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Articles 571 - 600 of 911

Full-Text Articles in Zoology

Insects Have Agency But Probably Not Sentience Because They Lack Social Bonding, J. H. Van Hateren Aug 2016

Insects Have Agency But Probably Not Sentience Because They Lack Social Bonding, J. H. Van Hateren

Animal Sentience

Klein & Barron (2016) argue that insects have sentience because of functional similarities between the insect brain and vertebrate midbrain. Based on a recent theory of agency and consciousness, I argue that the functional similarities merely point to an advanced form of agency. Insects presumably lack the capacity for social bonding that may be required for subjective experiencing.

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Efficacy Of A Novel Intranasal Zinc Solution On The Microbiome, Health, And Growth Performance Of High-Risk, Newly Received Stocker Cattle, Makenzie Foster Aug 2016

Efficacy Of A Novel Intranasal Zinc Solution On The Microbiome, Health, And Growth Performance Of High-Risk, Newly Received Stocker Cattle, Makenzie Foster

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this study was to determine if using an intranasal zinc (Zn) solution would impact health and growth performance of high-risk stocker cattle. Male beef calves (n = 239; 3 arrival dates [block]; initial BW = 276 ± 2.4 kg) were stratified by arrival gender and BW and assigned to 1 of 2 treatments: 1) treated with 3 ml of a Zn solution containing 36.24 mg of Zn administered intranasally, or 2) control, in which calves were not treated. Calves were observed daily and if exhibiting signs of morbidity and a rectal temperature ≥ 40° C they were …

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Evaluation Of Long-Acting Eprinomectin Compared To Conventional Anthelmintics In Cow/Calf Production, Elizabeth Ann Backes Aug 2016

Evaluation Of Long-Acting Eprinomectin Compared To Conventional Anthelmintics In Cow/Calf Production, Elizabeth Ann Backes

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Experiment 1, 83, newly weaned, fall-born crossbred heifer calves were allocated randomly to 1 of 3 anthelmintic treatments: 1) control (CON); 2) combination pour-on moxidectin and oxfendazole (MO); and 3) long-acting eprinomectin (LAE). Two preplanned orthogonal contrast statements were used: 1) to compare CON to treated cattle; and 2) to compare OXF to LAE. Heifer BW and BCS were greater (P≤0.02) from MO and LAE on d 112, 140, 154, 168, 182 compared to CON. Heifer cyclicity, estrous detection, natural service and overall pregnancy rates were greater (P≤0.02) for MO and LAE compared to CON. Cattle fecal egg counts (FEC) …

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Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness, Jennifer A. Mather, Claudio Carere Jul 2016

Cephalopods Are Best Candidates For Invertebrate Consciousness, Jennifer A. Mather, Claudio Carere

Animal Sentience

Insects might have been the first invertebrates to evolve sentience, but cephalopods were the first invertebrates to gain scientific recognition for it.

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Caterpillars, Consciousness And The Origins Of Mind, Arthur S. Reber Jul 2016

Caterpillars, Consciousness And The Origins Of Mind, Arthur S. Reber

Animal Sentience

A novel framework for the origins of consciousness and mind, the Cellular Basis of Consciousness (CBC), is presented. The model is based on a simple, perhaps radical axiom: subjectivity is an inherent feature of particular kinds of organic form. Experiential states, including those denoted as "mind" and "consciousness," are present in the most primitive species. The model has several conceptual and empirical virtues, among them: (a) it (re)solves the problem of how minds are created by brains ─ also known as the "Hard Problem" (Chalmers 1995) ─ by revealing that the apparent difficulty results from a category error, (b) it …

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Are Animals Persons?, Mark Rowlands Jul 2016

Are Animals Persons?, Mark Rowlands

Animal Sentience

It is orthodox to suppose that very few, if any, nonhuman animals are persons. The category “person” is restricted to self-aware creatures: humans (above a certain age) and possibly some of the great apes and cetaceans. I argue that this orthodoxy should be rejected, because it rests on a mistaken conception of the kind of self-awareness relevant to personhood. Replacing this with a sense of self-awareness that is relevant requires us to accept that personhood is much more widely distributed through the animal kingdom.

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Cross-Species Mind-Reading, Stevan Harnad Jul 2016

Cross-Species Mind-Reading, Stevan Harnad

Animal Sentience

We can never be sure anyone else is sentient. But we can be sure enough in the case of other people, nonhuman primates, mammals, birds, fish, lower vertebrates and invertebrates as to make scepticism academic and otiose (not to mention monumentally cruel). The only genuinely uncertain kinds of cases are jellyfish, microbes and plants. The rest is not about whether but what they are feeling.

