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A Blood Sport For The Rich And Famous?, Harold Herzog

Herzog - Animal policy and attitudes

The statistics on equine injury and death during horse racing are described and examined.

A Blood Sport For The Rich And Famous?, Harold Herzog

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

A new report finds horse racing carnage is getting worse.

Whip Use By Jockeys In A Sample Of Australian Thoroughbred Races—An Observational Study, Paul D. Mcgreevy, Robert A. Corken, Hannah Salvin, Celeste M. Black

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

The use of whips by jockeys is an issue. The current study viewed opportunistic high-speed footage of 15 race finishes frame-by-frame to examine the outcomes of arm and wrist actions (n = 350) on 40 horses viewed from the left of the field. Any actions fully or partially obscured by infrastructure or other horses were removed from the database, leaving a total of 104 non-contact sweeps and 134 strikes. For all instances of arm actions that resulted in fully visible whip strikes behind the saddle (n = 109), the outcomes noted were area struck, percentage of unpadded section making contact, …

Horse Racing: Cruelties We Condone And Cruelties We Condemn, Harold Herzog

Herzog - Animal policy and attitudes

While dog-fighting is condemned, hunting wild birds and ungulates are extolled and encouraged. Why are these activities, that result in considerable animal suffering treated so differently in America?

Horse Racing: Cruelties We Condone And Cruelties We Condemn, Harold Herzog

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

Why the deaths of HBO's "Luck" horses were predictable.

Chimpanzee Personhood: Supporting Scientific Documentation, Jonathan Balcombe

Sentience Collection

The aim of this document is to provide scientific support for granting chimpanzees and bonobos the legal status of persons. The studies summarized here have been selected because they show these species to have levels of awareness, cognition, emotionality and virtue that rivals that of their hominid cousins, Homo sapiens. Chimps, like other great apes, have long-term relationships, grieve the loss of a loved-one, can solve complex puzzles, display a sense of justice, and can learn hundreds of signs and put them together in logical sentences.

Tool Use In Fishes, Culum Brown

Sentience Collection

Tool use was once considered the sole domain of humans. Over the last 40 years, however, it has become apparent that tool use may be widespread across the animal kingdom. Pioneering studies in primates have shaped the way we think about tool use in animals, but have also lead to a bias both in terms of our expectations about which animals should be capable of using tools and the working definition of tool use. Here I briefly examine tool use in terrestrial animals and consider the constraints of the current working definition of tool use in fishes. Fishes lack grasping …

The Ban On The Use Of Chimpanzees In Biomedical Research And Testing In The Uk Should Be Made Permanent And Legally Binding, Michelle Thew, Jarrod Bailey, Michael Balls, Michelle Hudson

Laboratory Experiments Collection

The Coalition Government is currently considering how to transpose Directive 2010/63/EU on animal experimentation into UK law. The Directive bans the use of Great Apes in laboratories, but EU Member States can seek (now or, more likely, at some time in the future) a derogation from the Commission to permit such use, where this is considered essential for the preservation of the species in question or in relation to an unexpected outbreak of a life-threatening or debilitating clinical condition in human beings. Currently, the policy of the Government is not to approve any experiments on Great Apes, but it is …

Scoop

Animal Sheltering 2010-12

• Rescue U connects college students to shelters in need
• One dumpster-diving cat inspired Kandi Habeb to help thousands
• You’re helping us. We’re helping you. We’re all helping animals. Carry on!
• Officer in Washington state says her job combines her passions
• Scooping up savings
• Active mind, healthy dog
• Shelter worker pulls injured cat from minivan dashboard
• The HSUS answers town’s call for help
• Shooting the small fry
• New digs and renovations
• Florida shelter puts out welcome sign for scores of rescued and displaced pets
• Pet portrait fundraiser nets thousands of dollars for California animal welfare organizations
• Ar-cat-tectural Appeal
• The Ick Factor …

The People’S Power

Animal Sheltering 2010-12

What do your staff really think? Knowing is half the battle.

