of that, for the five years prior to coming to Parma.

James (02:17):

So, animal welfare… Some people might be surprised that an agency like EFSA, which is essentially dealing with food safety, has animal welfare as part of its remit. So, what is the link then between food safety and animal welfare?

Sean (02:33):

The more you look after the welfare of an animal, the healthier it will be. And broadly speaking, the healthier it is going to be, the better the quality of the food that will come from it. And that is essentially why EFSA is involved in giving independent scientific advice to the risk managers in that area.

James (02:52):

Okay. So it is the kind of with the farm to fork principle in mind, you are looking also at the welfare of the animals, because the logic being that, you know, that translates also further down the food chain and has an impact on the food that we eat

Sean (03:06):

Exactly. But it also goes hand in hand. So the happier the animals are, in essence, the healthier they will be. And also it works the other way around as well, and that if you have an unhealthy animal, by definition, the welfare is negatively impacted.

James (03:20):

Okay. It is such an interesting area of EFSA as well because obviously at EFSA we apply a scientific approach to the way that we assess animal welfare hazards. But for many people, the question of animal welfare is tied up with, you know, ethics. It is an ethical issue. With EFSA's work, do you consider ethical questions when you go about your assessments? And if not, and I suspect it is a no, how do you separate the science from ethical considerations?

Sean (03:56):

That is a really interesting question, James, because very often you will hear from our animal welfare experts here that "No, that is not an animal welfare question. That is an ethical question." Hmm, so...

James (04:10):

Can you give me an example?

Sean (04:12):

Well, the way I describe it to myself is that animal welfare is about how the animal itself experiences life.

James (04:19):

Okay.

Sean (04:20):

Does it have a good life or otherwise? And you can even push that to “how is the animal feeling today? “What state is it in?”, “Is it happy or sad or depressed or whatever?”. Ethics then is about right and wrong and is very much a human-based thing and is very much dependent on your own person.

James (04:39):

We do social research. We know that animal welfare, for example, the sort of attitudes towards animal welfare attitudes towards the welfare of specific animals is different from one country to another.

Sean (04:52):

Exactly, exactly. So sometimes we found ourselves when you have a group of animal welfare experts there, they will say, well, that question falls outside our remit. You know, maybe that is a question for society at large.

James (05:06):

Let us just take a step back and look at the bigger picture. So what is going on now at an EU level as far as legislation is concerned?

Sean (05:14):

Essentially, at the moment, there is a revamp of all the European legislation in relation to all farmed animals. As part of that, the European Commission asks EFSA from time to time to carry out risk assessments for particular species or particular types of animals. The content of these scientific opinions will then be used by the risk managers. In other words, the legislators in the European Commission to draft legislative proposals, which will essentially, once they are finalised, be the law in Europe, how animals are supposed to be treated.

James (05:49):

Okay. EFSA has a clear role in kind of informing the science, the scientific sort of basis for that. And I was reading recently about a European citizens initiative the End the Cage Age initiative, which is essentially a grassroots movement by EU citizens who advocate for an end to the practice of cage farming in the EU. And their focus was on mother pigs or sows. But the campaign covers all animals. Does this factor at all enter into the decision by the Commission to revise legislation or to send us these requests for scientific advice? Or are we addressing some of the issues in any way raised by the campaign in the work that we are doing?

Sean (06:32):

In some of the mandates, for example, the welfare of calves in husbandry, they would be addressing probably exactly that questions there that you have raised. In other words, the keeping of farm animals in very small containers, you might call them cages. If you wanted to.

James (06:51):

Yeah.

Sean (06:52):

The origins of that, it is a very interesting concept where basically you get a petition and if you get a million signatories on your petition, then the Commission has to look at this and respond to it in some kind of way.

James (07:05):

Yeah.

Sean (07:07):

I think it is a very interesting and a very powerful tool now that society has.

James (07:10):

Indeed, yeah. Direct democracy in action.

