Animal Welfare - Mouldy Bread Error and Dry Frog Error

Nowadays, even animals have welfare to look after not to mention about humans.

Mouldy Bread Error

Scientists did not have an assay for mould-derived toxins, so they measure the various nutrients in the bread and create a 'bread quality index' and showed that mouldy bread is equal in quality to freshly baked bread. It implies that when scientists attempt to assess animal welfare, they need to ensure that their scientific measures reflect the socially constructed meaning of the term. It depends on how do you measure the animal welfare. Whether it is from human beings' perspective or from the perspective of animals themselves. If you measure what you want to see, then it is meaningless. Just like those mouldy bread, it has the same nutritional values as the freshly baked bread but you would not eat it because it contains mould-derived toxins.

Dry Frog Error

We, as human beings, are giving what we believe to be good to the animals. This brings out the Dry Frog Error. A young boy who had caught a frog as a pet wanted to give the frog the best possible care. Believing a frog would be cold and tired after living in swamps and eating flies, he tucked the frog into his own warm, dry bed with a handful of peppermints. This implies that animals have certain interests and we need to look at social meaning of animal welfare. We are giving something what we believe to be good for the animals but actually they don't really need it. A frog would be better living in a swamp and eating flies and they would die without water or flies.

These are some interesting theories that I learnt from the class 'Risks in Animal Regulation'. Hope you like it.