Zoonotic Disease Prevention and Animal Welfare

Preventing zoonotic disease while protecting animal welfare requires proportionate approaches that avoid unnecessary culling of animal populations as disease responses.

Key Facts

Proportionate zoonotic disease response protects both human health and animal welfare
Mass culling of animals in response to zoonotic disease sometimes exceeds what evidence justifies
Vaccination is preferable to culling in most zoonotic disease contexts where vaccines exist
Livestock and companion animal populations have been unnecessarily killed in poorly evidenced responses
One Health approaches integrate human, animal, and environmental health to find welfare-positive solutions

Welfare Considerations

Zoonotic disease response welfare harms can exceed the disease risk they are intended to address: mass culling of millions of animals during disease scares that turn out to have limited transmission risk imposes enormous welfare costs without justified benefit. The welfare case for evidence-based proportionate responses — vaccination where available, targeted culling where necessary, habitat management to reduce transmission — is both an animal welfare argument and a One Health argument. Welfare organisations have an important role in advocating for proportionate, evidence-based responses to zoonotic disease threats.

What You Can Do

Support One Health approaches that integrate animal and human welfare in disease responses
Advocate for evidence-based proportionate zoonotic disease response policies
Oppose mass culling proposals where vaccination or alternative management is feasible
Support vaccination research for zoonotic diseases with animal population impacts
Engage with public health and animal welfare organisations on proportionate response frameworks