Critics for Violating Animal Welfare in the Cruel Side of Culture: Indonesian Perspectives

Many local traditions, in Indonesia, involving the painful death of animals enjoy state protection, and animals are sacrificed to honour those traditions. As with bull-fighting, many other ritual killings are more painful and messy in practice than theory because their victims are alive, kicking, and fighting for their lives. In some regions, there is a popular dogma that the number of buffaloes sacrificed to be one of the measuring of wealth or success of family members who are holding a traditional ceremony.The interesting thing in these rituals is that the type of buffalo sacrificed have a diverse caste. In those rituals there is someone who has been mandated to spanking buffaloes that have been tied at the pole. After being speared several times, the buffalo was then snared with rope to make sure the animal died.

Let’s consider, another example, coming from the slaughter of still conscious animals in Indonesian abattoirs. Basically, abattoirs should be legally required to stun animals, either electrically or with a captive bolt pistol, so that they are unconscious, and cannot feel pain, when killed. Some Indonesian, however, might reject stunning. They insist that animals must be fully conscious, while a knife is inserted in their throats to cut their windpipe, their gullet, their carotid arteries, and their jugular veins. The blood is thus drained from their bodies until they lose consciousness, and die.It expressed concern not only about the slow and painful way in which the ritual slaughter actually proceeded, but also about the pens employed, which force animals into an unnatural position—lying on their backs with their necks extended—likely to cause them both discomfort and terror. It also claimed the slaughter was often rushed, and that animals were sometimes shackled and hoisted onto the bleeding trail before they had fully lost consciousness.

With regard to those phenomenon, animals also have rights to be free from painful and distress - the prevention of cruelty to animals. This paper will give an updated understanding of animal welfare and rights. This paper have a large number of contributions to Indonesian people specifically and countries around the world generally which have similar traditions like in Indonesia, in which animals as victim of cruel of traditional culture.

Government of Indonesia are so serious in protecting animal welfare. This is concretely evidenced by their rules and laws promulgated in 2014, pertaining animal welfare and animal husbandry. In that law, especially article 66, government mentioned that everyone is prohibited from abusing and / or misusing animals that are defective and / or unproductive.And caring, safekeeping, and animal protection should be done in best ways so that animals are free from hunger and thirst, pain, abuse, and fear and depression. In separate articles, Government of Indonesia rules sanctions for an individual or group of people who does not comply with those laws will go to jail. Whit situations as mentioned by the laws that any person with no proper or overriding purpose, intentionally harming or injuring an animal or harming their health; or any person who is intentionally or beyond the limits required animals to achieve his purpose, deliberately does not provide the necessary food for living to the animal.

However, what happen in local traditions as mentioned in introduction of this paper. They are so cruel to animals, specially buffalos, cows and bulls, for their rituals (cruelty to animals, as also known as animal cruelty, animal abuse, or animal neglect, is still exist in Indonesia). In this context, law enforcement officials should notice a festival associated with animal cruelty, undertake the daily acts of looking for desecrations of animal welfare laws, answer grievances associated with defilements of anticruelty laws, make arrests or issue summonses for violations of animal protectionlaws, as well as seize animals due to violations of animal welfare laws. In addition, the officers of law enforcement must be thoroughly acquainted with anticruelty laws and must be conscious of potentially ferocious circumstances to animals that have not come to the consideration of the animal crime squad.

According to Indonesian laws, the law enforcement officers’ main duties areto investigate a series of events in animal misuse, impose laws associated withthe process of protecting and looking afteranimals, control or govern local manufactures that use work with animals as primary objects, make marks which represent situations of violating anticruelty laws, arrest and impose civil fines for individual violating animal welfare laws, as well as respond to calls for service. This sounds interesting and looks perfect to protect animals, however, this is just beautiful documentations. Not only humans, animals are also inseparable from the threat of violence or abuse. Conscious or unconscious, the incident continues to repeat - though not rarely underestimated. Happened now, forgotten later this is what happen in Indonesia. Generally speaking, basically, like humans, all sentient beings need protection to live comfortably, peacefully and prosperously. Animal, humans and plants are interdependent living things which can complete each other. They form a link that cannot separated. If one aspect is lost, the chain cannot rotate accordingly its axis. If the chain does not spin, then there will be several other aspects which will go missing.

