Citation
Oldfield, Ronald G (2026) Natural behavior vs. subjective experience in fish welfare assessments. Animal Sentience 36(10)
Thread
Ronald G. Oldfield and Patrick Bonano, Psychological and social well-being of bony fishes in zoos and aquariums
Abstract
Several commentaries on the Oldfield & Bonano (2024) target article proposed that natural behavior should play a larger role in assessing the welfare of fishes in zoos and aquariums. However, the natural-behavior concept of animal welfare has been widely criticized because natural behaviors do not necessarily improve welfare, and unnatural behaviors do not necessarily reduce it. I review the three major concepts of animal welfare — physical health, natural behavior, and affect/feelings — and argue that behavior patterns, whether natural or otherwise, should be evaluated according to their effects on health and subjective experience. Using the affect/feelings concept and the Five Domains Model, I then re-evaluate several of my previous studies on aquarium fish behavior to illustrate how welfare interpretations can be made more explicit and conceptually consistent.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic License
DOI
10.51291/2377-7478.1926
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Cognition and Perception Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Evolution Commons, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology Commons, Zoology Commons