I am having a hard time figuring out the difference between Animal
Welfare and Animal rights... how why are they different?

Hi missajg-ga:

What a great question. I am an animal advocate (my wife and I are
fighting a Draconian pet by-law in our town), and I'd never thought
what the difference might be between animal rights and animal welfare.

My searching immediately turned up an *excellent* article that says
pretty much everything that there is to say:

http://www.animal-law.org/library/araw_ii.htm

This article gives many views of the difference between rights and
welfare, including from scholars, animal users, and animal advocates.
Some choice quotes:

"Recent scholarship on the human/animal relationship contends that the
modern animal "rights" movement is fundamentally different from its
historical predecessor, the animal welfare movement, or the humane
movement. These differences reflect the rejection by rights advocates
of a central tenet of animal welfare: that non-humans are the property
of humans and human obligations to non-humans are limited to a
prohibition against the unnecessary infliction of pain or death on
non-humans. Rights advocates generally hold that at least some
non-humans possess moral rights that protect certain interests in a
more absolute way, just as human rights protect certain human
interests."

"Ironically, the only real disagreement about whether there is a
distinction between animal rights and animal welfare, and about the
significance of that distinction, exists within the animal rights
movement itself. Although virtually all modern animal advocates
describe their various positions as embodying "rights" views, many
leaders of the movement now explicitly dismiss the importance of
rights notions."

Basically, what they appear to be saying is that "animal rights"
implies that the animals themselves have inalienable rights as do
humans and that animals are not ours to do with as we please. On the
other hand, "animal welfare" implies that we humans have certain
rights over the rest of the animal kingdom, so long as we treat the
animals humanely.

Some other pages also have interesting takes on this issue:

"Animal Rights and Animal Welfare: Five Frequently Asked Questions"
http://www.animal-law.org/library/quests.htm

"Animal Rights and Animal Welfare - Explaining the Difference to a
Child"
http://www.netcat.org/ar-vs-aw.html

"Animal Rights or Animal Welfare?"
http://www.mofed.org/RightsOrWelfare.html

An iteresting site with some further links to both welfare and rights
sites:
http://www.sover.net/~lsudlow/ARvsAW.htm

Search strategy on Google:
"animal welfare" "animal rights" difference

A search for "animal rights" or "animal welfare" will also give you
good links for information in either one of these areas.

I hope this has been helpful to you. Please feel free to ask for
clarification if you need it before you rate this answer.

Thanks. 

websearcher-ga