The role of Indonesian government in conducting animal conservation measures really does not sound like when promoting environmental conservation. It is very reasonable to argue that the preservation of animals and the environment are two things that are equally important.In addition, if the government does not conduct animal conservation activities as a main part of agendas, the communities will also not infect the positive activity what government does. Because, in Indonesia the government is still the benchmark of society in doing something. The problem of the occurrence of acts of violence against these animals has reached the point of consideration. Where there should be an immediate solution before more and more other events are more severe. The solution to the problems associated with acts of violence against animals is that there should be an effort to appeal to and inform the public that hurting animals is as harmful to humans. In this view, therefore, government awareness must be established in order to awareness of the community also formed in preserving animals and give concrete example in terms of protecting animals, not only issuing laws (Indonesian law enforcements is considered still weak on violence in animals).

Again, unfortunately, there has been no firm action from Indonesia law enforcement on cases of abandonment, torture and ill-treatment of animals. As individuals and members of society should have awareness of animal welfare. Because this issue is not only concerns the wounded or destroyed group of animals but also related to the essence of humans who have the mind and feelings. Indonesia must prove as a nation of religious which have high ethical and moral values. And its people must uphold the dignity as a civilized creature. So that various deviant acts such as torture against animals are not permitted. This is also relatedto the attitude, which can take it as model to future generations. So it is important to grow a sense of empathy for animals. The arbitrary condition of awareness of animals necessitates state intervention in achieving stability between humans and nature. But as we know with the weakness of law enforcement in Indonesia almost in all aspects of the problem including animal protection. The authorities were not able to crack down on the perpetrators of animal torture, whereas in the Act it was written out of sanction and punishment.

Cultural tradition in any countries is passed along from generation to generation continuing the use of animals for food, pleasure and object of rituals.In upholding religious festival and practices, superstition torture of animals continues without any questions. We can be reluctant to release cultural tradition practices, and see the changes as a rejection of our culture, or even an attack on our identity.Harmful traditions exist in many different forms and animals are commonly as objects for those purposes.The nature of cultural traditions, whether for sport, entertainment, religious sacrifices, or food preferences, young generations in Indonesia or other countries are prepared to defend their culture against criticism, rather than question the ethics. In addition, animals are routinely neglected and abused, places where the normal rules of compassion and decency toward animals to which the vast majority of people subscribe simply do not apply. And most ironic of all, young generation are educated that cultural traditions protect animals from our own neglect and abuse.

A brutal form of abuse of animals which is claimed as a symbol of traditional culture is as a long and enduring heritage.Presents to something considered higher than humans have been known for a long time. This presentation is made as an expression of respect, obedience, loyalty, and gratitude. In a socio-cultural context, this basically is not a pivotal mode of orientation of social action or a legitimization for social order, and the fact that this provides no positive definition of the concept of cultural tradition as the social construction of the past, and bypasses the issue of continuity and discontinuity by treating tradition as nominal.In Indonesia, ironically to maintain the festival run as planned, the local government and customary head has agreed to deploy thousands of police officers to ensure there is no clash between activists and adherents.And the customary headbelieves that the animal sacrifice would bring good luck and prosperity.But its main function as a form of obedience and fear to obtain peace.

As a consequence, animals are the unspoken victims of maltreatment, both in a domestic environment and in the wildlife. Being aware of the ongoing practices that cause animal harm and understanding their dynamics in relation to society will help us cultivate long-term, sustainable alternatives to end this mistreatment and the damaging effects it has on animals. Generally speaking, the true traditions are essential to social life, which has a temporal dimension. Traditions commonly dialogue with each other, borrow materials, ideas, and institutions, and often develop through mutual interaction without victimising animals. Such cultural encounters are often conceptualized as meetings of different traditions: oral and literate, great and little, civilizational and folk, modern and non-modern paradigms. So cruelty to animals as name of culture was wrong and acting out of tradition does not mean we are imitating earlier generations.There are many aspects of tradition which can easily be altered without changing much at all about the tradition itself, changes which benefit us greatly and will teach future generations of values that we hold important.

Under the Animal Welfare principle, everyone is encouraged to develop empathy for animals and develop attitudes which have high respect to animals.This raises concerns and efforts to treat animals in a better way that is acceptable to all. Therefore, animal welfare issues strongly emphasize how humans to treat animals in a way that can be answered in scientific terms.It also takes the aspect in treating animals, judging good and bad human treatment of animals in an empirical way and emphasizing humans to treat animals appropriately based on the grouping of animals. Efforts to treat animals fairly, naturally and under control within the framework of animal protection from human misconduct must be sounded by the customary head.