Snapping To It

Animal Sheltering 2010-12

A Dallas photographer’s art makes a difference for rescue dogs

Saving An Erie Number Of Cats

Animal Sheltering 2010-12

A coalition in New York goes the distance for felines

Worth The Risk

Animal Sheltering 2010-12

Volunteers keep many an organization running, but they bring potential liabilities

A Gentle Kind Of Cat Care

Animal Sheltering 2010-12

Reducing anxiety, frustration, and URI in shelter cats

All Together Now

Animal Sheltering 2010-12

Done properly, group housing can produce happier cats, delighted visitors—and more adoptions

Alternative Approaches For Medical Countermeasures To Biological And Chemical Terrorism And Warfare, Thomas Hartung, Joanne Zurlo

Biomedical Research and Alternative Methods Collection

The desire to develop and evaluate drugs as potential countermeasures for biological and chemical threats requires test systems that can also substitute for the clinical trials normally crucial for drug development. Animal models have limited predictivity for drug efficacy, as is well known from many disappointments in clinical trials. Traditional in vitro and in silico approaches are not really game changers here, but the substantial investment into novel tools now underway might bring about a second generation of alternative approaches. The avenue pursued focuses primarily on the development of a Human on a Chip, i.e., the combination of different three-dimensional …

The Welfare Of Animals In The Foie Gras Industry

Agribusiness Reports

The production of pâté de foie gras involves force-feeding ducks and geese by placing a long tube down the birds’ esophagi and pumping an unnatural quantity of food directly into their stomachs. Force-feeding induces hepatic lipidosis and causes the birds’ livers to become diseased and enlarged. Substantial scientific evidence suggests that force-feeding can cause pain and injury from feeding tube insertion, fear and stress during capture and handling, gait abnormality due to distended livers, pathologies in liver function, and increased mortality. Force-feeding birds to produce foie gras is detrimental to their welfare.

Isotopic Niche Differentiation Among Mammals From A Rainforest In Peninsular Malaysia, Kae Kawanishi, Song Horng Neo Liang, Chris T. Darimont, Thomas E. Reimchen, Melvin E. Sunquist

Biochemistry Collection

We performed stable isotope analysis on eight mammalian species: pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina), long-tailed macaque (M. fascicularis), dusky leaf monkey (Trachypithecus obscurus), brush-tailed porcupine (Atherurus macrourus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), lesser mouse-deer (Tragulus javanicus), greater mouse-deer (T. napu), and barking deer (Muntiacus muntjac), to test the hypothesis that the differences in diet and habitat types among species, guilds and foraging strategies are reflected in the δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C signatures of their tissues. Whereas the isotopic ratios differed among taxa, the four major isotopic groups observed were: mouse-deer species, primate species, brush-tailed porcupine, and wild boar. The …

Bias During The Evaluation Of Animal Studies, Andrew Knight

Morality and Ethics of Animal Experimentation Collection

My recent book entitled The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments seeks to answer a key question within animal ethics, namely: is animal experimentation ethically justifiable? Or, more precisely, is it justifiable within the utilitarian cost:benefit framework that fundamentally underpins most regulations governing animal experimentation? To answer this question I reviewed more than 500 scientific publications describing animal studies, animal welfare impacts, and alternative research, toxicity testing and educational methodologies. To minimise bias I focused primarily on large-scale systematic reviews that had examined the human clinical and toxicological utility of animal studies. Despite this, Dr. Susanne Prankel recently reviewed my …

Whaling: Don’T Trade The Moratorium Away, Mark Peter Simmonds, Sue Fisher

Conservation Collection

In their proposal to allocate ‘whale shares’ to both whalers and conservationists as an alternative to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, Christopher Costello and colleagues overlook several factors (Nature 481, 139–140; 2012).

