Positive Welfare States: Moving Beyond Absence of Suffering

The most advanced animal welfare frameworks aim not just to eliminate suffering but to actively promote positive emotional states and opportunities for flourishing in animals under human care.

Key Facts

Traditional welfare frameworks focused primarily on the five freedoms — avoiding negative states
The five domains model adds a fifth domain of positive mental experiences as a welfare requirement
Research confirms animals experience positive states including play, curiosity, comfort and satisfaction
Positive welfare can be assessed through cognitive bias tests, play behaviour frequency and approach-avoidance measures
Farm animals, zoo animals and companions all benefit from management strategies promoting positive experiences
Providing choice and control to animals in human care generates positive welfare states even with modest resources

Welfare Considerations

The shift toward positive welfare — actively promoting good experiences rather than merely preventing bad ones — represents the current frontier of applied animal welfare science. Animals under human care can experience genuine enjoyment, curiosity, playfulness and comfort when given appropriate opportunities. This framing transforms welfare from a minimum standard into an aspiration: not just avoiding cruelty but actively enriching the lives of the animals in our care. It is both ethically more demanding and more rewarding as a goal.

What You Can Do

Provide your animals with opportunities for play, exploration and positive social interaction
Offer choice and control to animals in your care — let them decide how to spend time
Learn about species-specific positive welfare indicators and monitor them in your animals
Support farms and facilities that explicitly measure and work to improve positive welfare states
Advocate for positive welfare inclusion in animal welfare legislation beyond minimum standards