It is obviously true that animals are God’s creatures. The manner in which human beings relate to animals and take constructive responsibility for them is a fundamental dimension of our relationship with God. Additionally, in expressing its culture, people take inspiration from the surrounding environment, one of the sources of inspiration in creating cultural works is animals. Since human prehistory has made animals the object of their cultural work to express feelings and as a manifestation of respect for spirits. In Indonesia, one group of people who develops a farm primarily to meet the needs of their beliefs and human traditions is the Torajans who live in South Sulawesi Province. Buffalo in Toraja has a high selling value, for one buffalo can be appreciated from hundreds of millions of rupiah to billions of rupiah. Ironically, the government and buffalo breeders in Toraja to continue to develop these buffalo designed for traditional rituals as cultivation business.

This is true that almost all societal traditions in different parts of the world, make buffalo as a symbol of their culture. It can be seen from ceremonies relating to the worship of ancestral spirits, or related to death. For example, in Indonesia, Batak societies, in particular, Toba, the level of customary activities and cultural rituals can be seen from what animals are slaughtered. The most high is the buffalo, which by the Batak Toba community is often termed “Gajah Toba”.Buffalo figures in the cultural understanding of cultural societies, has a number of symbols. Among other things, glory, strength, truth, patience and the antidote of evil spirits. No wonder the buffalo symbols are in the art of carving, where at the top of the roof commonly is decorated with the uses buffalo horns. Surprisingly, local people have the belief that the spirit will be delivered by buffaloes who have been sacrificed during the procession of the ceremony taking place to the spirit realm. The more buffaloes sacrificed, the faster the spirit arrives in its nature.They may vary from small gatherings to large-scale social celebrations and commemorations. They are closely linked to a community’s world view and perception of its own history and memory.

The ceremony was held with a very festive and luxurious like a grand party. But this ceremony of death does not in the slightest symbolize the death ceremony but rather a celebration party. Therefore, this death ceremony is often called a customary party. Social practices, rituals and festive events are strongly affected by the changes communities undergo in modern societies because they depend so much on the broad participation of practitioners and others in the communities themselves.The ceremony was held with a very festive and luxurious like a grand party. But this ceremony of death does not in the slightest symbolize the death ceremony but rather a celebration party. And the number of buffaloes sacrificed is not only believed to keep the spirit of the dead spirits to the natural nirvana but it also indirectly will leave the inner peace for the entire family left in the world. It is even believed that if his soul is cleansed then he will be a saint who always watches and guards his grand children to always do well in the world. This death ceremony is often called a customary party.At this location is also equipped with buffalo venue and buffalo fighting event is a series of traditional ceremonies which are most popular spectacles for guests and invitations including domestic and foreign tourists. In today’s modern world, making customary parties more crowded and more buffalo sacrifice, because of there is a presumption that who is able to carry out a large customary feast then he and his family will be uplifted their social status, while those unable to carry out a large customary party will be neglected their social status even considered down grade, so that today’s customary festival can be regarded as a bout of social status in Indonesia. Therefore, human attitudes towards animals are becoming of increasing importance in the areas of conservation and welfare.

In focusing on animal rights, however, Indonesia governments and customary head have neglected the larger question of how people think about their use of animals. Because cultural practices are ordinarily dissociated from the infliction of pain, people rarely experience conflict over their use of animals. In some instances, however, the infliction of harm is unusually salient. In such cases, people employ a number of mechanisms to reduce the “dissonance” between perceptions of themselves as compassionate and the realization that they are hurting animals.Although it is obviously impossible to know with certainty whether animals feel pain in the same sense that humans do, without being doubt the way most nonhumanmammals react to pain is remarkably similar in physiology, behaviour, and evolutionary purpose to the way that humans react to pain. Therefore, the more efficient the information exchange amongst individuals about animalwelfare in celebrating cultural rituals, the more frequently moral behaviour succeeds and the less frequently competitive behaviour that harms others will succeed.

The acceptability of the ways in which we manage animals cannot be evaluated solely from an assessment of their welfare. It must include an assessment of whether our treatment of the animals is morally justifiable. In deciding which animals should be killed, and for which animals we have concern about welfare, many people take account of the cognitive and emotional functioning of the animal. The belief that animals hold intrinsic value is an important basis for animal sacrificed in ritual traditions.A wide continuum of neglectful and abusive behaviours by humans towards animals massively exists in Indonesia. For example, people of Toraja tribe, in Indonesia buffaloes cannot be separated from their customs. Buffaloes are always a necessity in the implementation of custom rituals. Surprisingly, without a buffalo, the process of traditional ceremonies cannot be performed. In addition, buffalo are not just livestock, but are pets that can be a symbol of prestige and prosperity. The buffalo gets a special position in playing an important role in custom rituals, and is specifically treated (a valuable treasure for the owner).

