Digital Commons Network^™

Providing Sanctuary & Healing

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Humane Society International

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Protecting Wildlife & Their Lands

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Reforming Farming Practices

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Letter From The Ceo, Wayne Pacelle

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Our Goals For 2009

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Top 10 Hsus Victories For Animals

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Reviewing Existing Knowledge Prior To Conducting Animal Studies, Andrew Knight

Experimentation Collection

Highly polarised viewpoints about animal experimentation have often prevented agreement. However, important common ground between advocates and opponents was demonstrated within a discussion forum hosted at www.research-methodology.org.uk in July–August 2008, by the independent charity, SABRE Research UK. Agreement existed that many animal studies have methodological flaws — such as inappropriate sample sizes, lack of randomised treatments, and unblinded outcome assessments — that may introduce bias and limit statistical validity. There was also agreement that systematic reviews of the human utility of animal models yield the highest quality of evidence, as their reliance on methodical and impartial methods to select significant …

Increasing Our Compassion Footprint: The Animals’ Manifesto, Marc Bekoff

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

Our relationships with animals are wide-ranging. When people tell me that they love animals and then harm or kill them I tell them I’m glad they don’t love me. Many individuals, including scientists, ignore their responsibility when they interact with animals and fail to recognize that doing something in the name of science, which usually means in the name of humans, is not an adequate reason for intentionally causing suffering, pain, or death. “Good welfare” usually is not “good enough.” Existing regulations allow animals to be treated in regrettable ways that demean us as a species. Compassion is the key …

Developmental Toxicity Testing: Protecting Future Generations?, Jarrod Bailey

Experimentation Collection

A recent editorial is discussed, which implied that animal-based developmental and reproductive toxicology tests will continue to be crucial, that the thalidomide disaster could have been prevented by more animal testing, and that tests on juvenile animals would help to protect children (as developing adults) from the adverse effects of pharmaceuticals. It is argued that animal tests in these scientific areas do not provide reliable data that are predictive for human responses and, even if they did, the tests are too expensive and time-consuming for application to the very large number of substances that need to be tested. It is …

Faecal-Centric Approaches To Wildlife Ecology And Conservation; Methods, Data And Ethics, C. T. Darimont, T. E. Reimchen, H. M. Bryan, P. C. Paquet

Ethics and Conservation Biology Collection

Abundant and commonly encountered in the field, wildlife faeces have long attracted scientists. Recent advances in molecular techniques, however, especially when coupled with creative study designs, can now yield a great variety of high quality data. Herein, we review the opportunities and challenges of faecal-centric approaches to address ecological and conservation questions using wolves of coastal British Columbia, Canada, as a case system. We begin by discussing methodological considerations, which should have broad applicability to any wildlife study system. We then summarize the extensive and unique variety of data that has emerged from our ‘facts from faeces’ approach with wolves, …

Understanding The Human Aspects Of Animal Hoarding, Amanda I. Reinisch

Passive Cruelty to Animals Collection

The Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium reviewed the case records of 71 incidents from across the United States and Canada to determine what characterizes a typical animal hoarding case (5). Of the cases reviewed, 83% involved women (71% involved individuals, who were widowed, divorced, or single); 53% of the animal hoarding residences were home to other individuals including children (5%), elderly dependents and disabled people (21%). Often essential utilities and major appliances such as showers, heaters, stoves, toilets, and sinks were not functional. Residential home interiors were usually unsanitary, 93%; 70% had fire hazards; and 16% of residences involved in …

It's In Your Nature: A Pluralistic Folk Psychology, Kristin Andrews

Sentience Collection

I suggest a pluralistic account of folk psychology according to which not all predictions or explanations rely on the attribution of mental states, and not all intentional actions are explained by mental states. This view of folk psychology is supported by research in developmental and social psychology. It is well known that people use personality traits to predict behavior. I argue that trait attribution is not shorthand for mental state attributions, since traits are not identical to beliefs or desires, and an understanding of belief or desire is not necessary for using trait attributions. In addition, we sometimes predict and …