Sean (07:14):

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

James (07:15):

And I think it is the sixth or the seventh citizen's initiative that was made in the past. There is a threshold, isn't it there? I think it is a million signatures you have to get from a certain number of member states and then like you say it obliges of the Commission to act in some way.

Sean (07:32):

Yeah. The End the Cage Age one is probably -and I would be biased here because I am more on the lookout for animal welfare related topics- almost a catchphrase throughout society now.

James (07:44):

Yeah.

Sean (07:45):

Simply as a result of that.

James (07:46):

Yeah. Going back to what we are doing here at EFSA. You said we are producing a series of scientific opinions, essentially. This is scientific advice in response to specific questions that we have received from the European Commission that will feed into and inform the revision of this legislation. What are we looking at there? What specifically are we looking at with these scientific opinions that we are doing?

Sean (08:13):

There is loads of work ongoing at the moment. There is an opinion being generated for the welfare of calves and also for dairy cows, for example. But we have already published five separate opinions on the welfare of animals during transport in September. An opinion for cattle, an opinion for sheep, pigs, horses, poultry and rabbits.

James (08:35):

Okay. And that is specifically looking at transport.

Sean (08:38):

That is specifically looking at the welfare of animals for essentially most types of transportation.

James (08:44):

Okay. And, to my mind, that would mean, you know, looking at the conditions that animals experience during the process of transportation from, I do not know, where maybe the farm to slaughter the house or whatever it is, that kind of thing.

Sean (08:59):

Exactly, exactly. It is a very complex area with loads of moving parts.

James (09:04):

Yeah.

Sean (09:05):

So, what we would have done in trying to deliver our opinions on that is we would have divided the transport of animals into stages. Preparation, loading the journey itself, unloading, rest breaks, etc. And then we would try and assess the welfare of the animals for each of those stages.

James (09:27):

Okay. So, what kind of things are you looking at in particular?

Sean (09:33):

We started by looking at negative things, negative welfare consequences. Identifying those for each stage and then seeing what causes those, or we call those things hazards.

James (09:46):

Okay.

Sean (09:46):

So, then we have a welfare consequence linked to a hazards, and then we try to make recommendations which will either reduce the level of the welfare consequence or eliminate it altogether.

James (09:57):

Okay. Can you give me an example with the transport?

Sean (10:00):

The transport… would be in terms of heat stress, for example, which can be a very serious problem. experienced while livestock is being transported throughout Europe. Particularly in the summer months, obviously, and particularly if they are queuing at a border to maybe be exported. The opinion, having identified there significant welfare consequences, makes recommendations in terms of what temperatures the animals should not be exposed tp, an upper threshold, that is the word, of the temperature which the animals experience within the truck.

James (10:35):

Yeah.

Sean (10:36):

In this context.

James (10:37):

Okay.

Sean (10:37):

Space is another very important area, which is obviously fairly relevant to legislation because you can define it, you can define the space. And so it is very relevant. In terms of space, we have made recommendations to try and maximise the positive experience of the animals' transport and indeed minimise any negative effects of not having enough space to carry out the activities that they need to carry out during transport.

James (11:10):

Okay, Sean, so you have spoken about space, you have spoken about heat. What about journey time? I know that is something that you consider as well.

Sean (11:20):

Yeah, James, it is a really important issue. The point in relation to journey time is that no matter how high in quality the journey actually is, you can only minimise hazards that the animals are exposed to. During the trip, for example, the vibrations of the truck, the general motion of the truck, the inability to access water efficiently or simply just not having enough space.

James (11:42):

Okay. So, what does that mean then? I mean, what do we say in concrete terms about journey times?

Sean (11:48):

Concretely in the opinions, we say that due to the stress experience by the animals during these journeys, the journeys should be as short as possible.

James (11:57):

Okay. Some of these measures, I imagine, they mean change, obviously. Have you had any kind of reaction from stakeholders or what is the kind of general feeling?

Sean (12:07):

Well, firstly to say that the opinions published in September have been received very well. For the first time in EFSA, we have tried to put ourselves, as if we were in the animal's shoes. What is the welfare experience of the animal throughout transport? And tried to assess that as best we could.

