Terms and concepts
Secondary title here
Introductory text here, talking about what is on this page and how it is organized. A few sentences will introduce this page to viewers so they know what they can expect. Include a sentence with the section titles so I can add anchor links for folks to jump to that section: Essential, Interdisciplinary, and Philosophical and practical.
Terms that are essential for understanding the field of WAWS, ordered roughly to build on each other, rather than in alphabetical order.
Essential WAWS terms
Wild animal welfare science (WAWS)
An emerging field that seeks to understand and improve the welfare of wild animals. For more information, see Core Concepts: Wild Animal Welfare Science.
Affective state
A subjective mental experience (e.g. an emotion) that has (at least) the dimensions of valence (pleasant and unpleasant) and arousal (high and low activiation). Includes emotions (short-term) and moods (medium-term) such as joy, fear, and boredom; homeostatic affects such as pain, thirst, and fatigue; and sensory affects such a pleasant and unpleasant tastes.
Valence
The perceived quality of affective states, ranging from positive to negative; the pleasantness or unpleasantness of an affective state.
Arousal
The level of activation associated with an affective state. For example, excited and relaxed both have positive valence, but the former has high arousal and the latter has low arousal.
Welfare
WAI uses the subjective or affective state definition of welfare: welfare consists of the balance of positively- and negatively-valenced mental states (affective states) experienced by an animal over time, ranging from short-term affects to and those aggregated across a lifetime. This definition of welfare is currently among the most popular in animal welfare science (Duncan 2002, Browning 2020, Mellor etal. 2020), and is also featured in animal ethics (e.g. Sebo 2022, Singer 2023), and thus links closely to the ethical relevance of animal welfare that arises from concern for the suffering of animals. This can also be called 'well-being' or 'quality of life.' For more information, see Core Concepts: Welfare.
Sentience
The ability to subjectively experience pleasure or displeasure; to have a point of view from which different experiences can feel better or worse. There is consensus among sentience researchers that mammals and birds are sentient, and that most likely all vertebrates are. There is moderate to strong evidence that at least some invertebrates are sentient (e.g. cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and some insects), and research continues in this area. WAW scientists rely on sentience research to determine which animals have the capacity for welfare, but typically do not perform sentience research themselves.
Welfare Indicator
A measured variable that impacts or is impacted by welfare and can serve as a marker of welfare. Indicators are needed because welfare is a hidden variable, not directly accessible for measuring. Not all indicators are equally valuable in evaluating welfare because the correctness, usefulness, and feasibility of different indicators vary significantly. Welfare indicators are typically behavioral (e.g. vocalizations, vigilance), somatic (e.g. telomere attrition rate, oxidative stress, body condition), or cognitive (e.g. judgement bias tests).
Indicator validation
Before employing indicators, their validity (i.e. how well an indicator approximates the variable of interest) must be tested in the species in which they are to be used. The process of validation empirically tests whether an indicator consistently reflects welfare states. For example, one way to test the validity of potential indicators is by manipulating welfare states and measuring how the potential indicators change in response.
Welfare metric
A framework used to bring together multiple indicators and output a single welfare score for each individual or population under study.
Wild animal
Any individual animal whose life is not closely managed by humans. This includes animals living freely in human-dominated environments, such as parks and urban spaces, and previously domesticated animals that are feral. It excludes pets, farmed animals, and animals kept in zoos or laboratories.
Welfare interventions
Applying knowledge of welfare ecology to make changes that improve welfare outcomes for wild animals at scale. These interventions might sometimes be similiar to methods in wildlife management and conservation interventions, but with the specfic goal of welfare improvement.
Indirect effects (of welfare interventions)
A welfare intervention's outcome for a non-target individual or population. For example, if a vaccine is administered to the individuals of one species of bird, the direct effect might be a welfare improvement for those birds who will no longer suffer from a disease. But as this population of birds grows, the indirect effect might be that they often out-compete other bird species at a food source, resulting in individuals of the other species suffering a decrease in welfare. Akin to a side-effect of a drug, but an indirect effect might be either positive or negative.
