Animal Studies Commons^™

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 …

Report Of Animal Bones From Selhagi, Mývatn District, Northern Iceland, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2001 the FSl / NABO project Landscapes of Settlement in Northern Iceland collected animal bones from a stratified midden deposit associated with the abandoned site Selhagi on the property of the modern farm Haganes. Selhagi is located in the lushly vegetated lakeshore zone and its environmental setting presents a strong contrast with the eroded uplands to the S of the lake where the early sites at Sveigakot and Hrísheimur are under excavation. Close to both major migratory waterfowl nesting areas and some of the best trout fishing in Iceland, the site would appear to be optimally located for exploitation …

Religion And Animals: A Changing Scene, Paul Waldau

State of the Animals 2003

For protections to evolve to include nonhuman species, religions— through their leaders, their institutions, and above all their believers— must take seriously the important role that they have played, and certainly will continue to play, in humans’ engagement with the lives beyond our species line. Religions have such a central role in the transmission of basic images and values regarding living beings that, without their help, the problem of the species line will not be solved in this century. A central question for this century is whether influential religious institutions will continue to convey images that radically and absolutely dismiss …

The Evolution Of Animal Law Since 1950, Steven M. Wise

State of the Animals 2003

Over the last half century, the law has assumed an increasingly important place in animal protection even as it has begun to point in the direction of true legal rights for at least some nonhuman animals. In this chapter I briefly discuss five aspects of the law: anti-cruelty statutes; the necessity of obtaining standing to litigate on behalf of the interests of nonhuman animals; evolving protections for great apes; the movement toward legal rights for at least some nonhuman animals; and the state of legal education concerning animal protection.

Companion Animal Demographics In The United States: A Historical Perspective, Elizabeth A. Clancy, Andrew N. Rowan

State of the Animals 2003

Modern American society recognizes the crucial role of data and information in evaluating and effectively addressing societal problems. Americans are bombarded with information on the economy, public health, social and psychological attitude trends, and other matters that are considered important. For example, no self-respecting politician would think of launching a political campaign or initiative without some sense of what the public might be worrying about. Addressing pet population issues should be no different. Data are needed in order to define the nature and scope of the dog and cat demographic challenge. Data can help people to understand the impact of …

The State Of Wild Animals In The Minds And Households Of A Neotropical Society: The Costa Rican Case Study, Carlos Drews

State of the Animals 2003

The study of attitudes in a society provides insight into variables that may be pertinent to people’s everyday decisions and practices involving animals. This essay addresses the relationship between attitudes, knowledge, and behavior in the context of the protection of wild animals in the Neotropics and ventures to draw some conclusions about the state of wild animals from this perspective. The Neotropics, a biogeographical region that extends from the Yucatan peninsula to the southern tip of South America, includes some of the most biodiverse countries of the world. Its nations share a common history of Iberian colonization but are nonetheless …

The Science And Sociology Of Hunting: Shifting Practices And Perceptions In The United States And Great Britain, John W. Grandy, Elizabeth Stallman, David W. Macdonald

State of the Animals 2003

Between the late nineteenth and early twenty-first centuries, both the rationale for and perception of hunting shifted in the United States, coinciding with demographic changes in the U.S. population (Duda 1993). Similar changes in attitude, though largely undocumented, probably occurred in the United Kingdom. (For example, foxhunting did not emerge as a substantial sport until the second half of the eighteenth century; before that, foxes were widely perceived as pests and killed whenever the opportunity arose [Marvin 2000]). Our purpose in this chapter is to compare these two countries in order to reveal some of the science and the sociology …

Minding Animals, Minding Earth: Science, Nature, Kinship, And Heart, Marc Bekoff

Sentience Collection

This paper emphasizes the importance of broadening behavioral, ecological, and conservation science into a more integrative, interdisciplinary, socially responsible, compassionate, spiritual, and holistic endeavor.2,3 I will stress the significance of studies of animal behavior, especially ethological research concerned with animal emotions, in which individuals are named and recognized for their own personalities and temperaments, for helping us not only to learn about the nonhuman animal beings (hereafter animals) with whom we share Earth, but also for learning about who we are, our place in Nature, our humanness. We can be best understood in relationship to others. I will also develop …

