Digital Commons Network^™

Forensic Use Of The Five Domains Model For Assessing Suffering In Cases Of Animal Cruelty, Rebecca A. Ledger, David J. Mellor

General - Animal Welfare

Conceptual frameworks for understanding animal welfare scientifically have become influential. An early “biological functioning” framework still influences expert opinions prepared for Courts hearing animal cruelty cases, despite deficiencies revealed by the emergence and wide scientific adoption of an “affective state” framework. According to “biological functioning” precepts, indices of negative welfare states should predominantly be physical and/or clinical and any reference to animals’ supposed subjective experiences, i.e., their “affective states”, should be excluded. However, “affective state” concepts, which have neuroscience and animal behaviour foundations, show that behavioural indices may be used to credibly identify negative welfare outcomes or affects. Acceptance of …

Identifying Best Practice Domestic Cat Management, Bidda Jones

Management - General

The purpose of this report is to identify current best practice approaches to domestic cat management, to help address poor welfare and high euthanasia rates of domestic cats and mitigate their impacts on humans and wildlife. This document builds on knowledge gained from previous cat management strategies,including examining the effectiveness of existing legislation, reviewing current research, and considering relevant aspects of feral cat management. Although considerable efforts have been made to reduce the unwanted domestic cat population, the complexity of the problem makes effective cat management very difficult. Effective cat management requires a high level of government and community support, …

Our Top Victories For Animals In 2018

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

From The President, Kitty Block

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Our Mission / How We Work

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Together, We're Building A More Humane World

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Keeping Fur On Animals And Out Of Shops

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Exposing Puppy Mills And Protecting Dogs Bred For Profit

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Reducing The Suffering Of Farm Animals

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Working To End The Use Of Animals In Product Testing

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Defending Wildlife

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Caring For Companion Animals

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Ending The Trade In Dog Meat And Saving Farmed Dogs

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Stopping Animal Crimes, Fighting And Cruelty

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Rescuing Animals In Crisis

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Our Care Centers Help, Heal And Shelter Animals In Need

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Financial Operations Report

HSUS Annual Reports 2005-18

No abstract provided.

Encoding Of Emotional Valence In Wild Boar (Sus Scrofa) Calls, Anne-Laure Maigrot, Edna Hillmann, Elodie Briefer

Bioacoustics Collection

Measuring emotions in nonhuman mammals is challenging. As animals are not able to verbally report how they feel, we need to find reliable indicators to assess their emotional state. Emotions can be described using two key dimensions: valence (negative or positive) and arousal (bodily activation or excitation). In this study, we investigated vocal expression of emotional valence in wild boars (Sus scrofa). The animals were observed in three naturally occurring situations: anticipation of a food reward (positive), affiliative interactions (positive), and agonistic interactions (negative). Body movement was used as an indicator of emotional arousal to control for the effect of …

Injuries In Racing Greyhounds, Andrew Knight

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

This 25 pp. report reviews welfare problems, and particularly, injuries sustained by racing greyhounds, with a focus on the British greyhound racing industry.

Mental Stress From Animal Experiments: A Survey With Korean Researchers, Minji Kang, Ahram Han, Da-Eun Kim, Troy Seidle, Kyung-Min Lim, Seungjin Bae

Morality and Ethics of Animal Experimentation Collection

Animal experiments have been widely conducted in the life sciences for more than a century, and have long been a subject of ethical and societal controversy due to the deliberate infliction of harm upon sentient animals. However, the harmful use of animals may also negatively impact the mental health of researchers themselves. We sought to evaluate the anxiety level of researchers engaged in animal use to analyse the mental stress from animal testing. The State Anxiety Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was used to evaluate how researchers feel when they conduct animal, as opposed to non-animal, based experiments …

Animal Suicide: Evolutionary Continuity Or Anthropomorphism?, Antonio Preti

Animal Sentience

Evolutionary processes are characterized by both continuity and discontinuity. Evidence on suicide in nonhuman animals is faint and often rests on the metaphorical or anthropomorphic use of the term. Suicidal behavior might be an evolutionary jump relatively recent in our species: a byproduct of living in groups of people who are not as closely related genetically as in social groups of nonhuman mammals.

