Overview of the remarkable progress of animal welfare science and its promise for future welfare improvement.
Animal welfare science has made extraordinary progress from its origins in the 1960s to a mature, multi-disciplinary field addressing welfare across the animal kingdom. Sentience evidence has expanded from mammals to fish and increasingly invertebrates. Welfare assessment tools are validated across multiple species. Welfare economics quantifies intervention value. Science communication research improves public impact. This scientific foundation has enabled evidence-based advocacy, policy development, and corporate engagement that is achieving real welfare improvements for real animals.