Rethink Priorities Animal Welfare Department: 2024 strategy update and 2025 goals

By Daniela Waldhorn, Rethink Priorities @ 2024-11-15T18:40 (+73)

Summary

• Challenge and opportunity: In the coming years, the animal advocacy movement faces both opportunities and uncertainties, from technological advances to shifting attitudes and rising meat consumption. To address these pressures, it's essential to channel resources toward filling critical knowledge gaps and creating the highest-impact solutions.
• How Rethink Priorities drives change for animals: We combine rigorous research with strategic engagement to drive evidence-based solutions for farmed and wild animals. Through collaboration with partners across policy, philanthropy, and advocacy sectors, we ensure that our research translates into positive change for animals globally. Moreover, we are initiating and launching new projects to advance animal welfare advocacy.
• 2024 Progress: We conducted 21 research projects focused on animal product consumption, crustaceans, fish, insects, and wild animals. Additionally, we organized two in-person coordination events for leaders within the animal advocacy movement and initiated a pilot for a new intervention. We also continued to provide guidance and strategic insights for effective animal advocates and funders.
• 2025 Goals:
  • Our key goals for 2025 include:
    • Deliver insights that contribute to informing and optimizing current strategies and prospect forward-looking opportunities for farmed animals.
    • Collaboratively develop a more cost-effective intervention for fish
    • Explore novel approaches: Continue to fill critical welfare knowledge gaps needed to help invertebrates (e.g., humane slaughter protocols for insects) while advancing innovative and viable interventions for neglected animals like those living in the wild.
  • Our focus is on developing solutions to assist the most numerous yet neglected individuals. However, sustained funding is crucial to drive progress on these initiatives.
• Call to action: We are seeking talent and funding to ensure progress toward our goals. With limited resources to tackle threats to neglected animal welfare, every contribution can make a substantial impact. Your support would help us continue advancing evidence-based solutions.

The scale of the challenge—and the opportunity

Imagine it’s 2035. Crustacean production has completely industrialized with new breeds and technology. These changes allow shrimp to be farmed under extremely crowded conditions, making it hard for them to move, crawl, or even breathe comfortably. The insect industry has taken off, causing suffering to trillions, while pushing animal feed prices down and entrenching the fish or chicken industries as even more profitable and powerful. Meanwhile, increased human-wildlife interactions and habitat changes could lead to greater suffering, particularly affecting species that already experience significant hardship throughout their lives.

This grim outlook highlights two critical ideas. First, the current scale of animal suffering is vast and remains largely neglected. Hundreds of billions of animals, more than the number of human beings that have ever existed, are enduring immense suffering on factory farms right now. Moreover, those living in the wild—who represent the large majority of non-human individuals—face constant threats to their well-being.

Second, the future scale of the problem will likely be even greater. For example, consider the prospects for aquaculture: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates a 22% rise in the total supply of aquatic animals would be required by 2050. That increase likely means that several billions of individuals will be farmed in addition to those currently farmed today and to the trillions of aquatic animals that humans are already capturing from the wild. Furthermore, we have reasons to believe that current ways of harming animals may become worse, or we might develop new ways of exploiting them.^[1]

Similar to the obstacles that advocates face when dealing with other global priorities, we believe that a key factor limiting progress in animal welfare—particularly when it comes to the most overlooked species— is limited information about how to help animals more effectively in both the short and long run. For example, scientists know very little about the nutritional needs of animals like insects, or there is a lack of a sufficiently strong understanding of what strategies might work best. Acting blindly bears a brutal opportunity cost: animal suffering that could have been otherwise alleviated.

How we drive change for animals

The scale of animal suffering is immense, but so is the opportunity to do good at scale. Helping animals is not only a major global issue but a problem that seems tractable. The animal advocacy movement has already made significant progress, like gradually pushing the agriculture industry to move away from the most intensive confinement methods for hens or challenging other widespread cruel practices that may benefit trillions of individuals.