This may seem entirely illogical and irrational that buffalo is also considered a sacred vehicle for the Toraja community. This is the reason why buffaloes are always made as one of the obligatory offerings at every custom ritual especially in the ceremony of death.Toraja people indeed believe that their ancestors first came down to earth by using buffalo from heaven. Hence, buffalo is also believed to be a holy vehicle that can take the dead to return to heaven.These are manifestations of social reality – reflect on their unique personal life history and experience.They claim that beliefs and practices of one or more communities cannot be adapted.It provides stagnant and stable frame of reference to generate meaning.This indicates that there is a hierarchy existing in each society that gives certain groups of people more power. And, those people have more power and privilege to create and maintain communication systems that contribute to promoting their field of experience. Whether directly or indirectly, dominant communication structures barricade co-cultural group members whose lived experiences are often under-represented or invisible in society.

These factors cover the aspects of what people in cultural groups are expecting from the communication with people from the dominant group (customary head). This contains sets of combinations of one preferred outcome and one communication approach, which demonstrate the strategy people choose in communication in order to achieve expected outcome. Therefore, communities try to provide high quality buffalos as offerings and look at buffalos which have unique characteristics and is not found in other areas - the physique is much bigger, hefty and fat compared to the buffalo in other parts of Indonesia.

Buffalo is a typical animal native to Asia, and became one of the important animals in the culture of tribes in Asia.Buffalo is also a major animal in parties and ceremonies. Although rarely found the practice of slaughtering buffalo in the party, allegedly practice in Toraja is a typical Asian culture that still remains exist. The influence of proximity to the buffalo that goes through generations, so that the mind of the Toraja people is dominated by buffalo. Keeping on-going tradition of proximity to the buffalo is sustained by the myths surrounding the origin of buffalo that so affect the minds and attitudes of Torajans to buffalo. Buffalo is really part of people’s daily life. Buffalo horn determines its value. However, the role of horns for male buffaloes is more important than in female buffalo. Usually the size and shape of female buffalo horns are not too calculated. Not so with a male bull. Buffalo horns become a meaningful decorative tool in society.The value of one young buffalo is determined by its horn display. The longer the more valuable. The price will automatically drop if there is a defect in the horn, or the shape is not proportional to the buffalo body.

Cruelty to animals, also called animal abuse, animal neglect or animal cruelty in preserving traditional ritesis a polysemic phenomenon. This extremely difficult to classify the practice of cruelty to animals for divination purposes which is found in ancient traditionsas a cultural category. Cruelty to animals sometimes encompasses inflicting harm or suffering as an end in itself, also defined as zoosadism. This tradition in wide societies especially in Indonesia is an activity that overflows the traditional generic categories of folklore, which shows characteristics of a folk craft, a folk ritual, a game and a festival (a social performing folk art).Traditional festivals, even those which have developed recently, have been community responses to some event or seasonal occurrence. They have provided ample reason for people to get together and celebrate in the ways which came most naturally or in ways prescribed by tradition.

The polysemity of this tradition is an indication of its basic ambiguity. More recently, however, with the tide of mass culture, there has been a tremendous growth in created festivals. Whether for commercial or nostalgic reasons or boththe emergence of these synthetic festivals has blurred the distinctions between traditional authentic folk festivals and popular festivals conceived as folk. The blurring of this distinction has led to confusion on both the folk and the popular levels of understanding. It is important to keep in mind that contemporary festivals, both folk and popular, are now reflections of a complex society. The festival that occurs today seldom remains within a precise definition. Only on either extreme may the festival be classified as primarily folk or primarily popular.

Ideally, culture of folk festival should educate both an individual person and the whole nation, teaches people the ability to express a sense of solidarity, but not giving a doctrine of an excuse for animal cruelty with alibi for preserving ancestors’ heritages. This is actually a sacrificial ritual, referring to it as a cruel or barbaric blood activities in which the bull suffers severe stress and a slow, torturous death. Even though the nature of pain is perhaps even more complex in animals, we know that animals certainly feel physical pain like human but animals cannot verbally communicate their pain.So, is the ritual religious sacrifice of animals “justifiable”? Most of exhibitions, in Indonesia, are inspired by over a thousand years of heritagewith its theatre-style interiors, re-imagined traditional rituals as entertainment.

