Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

An Hsus Report: Human Health Implications Of Intensive Poultry Production And Avian Influenza, The Humane Society Of The United States

Impact of Animal Agriculture

The high stocking density, stress, unhygienic conditions, lack of sunlight, and breeding practices typical of industrial poultry and egg production systems may facilitate the emergence and spread of diseases, including highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses with public health implications such as H5N1.

An Hsus Report: Food Safety Concerns With The Slaughter Of Downed Cattle, The Humane Society Of The United States

Impact of Animal Agriculture

Nonambulatory cattle may be at higher risk of harboring foodborne pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and, very rarely, the infectious agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy, colloquially known as “mad cow disease.” The exclusion of nonambulatory cattle from slaughter for human consumption may strengthen the safety of the food supply and is a prudent measure already in place throughout the European Union.

An Hsus Report: Factory Farming In America: The True Cost Of Animal Agribusiness, The Humane Society Of The United States

Impact of Animal Agriculture

Across the United States, nearly 10 billion land animals are raised and killed each year for meat, eggs, and milk. More than half of all confined farm animals by weight—54%—are concentrated in just 5% of the country‟s industrial animal production farms. The realities of today‟s animal agribusiness practices are a far cry from the ones embraced by the small, family farms that once supplied the marketplace. Industrialization and raising unprecedented numbers of farm animals have resulted in the intensive confinement of these chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle, and other animals—and the intensive problems faced by those who must contend with the …

An Hsus Report: The Impact Of Animal Agriculture On Global Warming And Climate Change, The Humane Society Of The United States

Impact of Animal Agriculture

The farm animal production sector is the single largest anthropogenic user of land, contributing to soil degradation, dwindling water supplies, and air pollution. The breadth of this sector‘s impacts has been largely underappreciated. Meat, egg, and milk production are not narrowly focused on the rearing and slaughtering of farm animals. The animal agriculture sector also encompasses feed grain production which requires substantial water, energy, and chemical inputs, as well as energy expenditures to transport feed, live animals, and animal products. All of this comes at a substantial cost to the environment.

One of animal agriculture‘s greatest environmental impacts is its …

An Hsus Report: The Impact Of Industrialized Animal Agriculture On The Environment, The Humane Society Of The United States

Impact of Animal Agriculture

The continuous confinement of chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle, and other animals raised in industrialized agricultural systems jeopardizes the animals’ welfare and degrades the environment. Factory farms produce immense quantities of animal waste and byproducts, which threaten water and air quality and contribute to climate change.

An Hsi Report: Human Health Implications Of Intensive Poultry Production And Avian Influenza, Humane Society International

HSI REPORTS

The high stocking density, stress, unhygienic conditions, lack of sunlight, and breeding practices typical of industrial poultry and egg production systems may facilitate the emergence and spread of diseases, including highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses with public health implications such as H5N1.

An Hsi Report: The Impact Of Animal Agriculture On Global Warming And Climate Change, Humane Society International

HSI REPORTS

The farm animal production sector is the single largest anthropogenic user of land, contributing to soil degradation, dwindling water supplies, and air pollution. The breadth of this sector‘s impacts has been largely underappreciated. Meat, egg, and milk production are not narrowly focused on the rearing and slaughtering of farm animals. The animal agriculture sector also encompasses feed grain production which requires substantial water, energy, and chemical inputs, as well as energy expenditures to transport feed, live animals, and animal products. All of this comes at a substantial cost to the environment.

One of animal agriculture‘s greatest environmental impacts is its …

Amyloid Fibrils: Potential Food Safety Implications, Michael Greger

Human Health Collection

The demonstration of oral Amyloid-A (AA) fibril transmissibility has raised food safety questions about the consumption of amyloidotic viscera. In a presumed prion-like mechanism, amyloid fibrils have been shown to trigger and accelerate the development of AA amyloidosis in rodent models. The finding of amyloid fibrils in edible avian and mammalian food animal tissues, combined with the inability of cooking temperatures to eliminate their amyloidogenic potential, has led to concerns that products such as pâté de foie gras may activate a reactive systemic amyloidosis in susceptible consumers. Given the ability of amyloid fibrils to cross-seed the formation of chemically heterologous …

Petland Investigation Report, The Humane Society Of The United States

PUPPY MILL INFORMATION

America's largest chain of puppy-selling pet stores, Petland Inc., is also the nation's largest retail supporter of puppy mills. There are more than 200 Petland stores worldwide, with about 140 in the U.S. Collectively, these stores sell tens of thousands of puppies each year. On November 20, 2008 The Humane Society of the United States (The HSUS) revealed the results of a shocking eight-month investigation of Petland stores. The investigation reveals that Petland stores across the country have marketed puppy-mill puppies to unsuspecting consumers.

