After 19 years as a research zoologist, Dr Donald Broom firmly believes that the behaviour of animals is much more closely linked to that of humans than most of us realize - or possibly care to recognize.
Cows, for example, popularly believed to be stoically indifferent to their comrades, have been found by Broom to form clear-cut and long-lasting relationships with other members of the herd, both on a friendly and antagonistic level.
And animals isolated for long periods will exhibit the same sterotyped behaviour patterns as people in solitary confinement. Broom intends to utilize much of the psychological work done on human behaviour when he takes up his appointment in September as the world's first professor of animal welfare, based at Cambridge University.
It is a hot seat in an area of high controversy and one which is likely, in the long run, to affect us all. Caught between the conflicting lobbies of the farmers, politicians, animal rights activists and members of the public, Broom intends to work purely to produce scientific evidence aimed at improving the lot of animals.
Possible indicators include measures of behaviour, physiology, health and susceptibility to disease, rates of growth and reproductive efficiency. It is an area in which Broom is already working in his capacity as reader in pure and applied zoology at Reading University. At the moment his research is based mainly on farm animals but now he will extend his interest to include zoo and laboratory animals as well as wild animals and pets.
He has been fascinated by animals ever since he was a child, bird-watching as a hobby and spending his school holidays on a friend's farm in Cornwall. He read natural sciences at Cambridge and then spent three years researching his doctorate in animal behaviour before joining Reading University.
His new appointment, funded by the Animal Welfare Foundation, an offshoot of the British Veterinary Association, will demand a combination of academic enterprise and practical experience.
Many of his findings are likely to prove unpopular - especially among the farming communities. Ever since intensive farming methods were widely introduced into Britain in the 1950s, farmers' profits have depended upon mass production, frequently at the expense of the animals involved.
"If you rear animals in a way which helps calves or piglets to survive then obviously that is good for both their welfare and for the farmer who wants his animals to survive for both normal and commercial reason," says Broom. "The same is generally true in the case of milk production where the interests of the animals and the farmers coincide. But that is not always the case.
"If you overcrowd chickens, calves and sows then you get behavioural and physiological problems as well as susceptibility to disease. And if it is decided that some alternative system is better for their welfare it is likely that it will cost the farmer more to produce his eggs or meat."
Faced with having to pay for their humane beliefs, he nonetheless believes that the public would accept the necessary 15-20 per cent increase in the cost of some of their farm products.
At the moment, attitudes to animal welfare vary throughout Europe with the British, German, Swiss, Swedish and Dutch more concerned and in favour of legislation than the French, Italians and Spanish.
But even in this country eggs selling as "free range" are frequently produced in conditions which Broom describes with typical understatement as "not particularly good.
"I think most farmers are aware of welfare issues and would prefer to be able to keep their animals in a way which would be better for their welfare. But in some cases they don't know what would be better and they are afraid of losing their livelihood."
He stresses that it is not his job to pass moral judgements on the uses to which animals are put but merely to improve the way they are treated. But he admits that he would like to see a reduction in the number of animals used in laboratory research and an end to white veal production altogether.
"The evidence that the methods used to rear calves for the production of white veal are bad for their welfare is very clear cut," he says. And he feels that "while zoos have an important educational function, it is one which could be adequately served with considerably fewer such establishments."