James (12:29):

So, does that represent a change compared to the sort of status quo?

Sean (12:32):

Historically, what used to happen in animal welfare experts very often would have been, well, the animals recovered fairly quickly from the transport and not too many of them died.

James (12:45):

Okay.

Sean (12:45):

Dead on arrivals and recovery period or time.

James (12:49):

As a measure of whether or not there was a welfare issue.

Sean (12:52):

Yeah. In general.

James (12:54):

Okay.

Sean (12:54):

But we are just trying to, as I say, assess the experience of the animals throughout each stage, which is kind of a step forward and it means that our recommendations are very much animal centric.

James (13:07):

Yeah.

Sean (13:08):

Very much animal-focused. However, the Commission and the legislators in general won't only be looking at animal welfare in terms of this. They will be looking at the economic impact of our recommendations as well.

James (13:19):

Sure. That is a job not for EFSA.

Sean (13:22):

It is a completely separate job.

James (13:23):

Yeah, yeah.

Sean (13:23):

However, it will have an impact in terms of the phraseology and the content of the legislator proposals that the Commission will put forward.

James (13:31):

I imagine. Yeah. Okay Sean, thanks very much. I think we have got the picture now as far as you know, what EFSA is doing. I just wanted to go back to something you said at the beginning. You mentioned you were a vet at a certain point, or maybe still consider yourself a vet <laugh>, but do you have any personal experience of working with animals, transporting animals, these kinds of things?

Sean (13:57):

When I was younger, when I was a child, I begged my parents to bring me to horse riding lessons, I begged them. Eventually, they relented and it kind of snowballed from there <laugh>. My dad got interested, we got a couple of horses and ponies. Every weekend we would load up the horse trailer and off, we would go either to a local show or a national show.

James (14:18):

Oh wow.

Sean (14:18):

So we did a lot of that. And then I gave up riding for a long time, but I was on holidays with my partner in Spain in 2009, and we bought two Arabian hourses from a stud farm just outside Seville. So myself and my dad borrowed a Jeep and trailer, drove down there, loaded up the two unhandled mayors, drove up through Spain, up through France, got the ferry to the UK, drove across the UK, got another ferry across to Dublin and breathed a sigh of relief at that stage.

James (14:51):

Wow. That is a long way because Seville is right down at the bottom, isn't it?

Sean (14:55):

Yeah.

James (14:55):

Was it a smooth journey?

Sean (14:58):

Well, the horses behaved really, really well. We were doing super well until we were found ourselves on the ring road of Paris. The traffic started to back up and then we were diverted and diverted again, and we saw roadworks and diverted again, and we found ourselves driving through downtown Paris <laugh> with our two horses in the trailer.

James (15:21):

Really?

Sean (15:22):

So that was "my heart is in my mouth" for a certain period of time there, but other than that, everything went very well.

James (15:29):

I bet. But you made it home okay in the end. And what has happened now to the Arabian horses?

Sean (15:33):

They live happily about 20 minutes outside Parma here in Italy.

James (15:40):

Ah, you bought them with you to Italy! Another long journey.

Sean (15:43):

Of course, the whole family comes. Yeah, yeah.

James (15:45):

Great.

Sean (15:46):

They are getting old now, but they are very happy.

James (15:47):

So you ride them still here?

Sean (15:48):

Yeah, yeah.

James (15:49):

Brilliant. Okay, Sean, let us stop there. Again, thank you very much and good luck with the rest of your work this year for the animal welfare opinions and we look forward to seeing what is coming up later in the year.

Sean (16:14):

Thank you, James.

James (16:15):

Thank you.

Sean (16:15):

It is my pleasure.

James (16:22):

Thank you very much everyone for being with us here today. That is it for the time being, but we will have a new episode out soon. If you enjoyed this episode, if you are enjoying the podcast, do not forget to subscribe. And please connect with us too on our social media channels. Until the next time! Thanks very much and goodbye.