The University of California, Davis, offers a variety of courses for undergraduate and graduate students interested in animal welfare. Some of those courses deal primarily with animal welfare and the ethics of animal use, while others provide background important to an understanding of animal welfare or information about the care of specific species. These courses can be taken as part of the Animal Science or Animal Biology undergraduate majors in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Animal Welfare and Animal Ethics Courses
ANB 50C-Animal Biology 50C: Social Issues in Animal Biology: Animal management and conservation. Societal concerns arising from management and conservation issues, including economics, aesthetics, regulations, safety, public perspectives, and advocacy.
Instructors: Joy Mench (course leader), Louis Botsford, Jeffrey Granett, Wolfgang Pitroff.
ANS 103-Animal Science 103: Animal Welfare: The application of principles
of animal behavior and physiology to assessment and improvement of the welfare
of the wild, captive and domestic animals. Topics include animal behavior, pain,
stress, cognition, motivation, emotions, and preferences, as well as environmental
enrichment methods. Click here for a course syllabus.
Instructor: Joy Mench
VMD 170-Ethics of Animal Use: An introduction to ethical analysis of issues relating
to the use and treatment of animals. Theoretical, practical, and empirical issues associated with the use of animals for scientific research, agricultural purposes, and as companions. Learning respect for divergent views about the professional and public
treatment of animals through an analysis of ethics problems and cases.
Instructors: Jerry Tannenbaum (course leader), Joy Mench
Related Courses
ANS104-Principals of Domestic Animal Behavior: Basic principals of animal behavior as applied to domesticated species. Emphasis will be placed on behavioral development and social behavior. External (exogenous) and physiological mechanisms influencing behavior will be discussed.
Instructor: Edward Price
ANS 105-Domestic Animal Behavior: Applications of the principles of animal behavior in the management of domestic animals. Includes reproductive behavior, feeding behavior, agonistic behavior, animal handling, and human-animal interactions.
Instructor: Edward Price
ANS 106-Domestic Animal Behavior Laboratory: Research experience with the behavior of large domestic animals. Experimental design, methods of data collection and analysis, and reporting of experimental results.
Instructor: Edward Price
PHR 106-Human-Animal Interactions--Benefits and Issues: The contributions of animals to human society. Includes historic, anthropologic, developmental, human health, and therapeutic perspectives, as well as effects of humans on animals.
Instructor: Lynette Hart
PHR 408-Behavior and Biology of mice--The Laboratory Animal of the Future: A broad overview of the background and current issues in laboratory animal welfare with an emphasis on mice, including the development and purposes of specialized strains of mice, the constraints for their care and environmental enrichment, relevant legislation and regulation, and the human benefits of their use.
Instructor: Lynette Hart
The Animal Science Department also offers a variety of relevant classes on the husbandry of specific species, including cattle, sheep, poultry, horses, pigs, fish, laboratory animals, and companion animals. Click here for more information.
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