Digital Commons Network^™

Nrro Spring 2004

Northern Rockies Regional Office

• Recent rescues
• NRRO responds to CA wildfires
• Adapting to fit regional needs
• Colorado and Utah: off to a great start
• Case update
• Join the great trailer trade-in
• Help protect backyard wildlife
• The HSUS: five decades of serving people and animals (Dave Pauli)

Pnro Spring 2004

Pacific Northwest Regional Office

• It doesn't pay to be a Chirikof Cow
• Goldendale rescue
• The sad truth about animal hoarders
• Coyotes, other animals doomed to suffer in Oregon traps
• How you can help the Chirikof cows
• Oregon earns kudos for course
• Reward brings in geese killers
• 50 years of history and a new beginning (Robert Reder)

Sero Spring 2004

Southeast Regional Office

• FL closer to animal-friend plate
• SERO responds to disasters on two coasts
• Isabel animal impact light thanks to preparation
• Carlifornia firestorms wreak deadly havoc
• Manatee gets reprieve
• Legislative News
• RAVS vet clinics go to Georgia
• Pet Fest is super fun
• Fifty years to be proud of! (Laura Bevan)

Swro Spring 2004

Southwest Regional Office

• Reward nets cattle shooters
• SWRO helps police fight back
• Keeping your cat safe
• Animal terrorism legislation introduced first in Texas
• Terrorism bills introduced
• Stopping Texas horse slaughter
• My, how times have changed (Lou Guyton)

Wcro Spring 2004

West Coast Regional Office

• Managing feral cats in Sacramento
• Animal rescues during the firestorms
• WCRO at disaster training events
• Santa Barbara man charged with four counts of felony cruelty
• La Jolla seals just want to share
• WCRO assists in goat and cat rescues
• WCRO Director Sakach recognized for animal protection work
• Voice against violence
• Fixathon sets record
• Safe Cats at River Cats
• Legislative Update
• Regulations Update
• Looking back and to the future: The HSUS commemorates a half century of animal protection

Reflections On Animal Selves, Marc Bekoff, Paul W. Sherman

Sentience Collection

Is self-cognizance a uniquely human attribute, or do other animals also have a sense of self? Although there is considerable interest in this question, answers remain elusive. Progress has been stymied by misunderstandings in terminology, a focus on a narrow range of species, and controversies over key concepts, experimental paradigms and interpretations of data. Here, we propose a new conceptual and terminological framework, emphasizing that degrees of self-cognizance differ among animals because of the cognitive demands that their species-specific social structures and life-history characteristics have placed upon them over evolutionary time. We suggest that the self-cognizance of an organism falls …

Differences In Response To Hypoxia In The Three-Spined Stickleback From Lotic And Lentic Localities: Dominance And An Anaerobic Metabolite, L. U. Sneddon, J. Yerbury

Aquaculture Collection

Dominance hierarchies of the three-spined stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus from river and pond populations were subjected to hypoxia (20%, range±1%). Under hypoxia, the hierarchies were less stable in terms of rank position and tissue L-lactate was higher in river fish than pond fish under normoxia and hypoxia. Dominant fish gained mass under normoxia but lost mass under hypoxic conditions possibly due to them maintaining high levels of aggression.

A Critical Assessment Of Protection For Key Wildlife And Salmon Habitats Under The Proposed British Columbia Central Coast Land And Resource Management Plan, Paul C. Paquet, Chris T. Darimont, R. John Nelson, Katrina Bennett

Habitat Assessment and Management Collection

The Central Coast Land and Resource Management Plan (CCLRMP) table recently declared a consensus1 on proposed protected areas for British Columbia’s Central Coast. This region is recognized for its globally rare and largely intact mainland and island ecosystems and land use decisions should reflect this importance. We evaluated the efficacy of this proposal using a spatial assessment of habitat. We focus on protected areas in the context of the overall CCLRMP. We examined the level of protection provided by the CCLRMP in three key coastal habitats: deer winter range, wolf reproductive habitat, and salmon reproductive and rearing habitat. Assessment of …

A Model Of Animal Selfhood: Expanding Interactionist Possibilities, Leslie Irvine

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

Interaction between people and companion animals provides the basis for a model of the self that does not depend on spoken language. Drawing on ethnographic research in an animal shelter as well as interviews and autoethnography, this article argues that interaction between people and animals contributes to human selfhood. In order for animals to contribute to selfhood in the ways that they do, they must be subjective others and not just the objects of anthropomorphic projection. Several dimensions of subjectivity appear among dogs and cats, constituting a “core” self consisting of agency, coherence, affectivity, and history. Conceptualizing selfhood in this …

Medical Training Using Simulation: Toward Fewer Animals And Safer Patients, Jonathan Balcombe

Experimentation Collection

This paper presents the current status of computer-based simulation in medicine. Recent technological advances have enabled this field to emerge from esoteric explorations in academic laboratories to commercially available simulators designed to train users to perform medical procedures from start to finish. Today, more than a dozen companies are producing virtual reality simulators and interactive manikins for training in endoscopy, laparoscopy, anaesthesia, trauma management, angiography, and needle insertion. For many of these procedures, thousands of animals are still being used in training. Yet simulation has many advantages that can transcend scientific, ethical, economic and logistical problems that arise when using …

