Pain and Suffering in Farmed Animals: First Steps Towards Better Understanding and Management (Musk and Clutton, 2024) - Insects

Abstract

Insects are an incredibly diverse class of largely terrestrial arthropods, with a million named species and many more to be discovered. Trillions of individuals are farmed for food and feed each year, with trillions (maybe quadrillions) more impacted by other kinds of human use and management. The question of insect pain is an open one, without broad scientific or philosophical consensus. Here, I present the history of the science on insect pain and the main neurobiological and behavioral evidence used to support and reject the idea of insect pain. The pain and suffering experienced by farmed insects during rearing, transport, and slaughter is reviewed, albeit from a somewhat speculative lens (given the uncertainty of insect pain at all, and the lack of validated tools for assessing pain in any insects). Analgesics and anesthetics that may work for insects are reviewed, as well as attitudes on insect pain from consumer, producer, academic, and other perspectives. Other arthropods - besides insects and crustaceans - are briefly reviewed, before concluding with the complexity of moral caution in the insect case.

New frontiers in animal welfare science: an introduction to (farmed) insects

“…3 Although insects are commonly thought of as cognitively unsophisticated and behaviourally inflexible, insect species engage in rescue and wound-tending behaviours (including the application of antimicrobial secretions to injury sites), numerical cognition, individual facial recognition, problem solving, tool use, play-like behaviours and even monogamous biparental care that can last for up to 20 years. 4 Their lives can thus be behaviourally rich and cognitively complex.…”