Death by Decapitation: A Case Study of the Scientific Definition of Animal Welfare

Abstract

Assessments of animal experience and consciousness are embedded in all issues of animal welfare policy, and the field of animal welfare science has been developed to make these evaluations. In light of modern studies of the social construction of scientific knowledge, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to date on how crucial evaluations about animals are made. In this paper, I begin to fill that gap by presenting a historical case study of the attempt to define the pain and distress of one common practice in animal research-the use of the tabletop guillotine to decapitate laboratory rodents. I describe the negotiations involved in reaching consensus on the meaning of the available data and caution animal care and use committees that they should always work with the realization that our scientific knowledge of what animals experience is partial and provisional knowledge at best.

Report of the Workshop on Euthanasia Guidelines and Practices

“…In a well-known study of brain waves in decapitated rats, the average period of EEG activation was between 13 and 14 seconds, but activation lasted over 29 seconds in one individual (4). Ethical assessment of euthanasia techniques must not just include the average animal observed under ideal conditions, but also the possibility that some individuals could suffer excessively (5). A relatively foolproof but moderately painful technique could actually be preferable to one in which most animals experience no pain while a few experience severe pain.…”