Levels Of Citation Of Nonhuman Animal Studies Conducted At A Canadian Research Hospital, Anne Innis Dagg, Troy K. Seidle

Experimentation Collection

The publication of scientific articles that receive few or no citations raises questions of the appropriate use of resources as well as ethics. In the case of animal research, the ethics issue extends beyond human patients to nonhuman animals, as the research subjects them to pain and, typically, to death. This study is a citation analysis of animal research conducted at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children (HSC). Of the 594 publications (1990 to 1995) on animal research by affiliates of HSC, 29% received Iower than 10 citations in a 10-year period. We compare the research history of 13 "best" and …

Carl Cohen’S ‘Kind’ Arguments For Animal Rights And Against Human Rights, Nathan Nobis

Animal Welfare Collection

Carl Cohen’s arguments against animal rights are shown to be unsound. His strategy entails that animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent implications. His main premise seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet easily pass if one’s peers are passing and that one can become a convicted criminal merely by setting foot in a prison. However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploitive uses of animals are wrong anyway, foes of animal rights are advised to seek philosophical consolations …

China’S Bear Farming And Long-Term Solutions, Peter J. Li

Animal Welfare Collection

No abstract provided.

Animals And Alternatives: Societal Expectations And Scientific Need, Alan M. Goldberg

Experimentation Collection

As Russell and Burch suggested more than 40 years ago, the most humane science is the best science. The path ahead is clear: pain and distress must be eliminated in animal experiments or reduced to an absolute minimum, and, as scientists, we must use the most humane approaches in our research. To accomplish the best science, we must train those who come after us in the principles and practice of humane science.

Rehabilitating Rescued Chinese Farm Bears (Ursus Thibetanus): Results, Limitations, And Implications, Peter J. Li

Bear Farming Collection

The objects of daily physical abuse and appalling deprivation for up to 22 years, rescued Chinese farm bears (Ursus thibetanus) pose a comprehensive challenge to the Chengdu Asiatic Black Bear Rescue Center, created and managed by the Animals Asia Foundation. This study looks at the unique conditions of the rescued bears, examines the center’s rehabilitation program, and identifies the program’s limitations. Despite the world-class care provided by the center and the qualitative improvement in their health, the bears have irreparable physical and mental incapacitation that undercuts their chances to survive in the wild. This situation questions the moral ground of …

Protecting All Animals: A Fifty-Year History Of The Humane Society Of The United States, Bernard Unti

eBooks

In 1954, when The Humane Society of the United States was founded by a small handful of dedicated visionaries, the modern concept of "animal welfare" barely existed. Fifty years later, The HSUS is the nation's largest animal protection organization, with a constituency of more than 8 million people, and a leader in the parallel rise of the modern animal welfare movement. Protecting All Animals: A Fifty-Year History of The Humane Society of the United States is more than a chronicle of one organization; it is the saga of the journey toward a truly humane society.

Trials, Tribulations, And Trends In Tumor Modeling In Mice, Joann C. L. Schuh

Toxicology and Animal Models in Research Collection

Selection of mouse models of cancer is often based simply on availability of a mouse strain and a known compatible tumor. Frequently this results in use of tumor models long on history but short on homology and quality control. Other factors including genetics, sex, immunological status, method and site of tumor implantation, technical competence, biological activity of the tumor, protocol sequence and timing, and selection of endpoints interact to produce outcomes in tumor models. Common reliance on survival and tumor burden data in a single mouse model often skews expectations towards high remission and cure rates; a finding seldom duplicated …

Trials, Tribulations, And Trends In Tumor Modeling In Mice, Joann C. L. Schuh

Biomedicine and Animal Models in Research Collection

Selection of mouse models of cancer is often based simply on availability of a mouse strain and a known compatible tumor. Frequently this results in use of tumor models long on history but short on homology and quality control. Other factors including genetics, sex, immunological status, method and site of tumor implantation, technical competence, biological activity of the tumor, protocol sequence and timing, and selection of endpoints interact to produce outcomes in tumor models. Common reliance on survival and tumor burden data in a single mouse model often skews expectations towards high remission and cure rates; a finding seldom duplicated …

Animal Ethics And The Scientific Study Of Animals: Bridging The “Is” And The “Ought”, David Fraser, Rod Preece

General - Ethics

From ancient Greece to the present, philosophers have variously emphasized either the similarities or the differences between humans and nonhuman animals as a basis for ethical conclusions. Thus animal ethics has traditionally involved both factual claims, usually about animals’ mental states and capacities, and ethical claims about their moral standing. However, even in modern animal ethics the factual claims are often scientifically uninformed, involve broad generalizations about diverse taxonomic groups, and show little agreement about how to resolve the contradictions. Research in cognitive ethology and animal welfare science provides empirical material and a set of emerging methods for testing the …