At Rethink Priorities, we focus on accelerating the development of evidence-based findings and reason-driven solutions to help animals more effectively. But it’s not enough to generate evidence in a vacuum, so throughout 2024, we revised our strategy to more intentionally bridge research findings with those driving positive change for animals, to help the effective animal advocacy movement be even more impactful and resilient.

This year, we also invested in piloting a novel intervention targeting neglected animals. Funding permitting, we would like to continue testing innovative but riskier ideas and build infrastructure that fosters the effective animal welfare movement’s ability to tackle overlooked but important challenges.

To bring about meaningful change, we focus on innovation, collaboration, and action. We use rigorous research and empirical standards to seek new or optimized solutions for animals and coordinate with those driving positive change around better options. When coordination alone isn't enough, we step in to take action ourselves.

Our 2024 progress

Throughout this year, we made significant strides in advancing cross-organizational strategic discussions and insights on critical animal welfare issues.

Research

We accelerated the development of evidence-based findings and breakthroughs for those working towards a better future for animals.  

• Produced 21 original research projects, delivering actionable takeaways on some of the most pressing problems and providing practical tools to guide the strategies of advocates, funders, and organizations
• Gave 19 private or public presentations about our work
• Found anatomical evidence in invertebrates like shrimp and insects that is compatible with sentience
• Animal product consumption
  • Identified possible impact opportunities for plant-based meal campaigns in countries with low existing coverage while highlighting the challenges of securing more ambitious changes in countries where plant-based options are already widespread
  • Examined successful meat reduction interventions, which have helped a new major institutional funder to develop their strategy and outreach efforts
• Fish
  • Evaluated the prospective cost-effectiveness of farmed fish corporate commitments in Europe and found that non-slaughter welfare improvements have the theoretical potential to use resources more efficiently than mere slaughter measures.
  • Informed Animal Welfare Observatory’s 2024 corporate outreach strategy
• Insects
  • Expanded our research and identification of key welfare threats faced by some of the insect species most commonly used for food and feed production—crickets and yellow mealworms
  • Progressed in developing more humane methods to slaughter insects used for food and feed production
• Crustaceans
  • Uncovered that ~50% of farmed shrimps die before reaching slaughter age
  • Identified overcrowding conditions and low water quality as key welfare problems advocates and funders should focus on to improve shrimps’ lives
  • Informed FarmKind’s “Compassion calculator” to help accelerate their donation mechanisms
  • Produced tailored recommendations that identify the options available for slowing the rise in the number of shrimps that have to endure life on a farm, as well as improving the welfare of those who remain. We shared these findings with numerous advocates and various funders like Animal Charity Evaluators or EA Animal Welfare Fund.
• Wild animals
  • Studied the wild animal welfare landscape, identifying critical preconditions to help wild animals at scale
  • Were cited by a large institutional donor as a basis for suggesting funding opportunities related to rodents
  • Were featured on Faunalytics’ blog highlighting our findings on attitudes towards wild animal welfare (our paper on the topic is under review for publication in an academic journal)

Stakeholder engagement

We built meaningful connections to support better-informed decision-making of advocates, charitable organizations, and others improving animal welfare worldwide. In 2024 we:

• Hosted the third Animal Advocacy Strategy Forum, a global coordination effort that resulted in the launching of five new projects aimed at tackling major movement challenges.
• Organized an in-person discussion to align efforts to advance insect welfare.
• Provided strategic advice to six institutional funders and informed the decision-making of four animal advocacy organizations active in the invertebrate welfare, wild animal, and/or aquatic animal welfare fields.
• Facilitated a shift in shrimp welfare policies at a major retailer, which, if implemented, is expected to benefit 5 billion shrimps annually.
• Shared our past research on humane alternatives to rodenticides with New York City’s mayoral office to support their review of rodent management policies.

Infrastructure development

We began experimenting with a novel intervention to help some of the most neglected farmed animals. We are happy to provide more information upon request.
 

Moreover, this year, we actively contributed to the launch of the Aquatic Animal Funding Circle, which will help some of the most neglected farmed animals. It is expected to shift at least $1M per funding cycle toward promising but underfunded initiatives.

