Throughout, the term ‘animal’ is used to describe non-human animals, as defined in Chapter 1. Preference tends to be given to the term ‘companion animal’ over ‘pet’; the former term is favoured by many animal protection organisations and the Australian Companion Animal Council.
Following Guither (1998, 9) and others, I tend to employ the phrase ‘animal protection’ to cover the full spectrum of attitudes of animal advocates and welfare providers, including (but not limited to) welfare and abolitionist perspectives. Guither defines ‘animal welfare’ as ‘all efforts to prevent cruelty, improve humane treatment, reduce stress and strain, and monitor research with animals’. While this clashes with the tendency of some abolitionist authors to use the term ‘welfarist’ and ‘protectionist’ interchangeably, it appears to be the most useful convention. ‘Animal welfare’, therefore, is used to describe the dominant policy paradigm in the Australian context: a focus on debates about how animals should be treated, but within an overarching norm that sees them legally and ethically subordinate to humans. In this way, animal welfare is different to its human counterpart (Haynes 2008).
In discussing vegetarians and vegans I have sometimes used the word ‘veg*ns’, an umbrella term for both groups (I discuss the distinction between the two, as well as other abstainer communities, in Chapter 3).
In general, organisations in this book are named using their current organisational name; this is extended to acronyms.
Biblical verses are sourced from the King James Version. Quranic verses are sourced from the Pickthall translation.