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My Orgasms Cannot Be Traded Off Against Others’ Agony, Stevan Harnad Jul 2016

My Orgasms Cannot Be Traded Off Against Others’ Agony, Stevan Harnad

Animal Sentience

Only I can calculate my own welfare as net pleasure minus pain. No one else can do that calculation for me – nor for a population, and especially not averaging across some individuals’ pleasure and other individuals’ pain. Pain and pleasure are incommensurable and only pain matters morally. To maximize welfare is to minimize pain.

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In Praise Of Fishes: Précis Of What A Fish Knows (Balcombe 2016), Jonathan Balcombe Jul 2016

In Praise Of Fishes: Précis Of What A Fish Knows (Balcombe 2016), Jonathan Balcombe

Animal Sentience

Our relationship to fishes in the modern era is deeply problematic. We kill and consume more of them than any other group of vertebrates. At the same time, advances in our knowledge of fishes and their capabilities are gaining speed. Fish species diversity exceeds that of all other vertebrates combined, with a wide range of sensory adaptations, some of them (e.g., geomagnetism, water pressure and movement detection, and communication via electricity) alien to our own sensory experience. The evidence for pain in fishes (despite persistent detractors) is strongly supported by anatomical, physiological and behavioral studies. It is likely that fishes …

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Sentience As Moral Consideration And Disvalue In Nature, Daniel Dorado Jul 2016

Sentience As Moral Consideration And Disvalue In Nature, Daniel Dorado

Animal Sentience

In recent work Ng assumes that it is good to engage in activities aimed at promoting ecosystem conservation. The only way Ng can derive this from the axiology he assumes (the view that wellbeing is the only intrinsically valuable or disvaluable thing) would be to assume that ecosystem conservation would benefit the individuals involved. This can be so as long as value prevails over disvalue in the target environments. Ng seems to assume this is indeed the case, but he does not explain why, and it is a claim that goes against the conclusions he has argued for previously (Ng …

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Inalienable Rights And Pluralism In Animal Advocacy, Beril Sözmen Jul 2016

Inalienable Rights And Pluralism In Animal Advocacy, Beril Sözmen

Animal Sentience

I comment on two of Ng’s suggestions. There is a lack of support for his suggestion that some experiments on individual animals will be useful for future success, so they should be permitted. I also question his recommendation that animal advocacy should focus on farmed animals first and wild animals later. The lack of solid support for why this would be a more effective strategy leads me to suggest a more pluralistic support of a variety of types of advocacy.

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Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta Jul 2016

Changing Attitudes Towards Animals In The Wild And Speciesism, Oscar Horta

Animal Sentience

I argue that despite Ng’s claim that we should postpone the defense of those animals that live in the wild, we do have reasons to start spreading concern for them now. We can do it by (i) changing public attitude by heightening awareness of speciesism, by which we will also challenge animal exploitation; and (ii) by disseminating information about the situation of animals in the wild.

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Why We Should Not Postpone Awareness Of Wild Animal Suffering, Catia Faria Jun 2016

Why We Should Not Postpone Awareness Of Wild Animal Suffering, Catia Faria

Animal Sentience

Ng (2016) restates his case for the importance of wild animal suffering (1995). Nevertheless, he suggests that the most effective way to reduce nonhuman suffering overall is to give short-term priority to the suffering of farmed animals. It is not clear that Ng puts forward a successful case. Our current efforts to prevent animal suffering overall should also include raising awareness of wild animal suffering now as well as promoting research on safe and feasible ways to prevent wild animal suffering in the future.

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A Case Study: Observations Of Behaviors & Vocalizations In A Captive Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus) During Quarantine, Alexandra L. Dilley May 2016

A Case Study: Observations Of Behaviors & Vocalizations In A Captive Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus) During Quarantine, Alexandra L. Dilley

Theses and Dissertations

Bozie, an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), was relocated from the Baton Rouge Zoo to Smithsonian’s National Zoo. During a requisite 29-day quarantine period, I recorded Bozie’s stress-related behaviors and the vocalizations she produced when she was alone and with her keepers in free and protected contact.