Behavioural Interactions Between The Introduced Plague Minnow Gambusia Holbrooki And The Vulnerable Native Australian Ornate Rainbowfish Rhadinocentrus Ornatus, Under Experimental Conditions, K. Keller, C. Brown

Sentience Collection

The impact of the plague minnow Gambusia holbrooki on the ornate rainbowfish Rhadinocentrus ornatus was investigated by comparing the behavioural response and microhabitat preferences of populations of R. ornatus collected from locations that are sympatric and allopatric with G. holbrooki. Rhadinocentrus ornatus populations from sympatric areas exhibited a significantly higher frequency of intraspecific chases, spent significantly more time at an intermediate depth and were nipped significantly less often by G. holbrooki compared to the allopatric R. ornatus populations. The frequency of intraspecific chases by all R. ornatus populations were greatest immediately following G. holbrooki exposure and increased further with repeated …

Processing Of The Müller-Lyer Illusion By A Grey Parrot (Psittacus Erithacus), Irene M. Pepperberg, Jennifer Vicinay, Patrick Cavanagh

Sentience Collection

Alex, a Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) who identifies the bigger or smaller of two objects by reporting its color or matter using a vocal English label and who states "none'' if they do not differ in size, was presented with two-dimensional Müller-Lyer figures (Brentano form) in which the central lines were of contrasting colors. His responses to ``What color bigger/smaller?'' demonstrated that he saw the standard length illusion in the Müller-Lyer figures in 32 of 50 tests where human observers would also see the illusion and reported the reverse direction only twice. He did not report the illusion when (a) …

How To Identify Dear Enemies: The Group Signature In The Complex Song Of The Skylark Alauda Arvensis, Elodie F. Briefer, Thierry Aubin, Katia Lehongre, Fanny Rybak

Ethology Collection

Song geographic variation and Neighbour–Stranger (N–S) discrimination have been intensively but separately studied in bird species, especially in those with small- to medium-sized repertoires. Here, we establish a link between the two phenomena by showing that dialect features are used for N–S recognition in a territorial species with a large repertoire, the skylark Alauda arvensis. In this species, during the breeding season, many pairs settle in stable and adjoining territories gathered in locations spaced by a few kilometres. In a first step, songs produced by males established in different locations were recorded, analyzed and compared to identify possible microgeographic variation …

Low Frequency Groans Indicate Larger And More Dominant Fallow Deer (Dama Dama) Males, Elisabetta Vannoni, Alan G. Mcelligott

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

Background: Models of honest advertisement predict that sexually selected calls should signal male quality. In most vertebrates, high quality males have larger body sizes that determine higher social status and in turn higher reproductive success. Previous research has emphasised the importance of vocal tract resonances or formant frequencies of calls as cues to body size in mammals. However, the role of the acoustic features of vocalisations as cues to other quality-related phenotypic characteristics of callers has rarely been investigated.

Methodology/Principal Findings: We examined whether the acoustic structure of fallow deer groans provides reliable information on the quality of the caller, …

Why “Good Welfare” Isn’T “Good Enough”: Minding Animals And Increasing Our Compassionate Footprint, Marc Bekoff

Animal Welfare Collection

In this brief essay I take a broad perspective on the notion of unraveling welfare and consider animals living in different conditions ranging from caged individuals in laboratories and zoos to free-living or almost free-living wildlife. I’ll step outside of the laboratory because billions of animals are slaughtered for food in an industry that tortures them on the way to their reprehensible deaths and at the places at which they are slaughtered. Furthermore, government agencies around the world kill millions of free-living and wild animals because they’re supposedly “pests”. This is a different sort of essay but I hope it …

