Digital Commons Network^™

Seven Big Wins For Farm Animals In 2020, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

After a tough year, here’s some good news. In spite of COVID, advocates for farm animals and alternative proteins achieved a record year of wins. Here are just a few of them:

• Plant-based meat surges.
• Europe legislates for farm animals
• Corporations pledge broiler welfare reforms
• Corporations pledge cage-free reforms.
• Cage-free pledges get implemented.
• Cultivated meat achieves milestones
• Fish welfare advances

Reopening The Trade After Sars: China’S Wildlife Industry And The Fateful Policy Reversal, Peter Li

Environmental Economics

China’s policy-making remains a top-down process. Yet, non-State actors, particularly businesses that have aligned their commercial interest with the national interest and political objectives of the Party-State, are uniquely positioned to impact policy-making. This article uses China’s reopening of the wildlife trade following the end of SARS in 2003 to shed light on the interplay of the Party’s policy guidelines, the policy-making authority of the administrative agencies, and the influence of the country’s wildlife business interest. This article argues that the reversal of the wildlife trade ban was predestined since expanding wildlife business also contributed to the government’s development objectives …

The Impact Of Targeted Trap–Neuter–Return Efforts In The San Francisco Bay Area., Daniel Spehar, Peter Wolf

Management - TNR

Recently, a growing collection of evidence that associates trap–neuter–return (TNR) programs with substantial and sustained reductions in community cat populations across a variety of environments has emerged. Peer-reviewed studies emanating from the northeastern, midwestern, and southeastern United States, as well as Australia, document such reductions. The present study expands upon this body of evidence by examining the impact of a long-term TNR program on a population of community cats residing on a pedestrian trail adjacent to an oceanic bay located on the West Coast of the U.S. A population of 175 community cats, as determined by an initial census, living …

The Impact Of Return-To-Field And Targeted Trap-Neuter-Return On Feline Intake And Euthanasia At A Municipal Animal Shelter In Jefferson County, Kentucky, Daniel Spehar, Peter Wolf

Management - TNR

The number of cats and dogs impounded and euthanized at animal shelters in the USA has declined dramatically in recent decades. The Humane Society of the United States reported that in 1973 an estimated 13.5 million cats and dogs were euthanized nationwide; according to Best Friends Animal Society, in 2018 that number had been reduced to approximately 733,000. A disproportionate number of animals euthanized at shelters today are free-roaming feral and stray cats, who most often face euthanasia due to their temperament or a lack of shelter space. Over the past decade, two new management tactics—return-to-field (RTF) and targeted trap-neuter-return …

How To Lower The Price Of Plant-Based Meat, Lewis Bollard

Diet

Plant-based meat’s resilience has been a rare silver lining during COVID-19. Worldwide, the conventional meat industry continues to lobby for government bailouts, fail to protect its workers, and carry out grisly on-farm “depopulations.” Meanwhile plant-based meat business is thriving.

• In China, Beyond Meat signed five major new partnerships, Cargill started producing meat alternatives for the Chinese market, including plant-based scallops, and Nestle announced plans to sell plant-based meat there by year’s end. Chinese plant-based startups Zhenmeat and Starfield disclosed new investments and product launches.

• In the rest of Asia, Thailand’s largest meat company, CP Foods, launched a plant-based …

Response To Wolf Et Al.: Furthering Debate Over The Suitability Of Trap-Neuter-Return For Stray Cat Management, Michael Calver, Heather M. Crawford, Patricia A. Fleming

Management - TNR

To continue dialogue over proposed Australian trials of Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR), we applied a framework requiring identification of areas of agreement, areas of disagreement, and identification of empirical data collection required to resolve disagreements. There is agreement that Australia has a problem with stray cats, causing problems of impacts on wildlife, nuisance,disease transmission (including public health issues and exchange of diseases between stray cat and pet cat populations), poor welfare outcomes for stray cats, and an emotional burden on staff euthanising healthy stray cats. There is disagreement on whether (i) current measures are failing, leading to unacceptably high euthanasia levels, (ii) …

Subsidised By Junk Foods: Factors Influencing Body Condition In Stray Cats (Felis Catus), H. M. Crawford, M. C. Calver, P. A. Fleming

