The Problem With Super-Muscly Pigs

Animal research is moving rapidly in two divergent directions.

Research on animal cognition, behavior, and welfare is teaching us that many animal species have complex cognitive and emotional lives and needs, which are linked to the way they experience and explore their surroundings. For instance, pigs are quite advanced: They have long-term memory and are sensitive to the emotions of other pigs. They can also use mirrors to locate food behind barriers and can determine whether humans are paying attention to them by looking at people’s heads. There lies a danger in underestimating such capabilities: If animals live in a very restricted environment without any cognitive or social challenges, preventing them from expressing species-typical behavior, they can experience welfare problems. Research insight into animal cognition is giving us—or should be giving us—increased empathy for other species and better recognition of their needs.

At the same time, new gene-editing technologies are allowing scientists to design animals in ways that maximize their economic value as food sources. These technologies permit the direct manipulation of virtually any gene of a living organism...