“animal welfare has an evidence problem” by matthes

Why I stopped donating to animal welfare charities but feel more motivated than ever to redirect money and talent to the cause.

I have wanted to write this post for a while. It is an uncomfortable thing to bring up. Many people in the animal welfare space are working really hard, and this post might leave some feeling defeated. But I think this is one of the most important things to talk about in animal welfare right now. My intention is not to be a downer or create infighting. Instead, I hope this post inspires lots of people to tackle this major neglected problem.

key takeaways

• Even some of the most prominent animal welfare interventions have surprisingly weak evidence behind them. In some cases, the available evidence even suggests that the intervention may be causing harm.
• Specifically
  • We have very limited data on electrical shrimp stunning that doesn't support a confident conclusion as to whether it's good or bad.
  • We have mixed evidence on whether transitioning egg producers to cage-free improves welfare overall.
  • We have evidence that the substitution effect of alternative proteins is weak, at best.
• Significant additional funding and talent should be allocated to raise [...]

---

Outline:

(00:44) key takeaways

(01:45) introduction

(02:29) three salient animal welfare interventions and their evidence bases

(03:17) shrimp stunning and slaughter

(11:01) cage-free

(20:29) alternative proteins

(21:47) this is a field-wide problem

(22:18) my recommendations to funders

(22:22) animal welfare should not be de-funded

(23:36) we should be taking ownership of the entire evidence pipeline

(24:49) when bet making doesn't make sense

(25:38) conclusion

---

First published:
June 5th, 2026

Source:
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/svjqgyFuFQ34qSgmw/animal-welfare-has-an-evidence-problem

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.