Predation and Wildlife

Domestic cats (Felis catus) are one of the most widely distributed and successful carnivores globally. While cats are popular pets, many unowned, ‘stray’ cats live freely in anthropogenic environments at high densities where they make use of anthropogenic resources. These stray cats present a management challenge due to concerns about wildlife predation, pathogen transmission, public nuisance and threats to cat welfare (e.g. vehicle collisions). In Australia, there are few studies

of strays compared with pet cats or feral cats (free-roaming cats in rural areas that are independent of resources provided

by humans). To contribute original data about stray cat biology, …

Body Size And Bite Force Of Stray And Feral Cats - Are Bigger Or Older Cats Taking The Largest Or More Difficult To Handle Prey, Patricia A. Fleming, Heather M. Crawford, Clare H. Auckland, Michael C. Calver

Predation and Wildlife

As carnivorans rely heavily on their head and jaws for prey capture and handling, skull morphology and bite force can therefore reflect their ability to take larger or more difficult-to-handle prey. For 568 feral and stray cats (Felis catus), we recorded their demographics (sex and age), source location (feral or stray) and morphological measures (body mass, body condition); we estimated potential bite force from skull measurements for n = 268 of these cats, and quantified diet composition from stomach contents for n = 358. We compared skull measurements to estimate their bite force and determine how it varied with sex, …

Rspca Australia, National Statistics 2019-2020., Rspca Australia

General - Animal Welfare

The RSPCA receives thousands of animals every year in every state and territory in Australia. Annual statistics on the numbers of animals received, reclaimed or rehomed are compiled on a national basis by RSPCA Australia. The following statistics cover the 2019 to 2020 financial year and give details on the receipt and placement of animals by each state and territory RSPCA during that period. The statistics also include the number of cruelty complaints received by the RSPCA Inspectorate and prosecutions undertaken. Detailed information is provided in the following report.

Rspca Report On Animal Outcomes From Our Shelters, Care And Adoption Centres 2019-2020, Rspca Australia

General - Animal Welfare

The RSPCA is Australia’s oldest, largest and most trusted animal welfare organisation. With this privileged position comes great responsibility. This year we received1 112,530 animals into our animal shelters and adoption centres across the country. We are pleased to report that over the past 10 years we have helped 718,960 animals by rehoming them, reuniting them with their owners or releasing them back into the wild. This includes 328,866 dogs and puppies, and 293,339 cats and kittens who were rehomed or reunited with their owners. With a great deal of effort from RSPCA teams all over the country, adoption/rehoming and …

Mouth Pain In Horses: Physiological Foundations, Behavioral Indices, Welfare Implications, And A Suggested Solution, David James Mellor

General - Animal Welfare

A proposition addressed here is that, although bitted horses are viewed by many equestrians as being largely free of bit-related mouth pain, it seems likely that most behavioural signs of such pain are simply not recognised. Background information is provided on the following: the major features of pain generation and experience; cerebrocortical involvement in the conscious experience of pain by mammals; the numerous other subjective experiences mammals can have; adjunct physiological responses to pain; some general feature of behavioural responses to pain; and the neural bases of sensations generated within the mouth. Mouth pain in horses is then discussed. The …

A Ten-Stage Protocol For Assessing The Welfare Of Individual Non-Captive Wild Animals: Free Roaming Horses Equus Ferus Caballus) As An Example, David James Mellor

General - Animal Welfare

Knowledge of the welfare status of wild animals is vital for informing debates about the ways in which we interact with wild animals and their habitats. Currently, there is no published information about how to scientifically assess the welfare of free-roaming wild animals during their normal day-to-day lives. Using free-roaming horses as an example, we describe a ten-stage protocol for systematically and scientifically assessing the welfare of individual non-captive wild animals. The protocol starts by emphasizing the importance of readers having an understanding of animal welfare in a conservation context and also of the Five Domains Model for assessing welfare. …

The 2020 Five Domains Model: Including Human-Animal Interactions In Assessments Of Animal Welfare, David J. Mellor, Ngaio J. Beausoleil, Katherine E. Littlewood, Andrew N. Mclean, Paul D. Mcgreery, Bidda Jones, Christina Williams

General - Animal Welfare

Throughout its 25-year history, the Five Domains Model for animal welfare assessment has been regularly updated to include at each stage the latest authenticated developments in animal welfare science thinking. The domains of the most up-to-date Model described here are: 1 Nutrition, 2 Physical Environment, 3 Health, 4 Behavioural Interactions and 5 Mental State. The first four domains focus attention on factors that give rise to specific negative or positive subjective experiences (affects), which contribute to the animal’s mental state, as evaluated in Domain 5. More specifically, the first three domains focus mainly on factors that disturb or disrupt particular …