Application of animal welfare is now a worldwide demand.In Indonesia, “Animal Welfare” is a new and not widely understood concept. This concept is difficult to translate from English into Indonesian. The word “welfare” has a different meaning for most local people. In general, the term “welfare” is closely related to human life. However, there are animal NGOs in Indonesia, such as ProFauna, which translates “Animal Welfare” as “kesejahteraanhewan”. The workers in this animal NGOs are trying to teach people that the concept of “welfare” applies not only to humans, but also to animals as well.Growing a sense of empathy and public awareness of the animal welfare aspect in Indonesia is a challenge of complex task that involves various dimensions such as culture, ethics, science, religion, and politics. In terms of raising livestock, animal welfare can not only be assessed in economic terms only. Implementation of animal welfare is a manifestation of more appreciation to animals in order to protect the rights of animals viewed from various sides of human, animal, and environment as God’s creatures. Thus animals will provide good feedback to humans (animal welfare is also true for human well-being).

In an effort to increase people’s knowledge about the importance of food safety of animal and to increase public understanding and awareness of animal welfare, hence governments and animal NGOs shouldtry to organise a series of activities that includes food safety counselling and interactive discussions on animal welfare. It is time for the government and the people of Indonesia to stop all practices that show the cruelty, torture and exploitation of animals that occur around us. Going forward, it is imperative for Indonesia to start applying universally democratic and transparent animal welfare standards based on science and ethics by taking into account animal production and animal use systems as well as relevant aspects such as environment, region, geography, economy, culture, social, and religion. As result, the implementation of animal welfare in Indonesia cannot be performed by particular party but it must involve various parties, therefore there needs to be good cooperation and coordination between the government, private and all parties for the application of better welfare.

Animal welfare education through trainings, education, campaign, and lobbying promotes knowledge, understanding, skills, attitudes and values related to human involvement in the lives of animals. It includes the effects on animals’ abilities to satisfy their needs, and human responsibilities as a result. It can bring about beneficial changes in the treatment of animals at the hands of humans.Some groups of cattle raisers who have gained knowledge about how to raise simply from their ancestors can strengthened by Animal welfare education given by local authorities. Because, there are still deficiencies especially in the application of animal welfare given the limited experience possessed by farmers and available facilities or infrastructure, for example in the application of cage management, handling, stress management, feeding procedures, etc. This means passing education about animal from ancestors generally without considering whether it is morally acceptable to keep animals. In Addition, human sympathy and empathy with animals are motivations to improve animal welfare. Motivations can also be based on self-interest.Therefore, by educating people about animal welfare and campaigning for legal reforms or the enforcement of existing legislation for animal welfare, elimination of culturally rather than economically motivated crueltymay appear in wide public.

Animals kept in the farm should be handled properly to achieve animal welfare and good meat quality. It is important that livestock keepers understand animal behaviour and basic principles of animal to handle them with low stress. The term ‘welfare assessment’ applies not only to monitoring animals for symbols of pain, suffering and distress related to procedures, but also to the regular monitoring of all animals to check for any health or welfare problems. Recognising signs of suffering is essential to taking early action and refining humane endpoints. It is also important to recognise and promote positive/good welfare; for example when evaluating the effects of refinement techniques such as environmental enrichment. Welfare assessment is a component of the scientific method, because physiological and psychological responses to suffering can significantly affect data quality.

Record keeping systems, either electronic or on paper, are essential for effective day-to-day welfare monitoring and for project review. Records should be set up so that observations of welfare problems are readily apparent, information is provided that will support the project review, and actual severity assessments can readily be extracted and reported. It is also good practice to review welfare assessment records at appropriate intervals, to ensure that suffering was effectively predicted for the ongoing study, that the most suitable indicators are being used consistently by all, and that suffering is being adequately recognised and dealt with.The main question in this section certainly is how we can assess the conditions of animal welfare. This is not easy question because it can be seen from various eyeglasses, for example in terms of science, ethics, and law, all have different opinions about animal welfare. However, the simplest way that is globally agreed upon is to make Five Freedoms of Animals as the standard of animal welfare. And Indonesia government adopted it as indicators of measuring animal welfare.