Lack Of Assortative Mating Between Incipient Species Of Stickleback From A Hybrid Zone, F. C. Jones, C. Brown, V. A. Braithwaite

Evolutionary Biology Collection

Both premating and postmating barriers to gene flow can contribute to reproductive isolation but the relative role of these factors, particularly in the early stages of speciation, is not well understood. Evidence suggests that factors contributing to assortative mating and, thus, the development and maintenance of divergent species, can be ecology-dependent. Here, we present results from a study of assortative mating between recently diverged anadromous and freshwater sticklebacks conducted in semi-natural conditions. Sympatric anadromous and freshwater sticklebacks were sampled from a contact zone and multiple male and female morphs were allowed to breed in replicate ponds. Mate choice was determined …

Parent-Offspring Resource Allocation In Domestic Pigs, Anna Drake, David Fraser, Daniel M. Weary

Feeding Behavior Collection

Behavioural research on domestic pigs has included parent-offspring conflict, sibling competition, and the use of signals which influence resource allocation. In this paper, we review key sow-piglet behavioural studies and discuss their relevance to resource allocation theory. Sibling competition begins in the uterus and continues after birth, as piglets compete directly for access to the sow's teats. This competition is made more severe by a unique dentition, which newborn piglets use to lacerate the faces of siblings during teat disputes. Competition often leads to the death of some littermates, especially those of low birth weight. Piglets also compete indirectly for …

The Humane Society Of The United States Complete Guide To Horse Care, Erin Harty, Keith Dane, Eric Davis, Holly Hazard, Deborah Salem

eBooks

Written for the novice owner and experienced caretaker alike, The Humane Society of the United States Complete Guide to Horse Care offers advice on choosing the right horse; guidelines on how to meet a horse's physical, behavioral, and nutritional needs; an overview of horse breeds and disciplines; and information to help horse owners make good decisions at all stages of their horses' lives.

The Welfare Of Animals In The Duck Industry

Agribusiness Reports

Duck production in the United States shares many of the same intensive husbandry practices found in the chicken and turkey industries, despite being much smaller in scale. The vast majority of farmed ducks are reared in dimly lit sheds with high stocking densities and without access to water for swimming, a significant welfare concern for these aquatic animals. Lameness, feather pecking, respiratory problems, and eye infections are common, and most birds are subjected to bill-trimming, a physical mutilation known to cause pain. The stress and physical trauma of catching and crating for transport, as well as the journeys themselves, further …

The Welfare Of Animals In The Egg Industry

Agribusiness Reports

Hundreds of millions of chickens in the egg industry suffer from poor welfare throughout their lives. Male chicks, considered a byproduct of commercial hatcheries, are killed soon after they hatch. The females are typically beak-trimmed, usually with a hot blade, to prevent them from developing the abnormal pecking behaviors that manifest in substandard environments. The overwhelming majority of hens are then confined in barren battery cages, enclosures so small that the birds are unable even to spread their wings without touching the cage sides or other hens. Battery cages prevent nearly all normal behavior, including nesting, perching, and dustbathing, all …

The Welfare Of Crustaceans At Slaughter, Stephanie Yue

Agribusiness Reports

The most common methods of slaughtering crustaceans include splitting, spiking, chilling, boiling, gassing, “drowning,” and using chemicals or electricity. As crustaceans do not have a centralized nervous system, unlike vertebrates, they do not die immediately upon destruction of one discrete area, such as the brain. New technologies, including the Crustastun electrical stunning and killing system, may improve the welfare of crustaceans during slaughter, which is critically important as most if not all current techniques are inhumane.

The Welfare Of Animals In The Aquaculture Industry

Agribusiness Reports

In the United States, approximately 1.3 billion fish are raised in off-shore and land-based aquaculture systems each year for food, making them the second-most commonly farmed animal domestically, following broiler chickens. The majority of farmed fish are subject to overcrowded and restrictive conditions, which, if unchecked, can quickly deteriorate water quality, cause severe stress, and result in increased mortality. Aquaculture practices and production—including handling, grading, transport, genetic manipulation, aggression from conspecifics, predation, physiological stress, and inhumane slaughter—compromise the welfare of these animals.