Net-negative life
A negative experience is an experience that an individual would rather not have had. A net-negative life is a life which an individual would rather not have lived, because their negative experiences outweighed their positive experiences. For more information, see Core Concepts: Net-negative Lives.
Welfare expectancy
The expected value of welfare summed over an individual's lifetime, based on the relationship between age-specific survivorship and age-specific welfare within their population.
Disturbing (methods)
A method of collecting data on an individual that distrupts the individual's life and is likely to cause physiological or emotional stress, or otherwise decrease the welfare of the research subject (even if temporarily). Methods may fall along a continuum, with e.g. camera traps causing little to no disturbance to many wild animals and capture and restraint causing high disturbance. Researchers should seek the least disturbing methods for their work in order to reduce harm to study subjects and to avoid impacting the data being collecting.
Invasive (methods)
A method of collecting data on an individual through deliberate access to the body via an incision, instrumentation via a natural orifice, or percutaneous puncture. Steps preceding an invasive procedure, such as capture or restraint, might be more disturbing for animals than the invasive method itself.
WAWS intersects with many other fields of study, so understanding terms from these fields and how they relate to WAWS is useful. We break these terms down by field, define them, and explain how they relate to WAWS.
Interdisciplinary terms important to WAWS
Ecology
Fitness
An organism's ability to survive and reproduce. Often measured by the total number of offspring produced over one's lifetime who survive to adulthood and reproduce. Because sentience is an evolved trait, it is expected that animals whose affective states respond appropriately to the environment will have higher fitness than those that don't, other things being equal. Measuring fitness alone is not sufficient for assessing welfare. The relationship between welfare and fitness is likely complex needs to be explored more thoroughly via WAWS.
Animal welfare science
Biological function
Processes working together to enable organisms to survive, grow and reproduce. Historically, some definitions of welfare in animal welfare science considered this to be an aspect of welfare along with affective state and natural behavior. Currently, most animal welfare scientists do not include it in the definition of welfare, but rather consider biological function to be either an impactor or effect indicator of welfare. To illustrate, an animal may have full biological function (i.e. in excellent health) but can still be experiencing long term negative affective states.
Five Domains Model
One of several frameworks within animal welfare science developed to help discover potential welfare risks and challenges, but often used as a welfare assessment tool. The domains include: (1) Nutrition, (2) Physical Environment, (3) Health, (4) Behavioral Interactions, and (5) Mental State. The framework includes a grading system that evaluates how the first four domains affect the fifth Mental State domain. Some early studies in WAWS have used this model either for assessing welfare or brainstorming potential impactors and indicators of weflare. While this model may hold some utility within WAWS, there are many other promising frameworks for assessing welfare in the wild.
Natural behavior
The ability of captive animals to perform most or all of the behaviors they would perform outside of captivity. Historically, this was sometimes considered part of the definition of welfare (typically along with biological function and affective state). Currently, most animal welfare scientists do not include it in the definition of welfare, though most agree that creating captive habitats that allow for natural behaviors is an important condition for creating positive welfare. Arguably, this term has little utility in the field of WAWS because wild animals are performing natural behaviors by virtue of the fact that they are not in captivity, though some argue that rapid environmental change caused by humans could inhibit natural behavior even in wild animals.
Conservation
Conservation
The preservation of biodiversity through the protection and management of populations, species, ecosystems, and genetic diversity. Conservation goals focus on the continuation of ecological systems, sometimes through the survival of individual organisms; in contrast, WAWS goals focus on the well-being of individual sentient animals. Often, improving the welfare of individuals in populations of concern can aid conservation goals. However, conservation and WAWS are not strictly dependent on each other and sometimes might conflict.
Compassionate conservation
A movement in conservation biology in which animal welfare is a key consideration to conservation management and decision making. The aim is to minimize harms to individual animals while maximizing conservation outcomes for species and ecosystems. Compassionate conservation is a pluralistic ethical approach, incorporating features of virtue ethics, deontological ethics, and consequentialism.
