The Current Status and Issues of Animal Welfare in Wildlife Rehabilitation

Abstract

　Welfare of an animal means the state of physical and mental health of the animal and the “Five Freedoms” and the “Five-Domain Model” are recognized as welfare fundamentals. In the UK and the USA, NGOs have developed some excellent standards applied to wildlife rehabilitation in general or specific animal groups although the characteristics of the Animal Welfare Act (AWA) are considerably different between the two countries. There is also an example that a standard of one experienced rehabilitation facility is adopted as a national standard. However, in Japan, AWA and other related laws don’t cover wildlife rehabilitation enough in addition to the lack of the standards, and many rehabilitation facilities have a hard time keeping the quality of life of animals at a desirable level. Welfare and ethics for animals developed separately but it is now recognized that they are closely intertwined with each other, for example improvements of welfare affect ethics in a good manner and vice versa. Recently, the focus of attention in the ethics is shifting from an individual animals to an ecosystem or biodiversity as a whole, which provides a broader view to the practices of wildlife rehabilitation. Future wildlife rehabilitation is required to address welfare improvements with such a broader view so that achieving good welfare in rehabilitation contributes to conserving biodiversity as well as ensuring the dignity of wild animals under rehabilitation which are originally free-ranging.