The Welfare Of Animals In The Turkey Industry

Agribusiness Reports

The natural behavior and habitat of wild turkeys stand in sharp contrast to the life of turkeys commercially raised for meat. Overcrowded in automated, barren “grow-out” houses, turkeys are offered little opportunity to display their full range of complex social, foraging, and exploratory behavior. Today’s commercial breeds grow at an unnaturally rapid pace to unprecedented weights. This forced rapid growth further compromises their health and welfare, and causes them to suffer from skeletal, muscular, and other health problems, as well as painful and often crippling leg disorders. Breeding birds, unable to mate naturally due to genetic selection for fast growth …

Welfare Issues With Caponizing Chickens

Agribusiness Reports

No U.S. state or federal regulations prohibit the practice of caponizing cockerels—castrating male chickens under one year of age. Crude instructions and surgical implements are readily available to provide any amateur “hobbyist” with the means to perform this procedure, typically on fully conscious, unanesthetized birds. Caponizing has been banned in the United Kingdom due to animal welfare concerns and should be disallowed in the United States.

Welfare Issues With Transport Of Day-Old Chicks

Agribusiness Reports

In the United States, more than 9 billion chickens and 250 million turkeys are raised and slaughtered annually for food. Virtually all broiler chickens (those raised for meat) and turkeys come from strains produced by four and three primary breeding companies, respectively. Within several hours after hatching, the chicks are typically relocated from the hatchery or breeder farm to the commercial grow-out facility via ground and air transportation. Small hatcheries also send chicks to backyard “hobbyists” via U.S. Postal Service delivery. Unless carefully controlled and properly managed, transport—whether by truck or plane and regardless of scale, commercial or specialty—can subject …

The Impact Of Industrialized Animal Agriculture On Rural Communities

Agribusiness Reports

Industrialized animal agriculture production practices and systems not only jeopardize the welfare of farm animals and the environment, but also negatively impact public health, independent family farmers, and quality of life in rural communities. The tolls exacted on rural communities necessitate dramatic and immediate changes in animal agriculture.

The Impact Of Animal Agriculture On Global Warming And Climate Change

Agribusiness Reports

The farm animal production sector is the single largest anthropogenic user of land, contributing to soil degradation, dwindling water supplies, and air pollution. The breadth of this sector‘s impacts has been largely underappreciated. Meat, egg, and milk production are not narrowly focused on the rearing and slaughtering of farm animals. The animal agriculture sector also encompasses feed grain production which requires substantial water, energy, and chemical inputs, as well as energy expenditures to transport feed, live animals, and animal products. All of this comes at a substantial cost to the environment.

One of animal agriculture‘s greatest environmental impacts is its …

The Impact Of Industrialized Animal Agriculture On The Environment

Agribusiness Reports

The continuous confinement of chickens, pigs, turkeys, cattle, and other animals raised in industrialized agricultural systems jeopardizes the animals’ welfare and degrades the environment. Factory farms produce immense quantities of animal waste and byproducts, which threaten water and air quality and contribute to climate change.

Human Health Implications Of Non-Therapeutic Antibiotic Use In Animal Agriculture

Agribusiness Reports

For decades, the U.S. meat industry has fed medically important antibiotics to chickens, pigs, and cattle to accelerate their weight gain and prevent disease in the stressful and unhygienic conditions that typify industrialized animal agriculture production facilities. A strong scientific consensus exists, asserting that this practice fosters antibiotic resistance in bacteria to the detriment of human health. In response to this public health threat, the European Union has banned the non-therapeutic feeding of a number of antibiotics of human importance to farm animals. Given these serious concerns as well as recent data that suggest an overall lack of financial benefit, …

Factory Farming In America

Agribusiness Reports

The True Cost of Animal Agribusiness for Rural Communities, Public Health, Families, Farmers, the Environment, and Animals

Food Safety Concerns With The Slaughter Of Downed Cattle

Agribusiness Reports

Nonambulatory cattle may be at higher risk of harboring foodborne pathogens such as E. coli O157:H7, Salmonella, and, very rarely, the infectious agent that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy, colloquially known as “mad cow disease.” The exclusion of nonambulatory cattle from slaughter for human consumption may strengthen the safety of the food supply and is a prudent measure already in place throughout the European Union.