Conservation Welfare
A sub-discipline within conservation that applies a consequentialist animal welfare ethic to take into account the effects of conservation activities on wild animals. While it uses the same ethical framework as many WAW scientists do (consequentialism), the goals of conservation welfare and WAWS are different: the former has conservation goals while the latter has the goal of improving welfare of the largest number of wild animals possible regardless of conservation status.
Comparative psychology and neuroscience
Cognition
The mental functions by which information is acquired, retained, and used: perception, learning, memory, and thinking. In many species, affective states can impact cognition and vice versa, and thus having some understanding of cognition can help to assess welfare and its ecological impacts.
Sensory affects
Sensations that carry a positive or negative valence, such as pleasant and unpleasant taste, thermal comfort and discomfort, pleasant and unpleasant touch. Neuroscientists consider valenced sensory affects to be one of the three types of affects.
Homeostatic affects
Interoceptive sensations that carry a positive or negative valence, such as pain, hunger, thirst, satiety, and the urge to urinate. Neuroscientists consider valenced homeostatic affects to be one of the three types of affects.
Emotions
Temporary affective states produced in response to external and internal conditions that potentiate behavior appropriate to the situation, thus serving as motivational states. Emotions are characterised by (at least) valence and arousal. Neuroscientists consider emotions to be one of the three types of affects.
Mood
In contrast with a short-term emotional response to a single stimulus, a mood is a longer-lasting affective state that results from an accumulation of experiences. Because welfare is an aggregate of affective states over a given period of time, and the time period is defined by the researcher, sometimes mood is the main focus of a welfare study.
Miscellanous
Fertility control
Management of a wild animal population by delivering non-lethal contraceptives. Fertility control has the potential to be a positive welfare intervention by decreasing competition within a population and potentially decreasing the health- and stress-impacts of frequent reproduction in species where the welfare cost of reproduction is high by making reproductive events less frequent. However, it is important to consider and assess potential negative welfare impacts, for example disrupting social structures that are influenced by reproductive state or negative health impacts of contraceptives.
Health
The general condition of the body, including the presence or absence of disease or injury, and the complete physical condition of the body, such as physiological functioning and energy storage. Assessing health alone is not sufficient for assessing welfare, because health alone is not sufficient for good welfare.
Stress
A real or perceived disturbance to an individual's homeostasis that leads to a physiological or behavioral response. It involves a stressor (unanticipated disturbance) and a stress response. Stress can impact wild animal welfare and is mostly expected to be associated with an increase in arousal, but its effects on valence are likely more variable, although chronic stress typically has negative impacts on valence. Measuring the stress response alone is not sufficient for assessing welfare, because the stress response can be activated during positively valenced states, such as excitement.
Philosophical and practical terms used at Wild Animal Initiative
Because WAWS has an applied aspect of seeking to improve the lives of wild animals, ethical frameworks are needed to guide decisions about what actions should or should not be taken in that pursuit.
Below, the concepts that WAI uses to guide this kind of decision-making are defined.
Consequentialism
An ethical framework that assesses the value of actions based on their outcomes. Consequentialism posits that one should work toward outcomes aligning with one's values, rather than only one's actions aligning with one's values.
Neglectedness
An issue that is not receiving attention commensurate with its importance is neglected. Neglectedness is relative, not absolute and changes over time. All other things equal, WAI seeks to allocate funds to neglected welfare issues by reserving our limited financial resources for projects that would be unlikely to obtain funding from mainstream funders due to their unique relevance to wild animal welfare.
Tractability
Potentially solvable if more resources are allocated, as in a difficult problem. All other things equal, WAI seeks to allocate funds to tractable welfare issues. For example, welfare issues affecting urban animals might be especially tractable, all else being equal, because urban ecosystems tend to be more accessible for research and easier to implement interventions within.
Utilitarianism
An ethical view that prioritizes promoting the overall well-being of all sentient individuals, using a consequentialist approach of cost-benefit analysis. This viewpoint leads WAI to the goal of improving the welfare of the largest number of sentient individuals possible by as much as possible.