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The Origin And Expansion Of The Eastern Red Fox, Adrienne Egge Kasprowicz May 2016

The Origin And Expansion Of The Eastern Red Fox, Adrienne Egge Kasprowicz

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

When new populations are first identified in a region there are multiple potential sources: introduction of a non-native species, extra-range expansion of a nearby population, or demographic growth of a previously unnoticed species. Red foxes were absent or rare in the mid-eastern portion United States until the late 1800s. Their origins potentially include natural population increase/expansion, translocations from Europe, and, eventually, 20th century fur farming. In this study I attempt to identify the relative impact of native expansion versus human mediated introductions of both colonial era European foxes and early 20th century fur-farm foxes on the establishment of red …

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The Line Drawn On Pain Still Holds, Bjorn H. Merker Mar 2016

The Line Drawn On Pain Still Holds, Bjorn H. Merker

Animal Sentience

The many substantive criticisms raised against Key by me and by many of the other commentators will not disappear by ignoring or waving them aside with meta-discourse about anthropomorphism, just-so stories, or celestial teapots. The conceptual edifice Key inhabits and defends with such gusto may look like an impregnable fortress from the inside – and Key behaves as if it were. From the outside, however, it looks more like a ramshackle structure gaping with holes and pieced together from imperfectly understood neuroscience and often faulty literature citations.

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Slavery, Welfare And The Sixth Extinction, Stephen R. Clark Mar 2016

Slavery, Welfare And The Sixth Extinction, Stephen R. Clark

Animal Sentience

Ng’s laudable concern for animal welfare would be welcome to any sensible slave-owner wishing to preserve his investment. What welfarism – for slave-owners and animal husbandmen – fails to call into question is whether we have the right to breed, hold captive and kill animals at all: If it matters, as the widely recognized slogan of ‘Five Freedoms’ suggests, that animals have the chance to live a ‘normal’ life, then more matters than keeping them ‘happy’ in subjection. Their lives – and also the lives of wild things – also deserve respect.

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Wild Animal Suffering And Vegan Outreach, Eze Paez Mar 2016

Wild Animal Suffering And Vegan Outreach, Eze Paez

Animal Sentience

Ng’s strategic proposal seems to downplay the potential benefits of advocacy for wild animals and omit what may be the most effective strategy to reduce the harms farmed animals suffer: vegan outreach.

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Animal Suffering And Human Bias, Stijn Bruers Mar 2016

Animal Suffering And Human Bias, Stijn Bruers

Animal Sentience

Ng proposes concrete ways to decrease animal suffering on the basis of commonsense economic logic and research in welfare biology. But to reduce animal suffering effectively in livestock farming, animal experimentation or the natural environment we have to become more aware of our pervasive and spontaneous but unreliable intuitive moral judgments. These can generate biases that prevent us from decreasing animal suffering effectively.

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An Animal Victim's Best Chance: Veterinary Legal Duty To Report Cruelty In The U.S., Lora Dunn Feb 2016

An Animal Victim's Best Chance: Veterinary Legal Duty To Report Cruelty In The U.S., Lora Dunn

Animal Sentience

Legislation throughout the U.S. recognizes animal sentience and the importance of veterinary reporting to combat the ongoing suffering of these animal victims: All 50 states have felony penalties available for animal cruelty crimes, and veterinary reporting is permitted or required in the majority of states. The remaining minority of U.S. states should take action to require veterinarians to report animal cruelty and render veterinarians immune for good faith reporting.

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Veterinary Medical Associations Need To Educate Veterinarians For Mandatory Reporting Of Suspected Animal Abuse, Melinda V. Merck Feb 2016

Veterinary Medical Associations Need To Educate Veterinarians For Mandatory Reporting Of Suspected Animal Abuse, Melinda V. Merck

Animal Sentience

When animals are suffering, we have a duty to take action. With appropriate incentive and educational support mandatory veterinary reporting can be a great legal avenue to help ensure their safety and welfare.

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Fish Pain's Burden Of Proof, Carl Safina Feb 2016

Fish Pain's Burden Of Proof, Carl Safina

Animal Sentience

A hypothesis like Key’s, that fish cannot feel pain, should really be stated as a null hypothesis — an assumption that there is no difference in the things being compared. Then evidence — including anecdotal evidence — for and against rejecting the null hypothesis can be examined and weighed. Key (2016a) has proven only that fish lack mammalian brains.

