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Posted: 17th November 2016

What would you choose to eat?
Christine Nicol
Prof Nicol spoke about her BBC Radio 4 series, which followed the fictitious story of 'Jake' who crash lands on a remote planet and must find food to survive.
Professor explores animal welfare and sentience

If we arrived on earth as aliens, what would we choose to eat? Can we really provide a 'good life' for complex animals such as pigs? And why do we do to pigs what we would not condone for dogs? These were among the fascinating questions prompted by the 50th Wooldridge Memorial lecture at BVA Congress today (17 November).

Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare science at the University of Bristol, spoke to delegates about her BBC Radio 4 programme 'Would you eat an alien?'. It followed the story of 'Jake the spaceman' (aka the comedian Jake Yapp), who crash lands on a remote planet and has to find food to survive. But he wants to cause the minimum pain and distress, so which creature should he choose?

Prof Nicol interviewed animals welfare scientists, philosophers and wildlife biologists to explore which animals are sentient. Whilst it was agreed that birds and mammals have the types of brains that are capable of conscious thought in terms of the thalamus-cortex relay, Brian Key from the University of Queensland said he did not believe fish had this capability - though this remains the subject of debate. Oysters etc, on the other hand, have nothing resembling a neural system and are thought unlikely to be sentient.

Jake is left with a decision: whether to eat the 'trinos', which form close social bonds and would therefore be harmed if one of their group was killed; or the 'dabbit' which Jake has come to think of as a pet. Peter Singer says that human pain should not be prioritised in such decisions. There is also a third possibility - the 'parabear', which does not appear to form close bonds with others but is a complex species.

The fictitious dilemma facing Jake brings up challenging questions about our own world. Are there species that are capable of planning, and equipped with a sense of justice, the past and the future, Prof Nicol asked. Should we, therefore, consider them non-human persons?

Research has shown that jays, for example, will learn to eat their preferred food of worms in the moment if they know they will spoil more quickly, and they will store their second favourite food of peanuts instead. In addition, dogs have been shown to display 'inequity aversion' - that is, they reject unfair outcomes and are more likely to give up if they see another dog getting better rewards for the same actions.

Discussing farming and meat consumption, Prof Nicol concluded that, perhaps, if a 'good life' can truly be provided, then a humane death is acceptable. But, is this possible when we are dealing with complex species such as pigs? In farming, animals are separated from their young abruptly whereas this would not be so in the wild, with research suggesting this could have long-term effects on calves, yet it is such an integral part of farming that it goes almost unnoticed.

The concepts raised in the radio programme, and the dilemma facing Jake, bring up some uncomfortable truths and leave us with the question: 'What would I do?'



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