Looking ahead: 2025 plans

Looking ahead to 2025, we aim to build on the momentum of our 2024 progress by supporting the effective animal advocacy space with evidence-based and reason-driven strategies and fostering global collaboration. More specifically, by the end of 2025, we aim to:

• Collaboratively develop or refine a more cost-effective and scalable intervention that affects a sizable fraction of a fish’s lifespan, starting with Europe as a pilot region.
• Learn about the effectiveness of a novel intervention to help one key neglected animal species and, if possible, secure at least one milestone with high counterfactual value.
• Continue supporting the development of best practices and protocols for the humane slaughter of farmed insects to minimize stress and suffering.
• Identify at least one tractable intervention that could unlock impact for wild animals while expanding advocacy networks and attracting new funding sources.
• Make progress with one key project that advances present or future shrimp interventions, with priorities being:
  • (1) exploring producer outreach in Ecuador,
  • (2) identifying a viable future shrimp corporate welfare ask, and
  • (3) determining stocking densities that are compatible with shrimp welfare.
• Deliver insights (at least six projects) that contribute to informing and optimizing current strategies and prospect forward-looking opportunities for farmed animals, with priorities such as:
  • (1) analyzing current movement strategies, mapping theories of change and identifying gaps,
  • (2) estimating the impact of corporate commitments for hens and broilers,
  • (3) optimizing chances of policy reforms for animals, and
  • (4) acting on other emerging risks and opportunities.

Funding landscape

Our focus is on developing evidence-based solutions to help the most numerous but neglected individuals. We balance identifying short-term interventions with maintaining a long-term perspective. However, recent changes in the already-limited funding landscape for these animals pose significant challenges to the prospects of our efforts.

Over the past 18 months, most of our work on farmed invertebrates and wild animals has been supported by Open Philanthropy.^[2] While The Navigation Fund stepped in and committed to sustaining our insect welfare portfolio through 2026, that is not the case for other invertebrate work or further projects to help wild animals. Despite encouraging short-term support, sustained funding for these areas remains uncertain.

This funding situation puts many of our planned initiatives at risk. More critically, this uncertainty significantly threatens the growth of the nascent but burgeoning community of organizations and advocates driving ambitious change for 99% of existing sentient individuals. Without stable funding, we collectively will likely miss historical and unique opportunities to improve the lives of billions—perhaps trillions—of animals.

But you can change this.

Making a difference together

As we navigate these challenges, we invite you to play a pivotal role in advancing this work, particularly for some of the most neglected but numerous individuals. Here's how you can make a difference:

• Collaborate: Are you a researcher passionate about evidence-based animal welfare? We're seeking collaborators for contract-based projects. Share your interest here.
• Donate: With scant resources to tackle animal welfare—particularly the threats to the hidden majority of animals—even small contributions can make an outsized difference.

Imagine it’s 2035. We established welfare as a crucial consideration in industries posed to farm animals in the largest numbers, prevented other critical risks to animals used for food production, and positioned the movement on a stronger trajectory to tackling wild animal welfare at scale. Right now might be the best opportunity we will ever have to assist the hidden majority of individuals in our food system or to foster the capacity of the movement attempting to help those suffering in the wild.

Join us now to build a future where the welfare of animals matters, whether they live on farms or in nature.

Reach out if you would like to explore how we can create impact together!

Acknowledgments

Rethink Priorities is a think-and-do tank dedicated to informing decisions made by high-impact organizations, funders, and policymakers across various cause areas. This post is authored by Daniela Waldhorn. Thanks to Ula Zarosa, Rachel Norman, Hannah Tookey and Neil Dullaghan for their contributions.

1. ^{^}

    Of course, these numbers might not mean much if most of those individuals are unlikely to be sentient or have a very limited capacity for welfare, for example. We have addressed those issues here and here. While we acknowledge existing uncertainty around matters these matters, we believe we should not postpone helping animals like insects or shrimp because current practices pose threats of serious and negative welfare outcomes. Therefore, we adopt a precautionary approach.

2. ^{^}

    Going forward, Open Philanthropy will continue to provide the same level of funding for our core farmed animal work, with exclusions for projects focused on invertebrates and wild animals.