Pete the Vet: Our new understanding of animal consciousness

Pete the Vet: 'five freedoms' might not extend to interrupting your working day, but they do apply across all animals

Humans have many unfair advantages over animals. We can ensure that our points of view are heard and addressed. We have voices. We can talk. We can write. We can organise meetings and protests.

Animals are powerless in comparison. They live their own lives, not so different in many ways from our own lives, but they are unable to influence the society around them. Their lives depend on human actions, yet they cannot engage in debate, discussion or campaigning to improve their lot.

In the past, this did not seem to be such a big issue. The general view was that animals were an entirely different type of living being to humans. They were seen as automatons: self-regulating creatures that more-or-less automatically made their way through their lives. They responded to environmental stimuli (pain, touch, smell, sound, taste) in a functional way to protect their bodies, rather than having the fully-aware type of consciousness that humans experience. The general belief was that animals were a second-class form of life, whose experiences did not matter as much as those of humans.

Many people — vets, pet owners, livestock farmers, horse enthusiasts — who spent time with animals realised that this was not true. When you get to know them, it’s obvious that animals of all types have personalities and characteristics that are as powerful and individual as humans’.

Over the past 40 years, science has gradually been gathering evidence that proves, objectively, that animals are far more like humans than the old-fashioned view. Different disciplines have presented information that supports the idea that the differences between humans and “non-human animals” are far fewer and less significant than the similarities.

Animal nervous tissue looks identical to human anatomy, both to the naked eye, and under the microscope. The chemicals — neurotransmitters and others — in the brain are largely the same in different species. The neurophysiology — the way that nervous tissue functions, including inside brains — is identical. The only difference is the presence in humans of a larger neocortex, which is the part of the brain that actively thinks, plans, worries and communicates.

Advances in medical imaging, including dynamic, functional MRIs of living brains, demonstrate that when animals are in parallel situations to humans, they have very similar activity happening in the same parts of the brain. When they are happy, sad, fearful, anxious, in pain, in love, awake, asleep, dreaming, or dying, animals show very similar brain activity to humans. Most of the functioning of brains developed millions of years ago, before the human species had evolved. Complexities such as feelings, emotions, and awareness of the surrounding world, are aspects of living existence that developed first in animals, before humans came along. The biggest difference between animals and humans is that they do not possess language or the ability to communicate with us about their internal state.

This was formally recognised by science in an under-reported event that happened in July 2012. A prominent international group of cognitive neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists gathered at The University of Cambridge in Britain. They assimilated the evidence from each of their specialist areas, and came to the conclusion that humans are not unique in their experience of consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess the necessary components to have the same type of living sensations as humans. This is known as 'The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness', and it ought to have a far-reaching impact on the way we interact with animals across the world.

In the past, if someone suggested that an animal was experiencing a human-like emotion (a dog looking playful, a cat being angry, a horse showing anxiety), they would often be told it was anthropomorphism — projecting human experiences inappropriately onto a dumb animal. Now, it’s more accurate to say that if an animal looks as if it is having a human-type emotion or sensation, then this is probably true. 

When animals look uncomfortable, fearful, or in pain, then they are, indeed, feeling these sensations. When we are spending time with animals, we should pay close attention to what their body language and facial expressions tell us about what those animals are feeling. Of course, anthropomorphism still happens: despite owners’ beliefs, animals cannot understand every word their owners say, dogs do not punish owners for wrongdoings and cats don’t head out for the day in a deliberate ploy to avoid the appointment with their vet.

Contemporary animal protection legislation has progressed to take account of our new understanding of animal consciousness. The Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013, for the first time, created an obligation for those caring for animals to actively ensure that they enjoy a reasonable quality of life. All animals — pets, horses, farm livestock and others — must be allowed to enjoy the 'five freedoms': freedom from hunger and thirst; freedom from discomfort; freedom from pain, injury, or disease; freedom to express normal behaviour (including having a social life); and freedom from fear and distress. It used to only be a crime if a perpetrator inflicted pain or suffering on an animal; now, it’s a criminal act to not enable them to live a good life.

This law is enforced by the ISPCA (for pets and horses) and by the Department of Agriculture (for farm animals). Fines of up to €250,000 and prison sentences of up to five years are possible for those who treat animals badly, but this rarely happens. There are never enough resources to pursue all cases as far as they could go, and individual humans involved in the process, from animal inspectors to gardai to judges, may take different views on situations.

The lives of animals in Ireland are better than they used to be, but human ignorance, laziness and greed, combined with the inability of animals to complain, ensure that animal suffering still happens far more often than it should do. It is the civic duty of all people on this island to care for our animals. The ISPCA is currently carrying out an emergency fund raising campaign to cope with a near doubling of the number of animals they’ve had to save from situations of cruelty and neglect this year. 

• Pete Wedderburn is a Trustee of the ISPCA