Early Childhood Thematic Unit: A 32-Week Curricular Resource: Fairy Tales - Insects - Dinosaurs, Institute For The Development Of Gifted Education, Ricks Center For Gifted Children, University Of Denver

Ricks Curriculum Units Series

An integrated curriculum is an instructional approach that connects the disciplines to an underlying theme or topic. Immersing students in an integrated-thematic unit provides the backdrop for experiences to occur across the disciplines. Shaping coursework around integrated themes is especially appropriate for gifted students, however using an integrated-thematic curriculum is appropriate for all learners as it develops students' abilities to make connections, to solve problems by looking at multiple perspectives, and to integrate information from different fields of experience. An integrated-thematic curriculum permits students to be active participants in their own learning as they design their own explorations and take …

Preliminary Report Of Animal Bones From Hrísheimur, Mývatn District, Northern Iceland, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2000 and 2001 the FSl / NABO project Landscapes of Settlement in Northern Iceland collected animal bones from the heavily eroded site of Hrísheimur south of lake Mývatn. The 2001 season produced a substantial archaeofauna from a 2 x 2 meter test excavation of a midden deposit that apparently fills a small sunken-feature structure. While further excavations are planned to collect more material and to better understand the deposit and site as a whole, it may be useful to provide an interim overview of the bone materials recovered from the largest context (003) of the midden deposit tested in …

Report Of Animal Bones From Tjarnargata 3c, Reykjavík, Iceland, Sophia Perdikaris, Colin Amundsen, Thomas H. Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Executive Summary

During rescue excavations in downtown Reykjavík in 1999 nearly 100 kg of well-preserved animal bone was recovered in investigations at Tjarnargata 3 C by Fornleifastofnun Islands (FSÍ) directed by Mjöll Snaesdóttir. This bone collection (or archaeofauna) was largely sieved (4 mm and 1 mm mesh wet screen) and represents one of the largest archaeofauna recovered from Iceland to date. Analysis was carried out at City University of New York’s Northern Science & Education Center’s two zooarchaeology laboratories at Brooklyn College and Hunter College in 2000-01. The analyzed bone materials were returned for long term curation at the National …

Chimpanzee Signing: Darwinian Realities And Cartesian Delusions, Roger S. Fouts, Mary Lee A. Jensvold, Deborah Fouts

Anthropology and Museum Studies Faculty Scholarship

Truly discontinuous, all-or-none phenomena must be rare in nature. Historically, the great discontinuities have turned out to be conceptual barriers rather than natural phenomena. They have been passed by and abandoned rather than broken through in the course of scientific progress. The sign language studies in chimpanzees have neither sought nor discovered a means of breathing humanity into the soul of a beast. They have assumed instead that there is no discontinuity between verbal behavior and the rest of human behavior or between human behavior and the rest of animal behavior—no barrier to be broken, no chasm to be bridged, …

The Effects Of Enclosure Type On Aggressive Behavior In Captive Chimpanzees, Erica Renee Findley

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

Male chimpanzees are known to be aggressively territorial in the wild. It is expected that the limited enclosures of captivity would make them even more aggressive. The Kansas City Zoo was chosen as an ideal venue to explore this assumption because it boasts the largest outdoor enclosure of its kind, and the apes alternate between this and much smaller indoor housing. Quantitative data on crowd size, time of day, temperature, and frequency/intensity/duration of aggressive behaviors were recorded for the alpha male in both enclosures during 300 hours of observation. These data were used to test the following hypotheses: as measured …

Vegetarianism And Virtue: Does Consequentialism Demand Too Little?, Nathan Nobis

Human Health Collection

The article discusses the moral aspects of vegetarianism. This will make vegetarians more compassionate and caring for animals and will result in better health and less finances. The virtue theory or the vegetarian justifying principle connotes that one should not support even symbolically bad practices to animals when good alternatives are readily available. Becoming a vegetarian is a way of attesting to the depth and sincerity of one's belief in the wrongness of how we treat animals and its consequence to humans. Consequentialism does not demand too little because it requires that one conforms his behavior to the vegetarian justifying …

Social Attitudes And Animals, Harold Herzog, Andrew N. Rowan, Daniel Kossow

State of the Animals 2001

This chapter is an overview of the attitudes of Americans toward the treatment and moral status of nonhuman animals. We discuss problems of attitude assessment, the social psychology of attitudes toward animals, and the complex relationship between attitudes and behavior. We also review changes in attitudes toward animals over the past fifty years and current public opinion regarding a variety of issues related to animal welfare.