Social Learning In Solitary Juvenile Sharks, Catarina Vila Pouca, Dennis Heinrich, Charlie Huveneers, Culum Brown

Social Behavior Collection

Social learning can be a shortcut for acquiring locally adaptive information. Animals that live in social groups have better access to social information, but gregarious and nonsocial species are also frequently exposed to social cues. Thus, social learning might simply reflect an animal's general ability to learn rather than an adaptation to social living. Here, we investigated social learning and the effect of frequency of social exposure in nonsocial, juvenile Port Jackson sharks, Heterodontus portusjacksoni. We compared (1) Individual Learners, (2) Sham-Observers, paired with a naïve shark, and (3) Observers, paired with a trained demonstrator, in a novel foraging task. …

The Us Meat Supply Crisis, Lewis Bollard

Diet

The US meat supply chain is in disarray. At least 205 US slaughterhouses have had COVID-19 outbreaks, infecting at least 18,500 workers — about one in five of the industry’s workers. Over 7,000 workers at Tyson Foods alone have been infected, including over 1,000 at just one Iowa slaughterhouse. Meat is in short supply, with Walmart, Kroger, and Costco all limiting meat purchases. This has attracted huge media attention — the most slaughterhouses have received in a decade. In the last week, both USA Today and the Washington Post have printed long-form articles on the plight of slaughterhouse workers and …

New Approach To Health And The Environment To Avoid Future Pandemics, Serge Morand

Animal Sentience

This commentary expands Wiebers & Feigin’s target article by pinpointing how declining wildlife, expanding livestock and globalisation contribute to the increase in epidemics of zoonotic diseases, the COVID-19 crisis and future health crises. Epidemics and the emergence of zoonoses are manifestations of dysfunctional links with animals, both wild and domestic, requiring a new approach to health and the environment.

Political Opportunities For Farm Animals In Europe, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

Could this year be the tipping point for farm animals in Europe? It’s already brought more legislative progress for Europe’s farm animals than the last decade combined: In January, the agricultural ministers of the two largest European nations, France and Germany, jointly pledged to ban the killing of day-old chicks by the end of next year. The French minister also pledged to ban the castration of piglets without pain relief, as Germany is already set to do. If implemented, the measures could spare 90 million day-old chicks from gassing, and 30 million piglets from castration, across the two nations every …

Reflections On Psychological And Psychiatric Consequences Of Covid-19 Pandemic, Donatella Marazziti

Animal Sentience

Although far from reaching a clear conclusion, some evidence increasingly highlights the possible connections among climate change, environmental pollution and the current COVID-19 pandemic, as well as their intertwined detrimental effects on both physical and mental health. Such a catastrophic event calls for a novel awareness of the interdependence of all biotic and nonbiotic factors in our environment and planet.

Protecting Nature, Freeing Beings, Eileen Crist

Animal Sentience

Large-scale protection of nature is needed to address the ecological crisis. Big animals are connected with this mandate: They are threatened worldwide; they play important ecological roles; and the vast areas they require support a host of lifeforms. But visionary conservation is not only a pragmatic necessity. It is an ethical imperative, for comprehensive nature protection and restoration that supports the good life for all. The story of Asian elephants is part of this bigger story. We must find compassionate ways to free captive elephants and restore a world in which they, and countless others, may live free and flourish.

Invertebrates Should Be Given Ethical Consideration, Marie-Claire Cammaerts

Animal Sentience

Invertebrates are far more numerous than vertebrates. Most of them are essential to the survival of humanity. Their physiology, behavior, know-how, and cognitive abilities are often as complex as those of vertebrates. Invertebrates should be considered and studied as are vertebrates, i.e., ethically, and cautiously.

Virtue Ethics And The Likelihood Of Invertebrate Suffering, Jeffrey A. Lockwood

Animal Sentience

Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) review evidence that invertebrates have the capacity to suffer. If they do, then, according to utilitarians (those advocating “the greatest good for the greatest number”) and deontologists (those advocating rights and corresponding duties), research practices and funding policies should be required to protect invertebrates. But if the evidence is mistaken, then, according to utilitarians and deontologists, our constraints would be unjustified and even morally suspect. Virtue ethicists, in contrast, endorse acting rationally in an effort to cultivate the virtues — even if the basis for our action is mistaken. Virtue ethics seems more compelling than the …

On The Possibility Of Invertebrate Sentience, David Degrazia

Animal Sentience

Mikhalevich & Powell (M&P) set up the basic criteria for according moral status equitably, including the capacity for affect. They argue persuasively against assuming that all invertebrates are insentient and hence ineligible for moral consideration. In addition to the relatively clear case of cephalopods, various arthropods may prove to be sentient. We should be aware of various sources of prejudice that M&P discuss and not assume that it would be absurd to attribute sentience and moral status to certain invertebrates.