Behavioural Analysis Of A Nociceptive Event In Fish: Comparisons Between Three Species Demonstrate Specific Responses, Siobhan C. Reilly, John P. Quinn, Andrew R. Cossins, Lynne U. Sneddon

Sentience Collection

Nociception is the sensory mechanism by which potentially harmful stimuli are detected in animals and humans. The behavioural responses to noxious stimulation have been studied in two fish species thus far. However, since species-specific differences are seen in mammals, more species need to be examined to determine whether nociceptive responses are generic in fish. The present study investigated the behavioural and respiratory response to an acute noxious or potentially painful stimulus in common carp (Cyprinus carpio), zebrafish (Danio rerio) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Behavioural parameters such as frequency of swimming, use of cover and any anomalous behaviour were measured …

Counting The Contributions: Benchmarking For Your Organization And Your State, Andrew N. Rowan

Demography and Statistics for Companion Animal Populations Collection

An analysis of per-capita donations can help shelters assess their effectiveness in raising funds and awareness in their communities.

On Measuring Progress In Animal Welfare, James A. Serpell

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

Improvements in the welfare of animals arise from two primary sources: Changes in public attitudes and beliefs regarding what constitutes acceptable treatment of animals, and mandatory changes in behavior toward animals imposed by governments and regulatory authorities. During the last 30-40 years, public and political support for improvements in animal welfare has increased dramatically in many countries. Funding from both governmental and non-governmental sources continues to grow, and the relatively new field of animal welfare science has emerged and expanded to support and inform these efforts. Many experts in the field recognize, however, that there is still a distinct gap …

When To Be A Dear Enemy: Flexible Acoustic Relationships Of Neighbouring Skylarks, Alauda Arvensis, Elodie Briefer, Fanny Rybak, Thierry Aubin

Ethology Collection

Numerous territorial species are less aggressive towards neighbours than strangers. This tolerance towards neighbouring conspecifics, termed the ‘dear enemy’ effect, seems to be a flexible feature of the relationship between neighbours, and has been shown to disappear in some species after experimental or natural modifications of the context. However, the maintenance over time of this singular relationship has been poorly studied. In this study, we followed the change of dear enemy relationships during the breeding season in a territorial songbird with a complex song, the skylark. We examined in the field the response of territory owners to playbacks of neighbour …

Visual Attention And Its Relation To Knowledge States In Chimpanzees, Pan Troglodytes, Megan J. Bulloch, Sarah T. Boysen, Ellen E. Furlong

Sentience Collection

Primates rely on visual attention to gather knowledge about their environment. The ability to recognize such knowledge-acquisition activity in another may demonstrate one aspect of Theory of Mind. Using a series of experiments in which chimpanzees were presented with a choice between an experimenter whose visual attention was available and another whose vision was occluded, we asked whether chimpanzees understood the relationship between visual attention and knowledge states. The animals showed sophisticated understanding of attention from the first presentation of each task. Under more complex experimental conditions, the subjects had more difficulty with species-typical processing of attentional cues and those …

An Assessment Of The Role Of Chimpanzees In Aids Vaccine Research, Jarrod Bailey

Laboratory Experiments Collection

Prior to Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV)-infected macaques becoming the ‘model of choice’ in the 1990s, chimpanzees were widely used in AIDS vaccine research and testing. Faced with the continued failure to develop an effective human vaccine, some scientists are calling for a return to their widespread use. To assess the past and potential future contribution of chimpanzees to AIDS vaccine development, databases and published literature were systematically searched to compare the results of AIDS vaccine trials in chimpanzees with those of human clinical trials, and to determine whether the chimpanzee trials were predictive of the human response. Protective and/or therapeutic …

Spawning Salmon Disrupt Trophic Coupling Between Wolves And Ungulate Prey In Coastal British Columbia, Chris T. Darimont, Paul C. Paquet, Thomas E. Reimchen

