ANIMAL LEGISLATION AND SOCIETAL ISSUES Part B - Position Paper

Running head: ANIMAL LEGISLATION AND SOCIETAL ISSUES
Animal Legislation and Societal Issues
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1ANIMAL LEGISLATION AND SOCIETAL ISSUES
Part A – Position Paper
The issue of animal welfare is one that has caught the interest of activists and
researchers over several decades now, largely because of the humanitarian nature of the issue.
Animals have rights, as much as human beings do, and they deserve to be treated with the same
dignity and respect that is accorded to human beings, in each and every part of the world
(Jacobson and Lindblom 2016). Yet the problem of animal abuse and the unethical treatment of
animals remains persistent, with abuse not being restricted to the violent behavior meted out to
animals only but to their unethical treatment as well. A well-known example of the unethical
treatment of animals is the use of animals as subjects for experimental studies. For years and
years now, animals have been the subject of different types of experiments, be it investigations
that have been carried out to judge the effectiveness of a product or be it experiments that have
been undertaken to determine how animals relate to human beings on many different levels. Out
of the many species of animals that have been used for the purpose of investigation, chimpanzees
are a species that have been experimented on the most (Coe et al. 2016). The leading role in this
respect was taken by Charles Darwin, who demonstrated through his research that human beings
have evolved from animals. This research continues to inspire scientists and scholars worldwide
to find out more about the similarities between the behavior of human beings and the behavior of
chimpanzees, leading them to conduct more and more experiments in this domain (Armstrong
and Botzler 2016). This paper argues that experimenting with animals to uncover new insights
about human behavior is unethical and entirely against the notion of animal welfare. The paper
alludes to recent studies on interaction between humans and chimpanzees in Furuvik Zoo in
Sweden, and states that while such studies may hold plenty of relevance and significance for
scientific understandings on human behavior, these are unethical as these violate the rights of

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animals to reside peacefully in a natural environment, and argues in conclusion that such studies
need to be brought to an end immediately.
The Furuvik Zoo is a renowned zoo in the country of Sweden that served as the site for
experimental work that was carried out by a group of scientists based at Lund University. The
aim of the study was to locate parallels between human and animal behavior, with the primary
hypothesis of the research being that no wide discrepancy may be seen to exist between the
behavioral traits that are exhibited by human beings and those that are exhibited by chimpanzees.
It was found by the researchers that the interaction that took place between human beings and
animals was largely communicative and social in nature (Lamba and Broekman 2019).This
implies, in their view, that chimpanzees enjoy the company of human beings and that being
around human beings and interacting with them involves a lot more than mere imitation. The
chimpanzees that were included in this study revealed clearly, that they were not simply aping
the behavior of the human beings that they were interacting with, but rather were communicating
their likes or dislikes pertaining to these human beings, something that was clearly evident in
their behavior. Examples of the types of interactions that took place between the humans and the
animals at the Furuvik Zoo in Sweden included hand clapping, knocking on windows and kissing
(Lamba and Broekman 2019).
It is important to note that while the nature of the study appears to be harmless for the
most part from the animal rights point of view, it is actually not so. It is not ethical on the part
of human beings to assume that it is alright to experiment on animals and that going to a zoo to
study their behavior and to make them specifically interact with human beings for this purpose,
is not something that shows any respect for animal welfare (Park and Valentino 2019). Animals
living in a zoo, chimpanzees notwithstanding, are devoid of most of their rights, the most

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important of these being the freedom to reside in their natural surroundings. To make animals in
a zoo the subject of a study on experimental behavior goes further against the matter of animal
rights. While the researchers at Lund University believed that they were within their right to
carry out the study on the chimpanzees at Furuvik Zoo and the results of the study, whatever
these were going to be, was going to be invaluable for scholarship on the subject of human and
animal behavior, it was wrong on their part to engage in such a study from the ethical point of
view. The chimpanzees at Furuvik Zoo were encouraged to interact with the human beings who
were selected to be a part of the study (Lappi-Seppala and Nuotio 2019). In other words, the
chimpanzees had no choice but to see human beings engage in silly behavior in front of them,
like clapping hands and kissing, and may simply have felt compelled to respond, out of curiosity
and out of a sense of naiveté. They had little choice in this respect but to respond to the humans
in front of them, and may have at some point of time gotten tired of the whole thing. On paper
though, the researchers at Lund University will have completed all the legal necessities for
engaging in such a study in the first place. Prior permission will have been procured from the
Furuvik Zoo authorities who would have given the researchers not more than a few hours to
carry out the study. Yet the matter remains quite an unethical one (Rose et al. 2019)
Sweden in Europe is a country that has played a leading role in promoting animal
rights. Cruelty against animals is something that is punishable by punitive action under the Penal
Code provisions of the country. Animals in the country are not only to be treated well, but are
also to be protected from any form of disease or suffering that may arise as a result of illness.
Animals are to be provided with adequate amounts of water and food that is needed by them to
do well. They are also to be permitted to reside in natural surroundings, and must not be forced
or compelled to engage in activities that they are not suited for or are not interested in