The Five Freedoms in Table 1 were verbalised in the early 1990s and are now well globally acknowledged as highly influential in the animal welfare domains. Nonetheless, an increase in knowledge and research scientifically, this understanding for the past few decades, showing that the five freedom does not catch all aspects of the intent of animal welfare its self. These five principles cannot be seen as separate principles, but they are related to one another. The non-fulfilment of one of the freedoms standards will result in the annoyance of other freedoms. For example, if access to food and drinking water is not met well then diseases and discomfort will arise. Similarly, if we fail to provide a proper living environment in accordance with the needs of the species, then the animal will suffer because it cannot express their normal behaviour, andthis will trigger a sense of stress and adversely affects the psychological condition. Without enough space, animals often become depressed and ultimately lead to stereotypical behaviour, which is a feature of animals that suffer mentally and psychologically. If this situation cannot be solved immediately, the animal can experience distress, namely the continued condition of stress that has resulted in pathological changes.

Table 1: The Five Freedoms and Five Provisions for promoting farm animal welfare

Source: Webster (2005)

However, Indonesia government fail to take into account that those principles of five freedoms of animals position are inconsistent in logic and ethically unacceptable. For example, the requirement that animals be able to express normal behaviour. It is very reasonable to argue that the normal behaviour of an animal is affected by its environment and conditioned responses learned at different stages of its life, so the concept of ‘normal’ or ‘natural’ is extremely vague. In addition, normal behaviour in some species can include extreme aggression towards other animals and cannibalism, both of which undoubtedly cause fear and distress to the victim animals which is contradictory to the fifth freedom. In other words, they are just described snapshot: an effort to define animal welfare of particular moment. They do not really reflect the underlying causes and a consequence of pressure that leads to long term problems.

Let’s go back to cruel culture to the moral status of animalsas any extravagant assumptions. Cultural justifications fortraditional ways of harming animals (animal sacrifices) indeed violates the principles of five freedoms of animals, and this animal cruelty is a serious problem.The ancestors have done for years and years and have passed down to the young generations with providing inadequate reasons to cause suffering. The worst cruelty situations are when those people hurt animals knowing that it hurts the animal, and they do it to cause the animal pain. The practice of animal slaughter should be liable to control from governmental interference because it is religiously motivated. Of course, it is not easy task to change why religious activity has a unique claim to take animals as offerings on behalf of culture and traditional religious and it is not merely about personal, but impersonal, or intrinsic, values, or because of the traditional structural role which plays in individual lives. In relation to this, even though animals are lower down the pyramid due to lack rationality, as mentioned by Wade (2004) and Linzey (1987), animals could not besubject to rational beings (treat cruelly or killed for human desires).

This article intends to draw attention to the role of ceremony in social life that has ranged in some parts of Indonesia regions – the possibility of an animal-inflected cultural rites by simply taking animals on board as objects of offerings in the inner workings of religion, and the cultures’ impression of that religion. The on-going dialogue about the current status of festival tradition and other forms of popular culture is a critical subject given the above, but it has not received enough attention in Indonesian ethnography. Despite being very contentious for many reasons, related primarily to the respect of animal rights, cruelty-based traditions keeps being a representative of some regions cultural tradition in Indonesia. Community celebrations and festivities frequently include bullfighting performances as a major attraction.

For my purposes here, the problem, in addition, is not just the disciplinary incoherence or vagueness of current modes of cultural traditions; the problem is that that incoherence or vagueness serves to maintain a certain historically, and ideologically specific form of subjectivity while masking it as pluralism—including (in this case) pluralism extended to nonhuman victims. In this way,religious doctrines give anthropologists more information for why people believe what they do and how it affects their lives, which could change the anthropological view, whether persuading people to treat their animals with compassion, teaching school children about proper animal care, or taking care of the sanctuary residents. In this light, animal studies, if taken seriously, would not so much extend or refine a certain mode of cultural tradition as bring it to an end.

Most of us would agree that cultural heritage can provide an automatic sense of unity and belonging within a group and allows us to better understand previous generations and the history of where we come from. However animals have been referred to as standardized biological tools designed as offerings in celebrating cultural traditions.In this point, the concrete reasons for cultural changes in regard to the traditional and customary practices of a particular ethnic or other cultural group ignoring animal welfare. To drive a culture of responsible animal welfare, all team members across the enterprise receive high-level training in animal well-being as part of their duties. The decisions and behaviour of humans therefore have the potential to both compromise and enhance animal welfare. Indeed, it has been argued that animal care personnel can have the most influence on an animal’s welfare status. This is because they must be able to anticipate problems, identify when problems have occurred and apply remedies, and also be able to identify, maintain and/or promote good welfare.

The paper has benefited from the comments and suggestions of Ach Maulidi from The University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Moh Zali, performed all the project which started from devising the project, the main conceptual ideas and proof outline, until revising the manuscript.