Roots Of Self-Preservation Failure In Animal Behavior, Denys Decatanzaro

Animal Sentience

Affective variation from euphoria to dysphoria, best understood in humans, is also found in the behavior and neurochemistry of many other mammals. Suicide in humans typically occurs in highly dysphoric and despondent individuals. Self-injurious behavior has been observed in dysphoric and despondent nonhuman primates. In humans, suicide is facilitated by a highly-evolved neocortex giving rise to behavioral flexibility and culture. As Peña-Guzmán indicates, some other mammals also have elaborate neocortices and the capacity for cognitive insight, particularly apes, delphinids, and whales. Suicide is most likely to occur in species where individuals live in stable groups of highly interdependent kin.

Animal Suicide And "Anthropodenial", Ryan Hediger

Animal Sentience

Increasing understanding of the impressive cognitive and social capacities of nonhuman animals suggests the possibility that they may sometimes commit suicide. Such notions tend to be dismissed as “anthropomorphism.” That interpretive hazard, I argue, must be weighed against the opposite hazard of “anthropodenial” — “the a priori rejection of shared characteristics between humans and animals” (de Waal 2006). If animals do commit suicide, how often is it motivated precisely by the impact of humans on animal life?

What Is Suicide?, William M. Baum

Animal Sentience

Whether a person committed suicide is often difficult to determine, and intent particularly so. If it’s difficult for humans, how much more so for nonhuman animals? A nonhuman observer would remark that humans usually avoid self-harm, but sometimes engage in self-injurious behavior. If instead of speculating about suicide we focus on self-injurious behavior that is sometimes lethal, we recognize continuity of species and can also understand and possibly remedy self-injurious behavior. To be kind and compassionate toward them, there is no need to impute doubtful capacities to animals. Kindness and compassion toward humans and other animals benefit the one who …

Continuum And Temporality, Gerard Kuperus

Animal Sentience

I fully support the continuum proposed in the target article and argue along the same lines that we should be suspicious of drawing any strict borders between human and non-human animals. Since we can say very little with absolute certainty about human intentions regarding suicide, we have no certainty about the intentions of non-human animals. Although I am very sympathetic to Peña-Guzmán’s overall argument, I suggest that time could be taken into consideration as well.

Thinking About Thinking Chickens, Lori Marino

Animal Sentience

This response focuses on three major conceptual threads that run through the peer commentary on my target article: (1) how the use of chickens influences our views of them, (2) whether education is effective, and (3) what components of chicken psychology are most relevant to understanding who chickens are.

If Nonhuman Animals Can Suicide, Why Don’T They?, C. A. Soper, Todd K. Shackelford

Animal Sentience

An evolutionary analysis suggests that selection is unlikely to have tolerated the capacity for intentional self-killing in nonhuman animals. The potential to escape pain by suicide would have presented a recurrent and severe adaptive problem for an animal with a reproductive future to protect. If the potential for suicide arose in the evolutionary past, anti-suicide mechanisms may have co-evolved, as we believe they have in adult humans. Peña-Guzmán’s (2017) argument that some nonhuman animals can suicide is incomplete without an account of the defences that result in the vast majority opting not to.

What's Our Strategy To Save Farm Animals?, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

Since the start of 2016, the Open Philanthropy Project has approved 82 farm animal welfare grants totaling $47M to 50 grantees in 24 countries. This newsletter provides some thoughts on how we think about farm animal welfare, our current strategy, and the impact some of our grants may be having. Since the bulk of the animals raised for food are in countries other than the US, Open Philanthropy has supported projects in China (13% of total grant-making), Europe (11%), India (5.5%) and the US (9%) with the bulk of the remaining funds going to projects with global impact for laying …

How Can You Do The Most Good For Animals?, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

While the global human situation has improved, things have become worse for farmed animals. Factory farms confine 11 times more vertebrate animals than they did 50 years ago, about 110 billion at any time. If FAO projections come true, factory farms will confine another 90 billion animals by 2050, or 20 for every human on earth. Factory farms confine these animals to crowded cages and barren pens, cut off their beaks, tails, and genitals without pain relief, and slaughter them with little attention to their wellbeing. The fishing industry alone kills 3-8 billion animals every day, most by slow suffocation, …

Us Legislative Update: The King Amendment, Lewis Bollard

General – Farm Animal Issues

Abstract

In early 2018, the US House of Representatives voted down the farm bill, which contained an amendment to preempt all meaningful state farm animal welfare laws, including Massachusetts’ 2016 ballot measure and California’s planned 2018 ballot measure. The amendment, named after its odious author Rep. Steve King (R-IA), won the support of farm state Republicans, who voted to insert it into the must-pass once-every-five-years farm bill. And although the farm bill was defeated last week — for reasons unrelated to King’s amendment — the House is likely to reconsider it by June 22. So what’s going on and what …