Environmental Enrichment And Prior Experience Of Live Prey Improve Foraging Behaviour In Hatchery-Reared Atlantic Salmon, C. Brown, T. Davidson, K. Laland

Aquaculture Collection

Atlantic salmon salmo salar L. parr were reared for 3 months under standard hatchery conditions or in a structurally enriched tank (containing plants, rocks and novel objects). Half of each of these fish had prior exposure to live prey in the form of live bloodworm while the other half were fed hatchery-pellets. After 12 days all fish were tested on a novel live prey item (brine shrimp). A significant interaction between the two factors (prior exposure to live prey and rearing condition) revealed that foraging performance was only enhanced in fish that had been reared in a complex environment and …

Ethical Issues In The Use Of Animals In Biomedical And Psychopharmocological Research, John P. Gluck, Jordan Bell

Experimentation Collection

Rationale: The ethical debate concerning the use of animals in biomedical and pharmacological research continues to be replete with misunderstandings about whether animals have moral standing. Objectives: This article briefly reviews the central ethical positions and their relationship to the basic parameters of research regulation from an international perspective. The issues associated with the validation of animal models will then be discussed. Finally, suggestions for empirical ethics research will be presented. Methods: Recent literature reviews were accessed and analyzed. Results: This review summarizes the pertinent ethical and research literature. Conclusions: In summary, regardless of the ethical perspective one favors, there …

The Problem Of Unwanted Pets: A Case Study In How Institutions “Think” About Clients’ Needs, Leslie Irvine

Pets Collection

The research on organizational framing and the metaphor of institutional “thinking” highlight the ways that social problems organizations shape the ameliorative services they deliver. Social problems work then perpetuates representations of problems that may not match the conditions clients face. This study extends social problems literature to argue that organizations sometimes “think” differently about the problems they intend to solve than do persons involved with these problems in everyday life. Using ethnographic research and interviews, this article contrasts the way in which animal sheltering, as an institution, frames the problem of unwanted animals with how the public interprets that problem. …

Assessing Animal Welfare At The Farm And Group Level: The Interplay Of Science And Values, D. Fraser

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

In the social debate about animal welfare we can identify three different views about how animals should be raised and how their welfare should be judged: (1) the view that animals should be raised under conditions that promote good biological functioning in the sense of health, growth and reproduction, (2) the view that animals should be raised in ways that minimise suffering and promote contentment, and (3) the view that animals should be allowed to lead relatively natural lives. When attempting to assess animal welfare, different scientists select different criteria, reflecting one or more of these value-dependent views. Even when …

Mwro Fall 2003

Midwest Regional Office

• Care4Iowa promotes humane agriculture
• Tornado rips through Missouri town, HSUS responds
• Prepare yourself and your pets for disaster
• MWRO rewards aim to root out abusers
• Better laws make for better life, especially for animals (Diane Webber)
• Legislative victories in Nebraska

Nero Fall 2003

New England Regional Office

• Teaching an old swan new tricks
• Protecting Maine's black bears at the ballot box
• Reservation visit fruitful (Hillary Twining)
• Young advocate earns scholarship
• Legislative Update
• Animal hoarding: when is enough really enough?

Nrro Fall 2003

Northern Rockies Regional Office

• NRRO helps dog owner
• Collies' Camp days come to a close
• Dave goes to Russia
• Legislative victories
• You've come a long way from California, baby
• Your help needed to make wildlife rescues and other projects possible
• Happy ending in horse neglect case
• Opportunities to get involved
• Here's to the next six months! (Dave Pauli)
• Welcome, Colorado and Utah!

Pnro Fall 2003

Pacific Northwest Regional Office

• Welcome to Alaska and Idaho!
• One more surgery at Inchelium
• Oregon's new animal fighting law
• Cougars win: state cougar-killing study stopped!
• More OR legislative wins
• Protecting the will of the people, saving I-713
• Making the connection: zero tolerance for animal abuse

Sero Fall 2003

Southeast Regional Office

• FL: support Animal Friend plate
• FL victory against animal fighters
• Gambling threatens greyhounds
• Florida manatee dodges political dangers
• Free-roaming cat fight
• SERO continues efforts against dogfighting
• Of times best and worst (Laura Bevan)

Swro Fall 2003

Southwest Regional Office

• Disaster planning pays off
• SWRO fights against horse slaughter in Texas
• Animal Fighting seminar
• Reservation teens host "Outdoor Classroom"
• Legislative Update
• All for Molly (Lou Guyton)

Wcro Fall 2003

West Coast Regional Office

• Cockfighting raid in Napa
• Dosha, the Miracle Dog
• WCRO aids neglected pigs
• Regional efforts to prepare for disaster
• Conference excels in educational offerings
• Bears on bags
• RAVS visits California reservations
• WCRO speaks to search and rescue professionals
• Nevada man convicted in dogfighting ring
• Legislative Update
• Humane Charter School: for the animals, for our children, for the future (Eric Sakach)