Animal welfare has improved substantially in many areas over the past half century, but significant challenges remain across billions of farmed, wild, and companion animals worldwide.
Animal welfare has achieved remarkable progress in some areas while leaving others almost entirely unaddressed. The abolition of battery cages across the EU represented decades of advocacy translated into policy affecting hundreds of millions of animals annually. Farmed animal welfare standards in many developed countries have improved substantially since the 1960s. The scientific consensus on animal sentience has expanded to include fish, crustaceans, and cephalopods. Veterinary pain management has advanced considerably for companion animals. Yet billions of animals in intensive aquaculture receive little welfare consideration. Wild animal welfare, encompassing the suffering of the far larger number of wild animals experiencing pain, fear, and disease, remains almost entirely outside welfare policy. Factory farming persists at an enormous scale. The arc of animal welfare progress is real but slow, and accelerating it requires sustained advocacy, consumer action, and policy engagement across all domains where animals suffer.