Cruelty To Animals: Changing Psychological, Social, And Legislative Perspectives, Frank R. Ascione, Randall Lockwood

State of the Animals 2001

Society is looking for new tools and resources to employ in the efforts to combat violence, identify real or potential perpetrators at an early stage, and define actions that might predict or prevent violent behavior. Closer examination of cruelty to animals within the framework of family and societal violence offers an opportunity to explore violence outside of the traditional nature–nurture debate over the origins of aggression. Cruelty to animals represents an objectively definable behavior that occurs within a societal context. It also represents a good measure of the interaction between the behavior of which an individual is intrinsically capable and …

From Pets To Companion Animals, Martha C. Armstrong, Susan Tomasello, Christyna Hunter

State of the Animals 2001

Almost two-thirds of U.S. households have a dog, cat, bird, or reptile as a pet. The number of dogs, and particularly puppies, relinquished to shelters was rapidly diminishing as of mid-2000, to the point that some shelters did not have any puppies for adoption for many months. Those dogs and cats fortunate enough to be in lifelong homes are enjoying a longer life span than those who shared our homes in the first half of the twentieth century.

Additional good news is the way that animal shelters—whether run municipally, privately, or through a combination of municipal and private funding—are different …

A Framework For Assessing The Suitability Of Different Species As Companion Animals, C. A. Schuppli, D. Fraser

Wild and Exotic Animals as Pets Collection

Municipal regulations and humane movement policies often restrict or discourage the use of 'exotic' species as companion animals. However, confusion arises because the term 'exotic' is used in various ways, and because classifying species as exotic or non-exotic does not satisfactorily distinguish suitable from unsuitable companion animals. Even among commonly kept species, some appear to be much more suitable than others. Instead, decisions about suitable companion animal species need to be based on a number of relevant issues. As ethical criteria, we considered that keeping a companion animal should not jeopardize - and ideally should enhance - its welfare, as …

The Status Of Animals In Biblical And Christian Thought: A Study In Colliding Values, Rod Preece, David Fraser

Morality and Religious Philosophy Collection

A common contemporary view is that the Bible and subsequent Christian thought authorize humans to exploit animals purely as means to human ends. This paper argues that Biblical and Christian thought have given rise to a more complex ethic of animal use informed by its pastoralist origins, Biblical pronouncements that permit different interpretations, and competing ideas and doctrines that arose during its development, and influenced by the rich and often contradictory features of ancient Hebrew and Greco-Roman traditions. The result is not a uniform ethic but a tradition of unresolved debate. Differing interpretations of the Great Chain of Being and …

Overall Animal Welfare Assessment Reviewed. Part 1: Is It Possible?, M.B.M. Bracke, B. M. Spruijt, J.H.M. Metz

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

Several authors have concluded that scientists should not attempt to perform overall animal welfare assessment (OWA). They argue that scientists have continued to fail to make progress in this area and that value judgements are inherently involved in OWA for which science cannot provide answers. We take a more positive attitude toward OWA and argue that scientists should avoid creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. OWA is necessary for making actual moral and political decisions. Science has already accumulated much relevant information about welfare and this information should be applied in decision making.

The task of OW A is to assess welfare …

Overall Animal Welfare Reviewed. Part 2: Assessment Tables And Schemes, M.B.M. Bracke, J.H.M. Metz, B. M. Spruijt

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

In the scientific literature several attempts have been made to systematically assess the overall welfare-status of animals in relation to housing and management. This paper reviews assessment tables and schemes that have been constructed to this end. These tables and schemes have a tabular format that allows an assessment of housing systems using a list of welfare-relevant attributes (properties of the housing system). Rather than identifying deficits, the focus of this review is on finding positive recommendations for the purpose of developing a method for overall welfare assessment (OWA) on a scientific basis. The main recommendation is to use the …

Overall Animal Welfare Reviewed. Part 3: Welfare Assessment Based On Needs And Supported By Expert Opinion, M.B.M. Bracke, B. M. Spruijt, J.H.M. Metz

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

Welfare concerns what matters to animals from their point of view. What matters to animals is their state of need. Satisfaction and frustration of needs are associated with emotional states, the subjective experience of which directly determines the welfare status of an animal. Because emotional states are difficult to assess, overall welfare assessment (OWA) is best approached as an assessment of needs.