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Burden Of Proof Lies With Proposer Of Celestial Teapot Hypothesis, Brian Key Feb 2016

Burden Of Proof Lies With Proposer Of Celestial Teapot Hypothesis, Brian Key

Animal Sentience

Bertrand Russell famously imagined the existence of a celestial teapot to highlight that the burden of proof of a hypothesis lay with its proposer and it was not the responsibility of others to refute it. Those who propose that fish feel pain must bear the burden of proof for their hypothesis. There are several common arguments adopted by those defending the position that fish feel pain. For instance, proponents envisage that pain is so important for human survival that they can’t imagine fish could exist without it. Out of this argument from incredulity emerges the idea that pain must have …

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Associations Between Domestic-Dog Morphology And Behaviour Scores In The Dog Mentality Assessment, Holly R. Stone, Paul D. Mcgreevy, Melissa J. Starling, Bjorn Forkman Feb 2016

Associations Between Domestic-Dog Morphology And Behaviour Scores In The Dog Mentality Assessment, Holly R. Stone, Paul D. Mcgreevy, Melissa J. Starling, Bjorn Forkman

Morphology Collection

The domestic dog shows a wide range of morphologies, that humans have selected for in the process of creating unique breeds. Recent studies have revealed correlations between changes in morphology and behaviour as reported by owners. For example, as height and weight decrease, many undesirable behaviours (non-social fear, hyperactivity and attention seeking) become more apparent. The current study aimed to explore more of these correlations, but this time used reports from trained observers. Phenotypic measurements were recorded from a range of common dog breeds (n = 45) and included cephalic index (CI: the ratio of skull width to skull length), …

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Animal Suffering In China, Peter J. Li Feb 2016

Animal Suffering In China, Peter J. Li

Animal Sentience

Chinese policy has been aimed at maximizing GDP; it is time to focus also on minimizing animal suffering.

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Science And Sensibility, Bernard E. Rollin Feb 2016

Science And Sensibility, Bernard E. Rollin

Animal Sentience

The sentience and suffering of animals is obvious to common sense, even if science and industry claim to be agnostic. Economic incentives to reduce the suffering of animals are welcome, but it is not clear whether animals can turn to science for help.

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When The Client Is Not The Abuser, But One Of The Abused, Tania Signal Feb 2016

When The Client Is Not The Abuser, But One Of The Abused, Tania Signal

Animal Sentience

The question of client confidentiality and reporting animal abuse is complicated when the client is not the abuser, and when the abuse (of both people and animals) may escalate precisely because it has been (or may be) reported.

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Thinking Pigs: Cognition, Emotion, And Personality, Lori Marino, Christina M. Colvin Jan 2016

Thinking Pigs: Cognition, Emotion, And Personality, Lori Marino, Christina M. Colvin

Mammalogy Collection

An exploration of the cognitive complexity of Sus domesticus, the domestic pig.

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A Revised Checklist Of Mongolian Mammal Species, V. S. Lebedev, A. A. Bannikova, Ya. Adiya, S. Shar, A. V. Surov Jan 2016

A Revised Checklist Of Mongolian Mammal Species, V. S. Lebedev, A. A. Bannikova, Ya. Adiya, S. Shar, A. V. Surov

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

A revised annotated checklist of Mongolian mammals is presented, supplemented with comments on modifications in species- and genus-level taxonomy introduced over the last 30 years. The checklist includes 140 species compared to 124 species recognized three decades ago by SOKOLOV & ORLOV (1980). Since then, four species were newly described; seven species were registered for the first time on Mongolian territory. Names for more than 20 taxa have changed, on most occasions this change occurred not for purely nomenclatural reasons but rather as a result of taxonomic revisions at the species level which have elevated the rank of many nominal …

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Historische Und Aktuelle Daten Zum Wolf In Der Mongolei, D. Eregdenedagva, Ravčigijn Samjaa, Michael Stubbe, Annegret Stubbe Jan 2016

Historische Und Aktuelle Daten Zum Wolf In Der Mongolei, D. Eregdenedagva, Ravčigijn Samjaa, Michael Stubbe, Annegret Stubbe

Erforschung biologischer Ressourcen der Mongolei / Exploration into the Biological Resources of Mongolia, ISSN 0440-1298

Zusammenfassung Die Mongolei beherbergt trotz intensiver Verfolgung einen der besten Wolfsbestände Eurasiens. Der Wolf kommt als wertvoller Großsäuger in allen Vegetationszonen der Mongolei vor. Bereits zahlreiche Steinzeichnungen künden von Mensch-, Haus- und Wildtierkonflikten mit dem wehrhaften Beutegreifer Wolf. Er ist und bleibt ein Konkurrent des Nomaden und andererseits ein wertvoller Pelzlieferant und Regulator in den Nahrungsnetzen. Die geringe menschliche Besiedlung und die in freier Weidewirtschaft gehaltenen Haustiere sowie eine reiche Fauna an kleinen und großen Wildsäugetieren bereiten der Wolfspopulation optimale nahrungsökologische Bedingungen. Seit geraumer Zeit hat die Haustierhaltung die 50 Millionengrenze überschritten. Der ökonomische Schaden des Wolfes in der Viehwirtschaft …

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