This article has given a brief overview of the framework to animal welfare issues. Whenever you
open a newspaper you may read articles which concentrate on an animal welfare issue. You may
see that there are many different aspects to the issue; public opinion, the action of welfare charities,
the relevant legislation, the actions of government, the views of researchers, guidelines issued by
respected bodies, different philosophical views about welfare, cultural views about the welfare of
particular species, and finally descriptions about events surrounding the issue. Using this document, if
you are interested, you can begin to do your own research into all the different aspects of an animal
welfare issue. You may then discover that sometimes the issue is complex with no perfect answer or
other times the issue is simple and easy to assess.