Nonindigenous Pests and Biological Invasions Collection

Background: As a cross-boundary resource subsidy, spawning salmon can strongly affect consumer and ecosystem ecology. Here we examine whether this marine resource can influence a terrestrial wolf-deer (Canis lupus-Odocoileus hemionus) predator-prey system in coastal British Columbia, Canada. Data on resource availability and resource use among eight wolf groups for three seasons over four years allow us to evaluate competing hypotheses that describe salmon as either an alternate resource, consumed in areas where deer are scarce, or as a targeted resource, consumed as a positive function of its availability. Faecal (n = 2203 wolf scats) and isotopic analyses (n = 60 …

Understanding Animal Welfare, David Fraser

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

In debates about the welfare of animals, different people have tended to emphasize different concerns. Some emphasize the basic health and functioning of animals, especially freedom from disease and injury. Others emphasize the "affective states" of animals – states like pain, distress and pleasure that are experienced as positive or negative. Others emphasize the ability of animals to live reasonably natural lives by carrying out natural behaviour and having natural elements in their environment. These concerns constitute different criteria that people use to assess animal welfare. The criteria overlap substantially but are sufficiently independent that the single- minded pursuit of …

Volunteer Studies In Pain Research — Opportunities And Challenges To Replace Animal Experiments: The Report And Recommendations Of A Focus On Alternatives Workshop, C. K. Langley, Q. Aziz, C. Bountra, N. Gordon, P. Hawkins, A. Jones, G. Langley, T. Nurmikko, I. Tracey

Experimentation Collection

Despite considerable research, effective and safe treatments for human pain disorders remain elusive. Understanding the biology of different human pain conditions and researching effective treatments continue to be dominated by animal models, some of which are of limited value. British and European legislation demands that non-animal approaches should be considered before embarking on research using experimental animals. Recent scientific and technical developments, particularly in human neuroimaging, offer the potential to replace some animal procedures in the study of human pain. A group of pain research experts from academia and industry met with the aim of exploring creatively the tools, strategies …

A Note On The Effectiveness Of Behavioural Rehabilitation For Reducing Inter-Dog Aggression In Shelter Dogs, Jane S. Orihel, David Fraser

Interactive Behavior Collection

The effectiveness of a rehabilitation program for reducing inter-dog aggression was evaluated at the municipal animal shelter. Sixteen dogs (of 60 examined) met the study criteria of medium inter-dog aggression as determined by an inter-dog aggression test. These dogs received a 10-day treatment of daily rehabilitation for 30 min (rehabilitation group, n = 9) or daily release into an outdoor enclosure for 30 min (control group, n = 7). Rehabilitation consisted of desensitising and counter-conditioning dogs to the approach of other ‘‘stimulus’’ dogs. Most dogs in the rehabilitation group showed a decline in aggression scores when re-tested after the last …

Estimates For Worldwide Laboratory Animal Use In 2005, Katy Taylor, Nicky Gordon, Gill Langley, Wendy Higgins

Laboratory Experiments Collection

Animal experimentation continues to generate public and political concern worldwide. Relatively few countries collate and publish animal use statistics, yet this is a first and essential step toward public accountability and an informed debate, as well as being important for effective policy-making and regulation. The implementation of the Three Rs (replacement, reduction and refinement of animal experiments) should be expected to result in a decline in animal use, but without regular, accurate statistics, this cannot be monitored. Recent estimates of worldwide annual laboratory animal use are imprecise and unsubstantiated, ranging from 28–100 million. We collated data for 37 countries that …

Factors Associated With Success In Guide Dog Training, Lara S. Batt, Marjolyn S. Batt, John A. Baguley, Paul D. Mcgreevy