Complex Patterns Of Male Alliance Formation In A Dolphin Social Network, Joanna Wiszniewski, Culum Brown, Luciana M. Möller

Sentience Collection

The formation and maintenance of alliances is regarded as one of the most socially complex male mating strategies in mammals. The prevalence and complexity of these cooperative relationships, however, varies considerably among species as well as within and between populations living in different ecological and social environments. We assessed patterns of alliance formation for Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops aduncus, in Port Stephens, New South Wales, Australia, to investigate the stability of these alliances, the structure of associations, as well as variation in schooling patterns among males. Our results showed that association patterns among males within this population showed considerable variability. …

Superglue Is Not Super: An Assessment Of Superglue For Suturing Tag Incisions In A Cultured Marine Fish, Vincent Raoult, Culum Brown, Jane E. Williamson

Aquaculture Collection

No abstract provided.

Natural Healers: The Four Pillars Of Medicine And How Animals Use Them, Harold Herzog

'Animals and Us' Blog Posts

Is meat-eating the reason pet-owners get sicker than their dogs?

Accelerating The Development Of 21st-Century Toxicology: Outcome Of A Human Toxicology Project Consortium Workshop, Martin L. Stephens, Craig Barrow, Melvin E. Andersen, Kim Boekelheide, Paul L. Carmichael, Michael P. Holsapple, Mark Lafranconi

in Vitro Research Models Collection

The U.S. National Research Council (NRC) report on “Toxicity Testing in the 21st century” calls for a fundamental shift in the way that chemicals are tested for human health effects and evaluated in risk assessments. The new approach would move toward in vitro methods, typically using human cells in a high-throughput context. The in vitro methods would be designed to detect significant perturbations to “toxicity pathways,” i.e., key biological pathways that, when sufficiently perturbed, lead to adverse health outcomes. To explore progress on the report’s implementation, the Human Toxicology Project Consortium hosted a workshop on 9–10 November 2010 in Washington, …

Animals On The Borderline: The Horse Slaughter Controversy, Jenny Vermilya Ph.D.

Herzog - Animal policy and attitudes

Horses occupy a liminal area between "pet" and livestock and hence, the controversy over horse slaughter. The disposal of dead horses is challenging and expensive and abolition of horse slaughter has led, according to some sources, an increase in horse neglect and suffering.

Animals On The Borderline: The Horse Slaughter Controversy, Harold Herzog, Jenny Vermilya

Slaughter and Slaughtering Practices Collection

Are horses pets, products, or both?

Your Worst Animal Nightmare, Harold Herzog

'Animals and Us' Blog Posts

Monster snakes are headed your way...

An Hsi Report: Industrial Farm Animal Production And Livestock Associated Mrsa (Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus), Humane Society International

HSI REPORTS

Staphylococcus aureus is a leading cause of bacterial infection and is increasingly found to be resistant to antibiotic therapy. A newly described type of Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus carried by farm animals, Livestock Associated MRSA (LA-MRSA), is now causing infections in humans with and without direct livestock contact. A reduction in the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in feed would likely reduce the capacity of industrial animal agriculture to continue to create, disseminate, and perpetuate a large reservoir of LA-MRSA on a global scale, but more fundamental changes in the way animals are raised for food may be necessary forestall a …

Puppy Buyer Complaints: A Five-Year Summary, 2007‐2011, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL REPORTS

The Humane Society of the United States receives complaints about sick puppies on a daily basis. Over a five-year period (2007-2011), our puppy mills campaign received 2,479 puppy buyer complaints. The complaint came to The HSUS via our website complaint form (www.humanesociety.org/puppycomplaint), by email, and through our puppy mills tip line. Buyers complained about sick puppies sold by a variety of sources, including pet stores, breeders (both in person and online), or middleman dealers (sometimes known as brokers). Unsatisfied buyers contact The HSUS for many reasons; some are seeking information about how to pursue their consumer complaint, others …

Humane Literacy And Formal Educators, Stephanie Itle-Clark

Education Collection

Formal educators (those with formal education degrees versus informal educators who may work in shelters or nature centers) in the K-12 system are tasked with facilitating academic, character, and social and emotional learning in the classroom. As part of this learning, the teaching of critical thinking revolving around and reinforcement of “kindness . . . care and compassion towards” people, animals, and the environment and the interconnection among the three can work to prevent needless suffering and create community building attitudes (Selby, 1995, p. 7). Based upon knowledge of state mandates involving humane education, the Humane Literacy Coalition (HLC) was …