For actual OW A a list of needs must be formulated. Different authors have formulated different lists. From these lists a concept need-list was constructed. For validation the needs-based approach for OWA was discussed in interviews with experts …

Hoarding Of Animals: An Under-Recognized Public Health Problem In A Difficult-To-Study Population, Gary J. Patronek

Passive Cruelty to Animals Collection

Objective. The objective of this study was to better characterize the problem of hoarding, or pathological collecting, of animals.

Methods. The author summarized data from a convenience sample of 54 case reports from 0 animal control agencies and humane societies across the country.

Results. The majority (76%) of hoarders were female, and 46% were 60 years of age or older. About half of the hoarders lived in single-person households. The animals most frequently involved were cats, dogs, farm animals, and birds. The median number of animals per case was 39, but there were four cases of more than 00 animals …

Evolution And Animal Welfare, Marian Stamp Dawkins

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

Animal welfare is a topic often thought to reside outside mainstream biology. The complexity of the methods used to assess welfare (such as health, physiology, immunological state, and behavior) require an understanding of a wide range of biological phenomena. Furthermore, the "welfare" of an animal provides a framework in which a diversity of its responses can be understood as fitness-enhancing mechanisms. Different methods for assessing animal welfare are discussed, with particular emphasis on the role of an animal's own choices and reinforcement mechanisms. No part of biology is as yet able to explain consciousness, but by confronting the possibility that …

Contested Moralities: Animals And Moral Value In The Dear/Symanski Debate, William S. Lynn

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

Geography is experiencing a ‘moral turn’ in its research interests and practices. There is also a flourishing interest in animal geographies that intersects this turn, and is concurrent with wider scholarly efforts to reincorporate animals and nature into our ethical and social theories. This article intervenes in a dispute between Michael Dear and Richard Symanski. The dispute is over the culling of wild horses in Australia, and I intervene to explore how geography deepens our moral understanding of the animal/human dialectic. I begin by situating the inquiry into ethics and animals in geography. Next, I provide a synopsis of Dear …

Animals, Ethics And Geography, William S. Lynn

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

No abstract provided.

Why It Is Important To Understand Animal Behavior, Joy Mench

Anthropomorphism and Anthropocentrism Collection

Although people have long been fascinated by the behavior of animals, the formal discipline of animal behavior--ethology--is actually relatively new, dating to the work of Konrad Lorenz in Austria in the 1930s. Application of ethological principles and methods to the study of animal welfare is an even newer endeavor, of course, and one that has generated a great deal of stimulating discussion and controversy during its short history. In this paper, I provide an overview of the development of behavioral approaches to the study of animal welfare. I then discuss some reasons that behaviors are important to animals and describe …

A Demanding Task: Using Economic Techniques To Assess Animal Priorities. A Reply To Mason Et Al., C. M. Sherwin, C. J. Nicol

Economics and Animal Welfare Collection

No abstract provided.

Personality And Attitudes Toward The Treatment Of Animals, Steve Mathews, Harold A. Herzog

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

The authors examined the relationship between personality and attitudes toward the treatment of animals by administering the Sixteen Personality Factor Inventory and the Animal Attitudes Scale to 99 college students. The personality scales were only weakly related to attitudes about animal welfare issues. Two personality factors, sensitivity and imaginativeness, were significantly correlated with attitudes towards animals. Gender and sensitivity explained 25% of the variance in attitudes, with most of the variance accounted for by gender.

Interactions Among Dogs, People, And The Environment In Boulder, Colorado: A Case Study, Marc Bekoff, Carron A. Meaney

Pets Collection

From September 1995 to April 1996 we studied interactions among dogs, people, and the environment in Boulder, Colorado. Data on behavioral disturbances by off-leash dogs who were accompanied by a person were collected with respect to dog-dog and dog-human interactions, dog-wildlife encounters, dogs trampling vegetation, and dogs entering and disturbing bodies of water. A questionnaire also was administered. Behavioral data showed that off-leash dogs generally did not travel far off trail, that when they did it was for short periods of time, and that they rarely were observed to chase other dogs, disturb people, chase wildlife, destroy vegetation, or enter …