Service and Support Animals Collection

Tests of motor laterality and behavioral reactivity, as well as salivary cortisol concentrations, were examined in this pilot study to identify dogs best suited to guide dog work. Over a 14-month period, lateralization tests were conducted and cortisol concentrations were determined on 3 separate occasions, and temperament testing was performed on 2. Potential guide dogs (N = 43) involved in this study were 5 golden retrievers (4 males, 1 female) and thirty-eight Labrador retrievers (8 black males, fifteen yellow males, 5 black females, and ten yellow females). Results from these tests were then compared with the ultimate success of the …

The Beginning Of The End For Chimpanzee Experiments?, Andrew Knight

Experimentation Collection

The advanced sensory, psychological and social abilities of chimpanzees confer upon them a profound ability to suffer when born into unnatural captive environments, or captured from the wild – as many older research chimpanzees once were – and when subsequently subjected to confinement, social disruption, and involuntary participation in potentially harmful biomedical research. Justifications for such research depend primarily on the important contributions advocates claim it has made toward medical advancements. However, a recent large-scale systematic review indicates that invasive chimpanzee experiments rarely provide benefits in excess of their profound animal welfare, bioethical and financial costs. The approval of large …

Novel Candidate Genes Identified In The Brain During Nociception In Common Carp (Cyprinus Carpio) And Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus Mykiss), Siobhan C. Reilly, John P. Quinn, Andrew R. Cossins, Lynne U. Sneddon

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

Recent studies have demonstrated that teleost fish possess nociceptors that detect potentially painful stimuli and that the physiological properties of these fibres are markedly similar to those found in mammals. This finding led to suggestions of possible pain perception in fish, contrary to the view that the sensory response in these animals is limited to the spinal cord and hindbrain and as such is reflexive. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine if the brain is active at the molecular level by using a microarray analysis of gene expression in the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain of two fish …

Global Farm Animal Production And Global Warming: Impacting And Mitigating Climate Change, Gowri Koneswaran, Danielle Nierenberg

Agribusiness Collection

BACKGROUND: The farm animal sector is the single largest anthropogenic user of land, contributing to many environmental problems, including global warming and climate change.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to synthesize and expand upon existing data on the contribution of farm animal production to climate change.

METHODS: We analyzed the scientific literature on farm animal production and documented greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as various mitigation strategies.

DISCUSSIONS: An analysis of meat, egg, and milk production encompasses not only the direct rearing and slaughtering of animals, but also grain and fertilizer production for animal feed, waste storage …

Systematic Reviews Of Animal Experiments Demonstrate Poor Contributions To Human Healthcare, Andrew Knight

Experimentation Collection

Widespread reliance on animal models during preclinical research and toxicity testing assumes their reasonable predictivity for human outcomes. However, of 20 published systematic reviews examining human clinical utility located during a comprehensive literature search, animal models demonstrated significant potential to contribute toward clinical interventions in only two cases, one of which was contentious. Included were experiments expected by ethics committees to lead to medical advances, highly-cited experiments published in major journals, and chimpanzee experiments—the species most generally predictive of human outcomes. Seven additional reviews failed to demonstrate utility in reliably predicting human toxicological outcomes such as carcinogenicity and teratogenicity. Results …

Survey Of Dairy Management Practices On One Hundred Thirteen North Central And Northeastern United States Dairies, W. K. Fulwider, T. Grandin, B. E. Rollin, T. E. Engle, N. L. Dalstead, W. D. Lamm

Farm Animal Welfare Collection

The objective was to conduct a broad survey of dairy management practices that have an effect on animal well-being. Dairies were visited during the fall and winter of 2005 and 2006 in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, and New York. Data were collected on 113 dairies on colostrum feeding, dehorning, tail-docking, euthanasia methods, producer statements about welfare, use of specialized calf-raising farms (custom), level of satisfaction with calf-raising by producers, and cow behavior. Calves were raised by the owner on 50.4% of dairies; 30.1% were raised on custom farms during the milk-feeding period, 18.6% were custom raised after weaning, and 1% …