Problems With Basing Insect Ethics On Individuals’ Welfare, Susana Monsó, Antonio J. Osuna-Mascaró

Animal Sentience

In their target article, Mikhalevich & Powell (M&P) argue that we should extend moral protection to arthropods. In this commentary, we show that there are some unforeseen obstacles to applying the sort of individualistic welfare-based ethics that M&P have in mind to certain arthropods, namely, insects. These obstacles have to do with the fact that there are often many more individuals involved in our dealings with insects than our ethical theories anticipate, and also with the fact that, in some sense, some insects count as more than an individual and, in another sense, they sometimes count as less than an …

Lessons From Miniature Brains: Cognition Cheap, Memory Expensive (Sentience Linked To Active Movement?), Giorgio Vallortigara

Animal Sentience

Studies on invertebrate minds suggest that the neural machinery for basic cognition is cheap, and that bigger brains are probably associated with greater memory storage rather than more advanced cognition. Sentience may be linked to feedforward mechanisms (Reafferenzprinzip) that allow organisms with active movement to distinguish active and passive sensing. Invertebrates may offer special opportunities for testing these hypotheses.

Covid-19 And Farm Animals, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

Impact on US Meat Consumption

COVID-19’s biggest impact on animals may be how it affects demand for their meat. In the US, panic buying drove fresh meat retail sales up 50-100% in late March. Even with restaurants buying less, Tyson Foods reported “unprecedented” demand, while poultry giant Sanderson Farms added extra shifts at its slaughterhouses. JP Morgan upgraded its recommendation for both companies to overweight, noting that demand may endure because meat is perishable. US wholesale egg prices hit an all-time high, at triple their level in early March. But supply disruptions may stop producers from filling this demand. Dairy …

What Could A Biden Administration Mean For Farm Animals?, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

President-elect Joe Biden’s win heralds major changes on many issues. But the stakes for farm animals and alternative proteins are less clear: inaction on both has long been bipartisan in Washington DC. So what can we realistically hope for from a new Congress and Biden Administration, and what can we do to make it more likely? No new laws; maybe new money

Documentaries For Farm Animals, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

The Game Changers has celebrities talking about plant-based diets. Backed by a star-studded list, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan, the film’s premiere attracted NBA stars, Dr. Oz, and Serena Williams. The captain of the Indian cricket team even promoted the documentary to his 34M Twitter followers. Google search data suggests the film drove a global uptick in searches for plant-based diets (see chart below). The Game Changers is just the latest documentary to raise the profile of factory farming and plant-based diets. Eating Animals (2018) drew glowing reviews, won awards, and attracted national media attention. The more factually-challenged What …

Ecological And Evolutionary Dynamics Of Elephant Rewilding, Lysanne Snijders

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler make a thought-provoking contribution to the discussion of what role captive animals could play in nature conservation and how we could get there through rewilding. There certainly is potential for captive Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, to become targets of conservation efforts, but there are also many questions: (1) How much do (behavioral) traits of captive-origin animals differ from their free conspecifics? (2) What predicts the likelihood and strength of social reintegration of captive animals into free populations? (3) How much of an Asian elephant’s functional role in the environment can captive animals still fulfill and how …

Does Sentience Come In Degrees?, Andrew Y. Lee

Animal Sentience

This commentary is about whether sentience, or what philosophers call “phenomenal consciousness,” comes in degrees.

Animal Welfare Science And “A Life Worth Living” For Wild And Captive Elephants, Lindsay R. Mehrkam, Otto Fad

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler (2020) propose restoring elephants to a state of “wildness” and a “life worth living” by reintroducing captive elephants to the hands of indigenous mahout cultures and practices. To evaluate this proposal, we must define operationally a number of critical concepts in a species-centric, individualistic way, avoiding human-centric opinions and romanticized notions of the wild. Animal welfare science can help create greater synergy between ex-situ zoological institutions and in-situ elephant conservation, and welfare efforts that respect and value the cultures of both species.