Animal Studies Commons^™

Influence Of Free-Stall Base On Tarsal Joint Lesions And Hygiene In Dairy Cows, W. K. Fulwider, T. Grandin, D. J. Garrick, T. E. Engle, W. D. Lamm, N. L. Dalsted, B. E. Rollin

Housing and Confinement of Farm Animals Collection

The objective was to quantify the incidence of tarsal lesions and level of hygiene by stall bed type. Cows were scored on 100 dairies from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, and New York in the fall and winter. Thirty-eight dairies used rubber-filled mattresses (RFM), 27 had sand beds, 29 had waterbeds, and 6 used compost packs (CPk). Stocking density, stall dimensions, bedding amount, bedding frequency, and type of bedding were recorded. One pen of early-lactation multiparous cows on each dairy was scored based on injury of the tarsal joints at the lateral and medial surfaces and tuber calcis at the dorsal, …

Animal Research: A Moral Science, Bernard E. Rollin

Experimentation Collection

No abstract provided.

Animal Welfare Perspectives On Recreational Angling, Steven J. Cooke, Lynne U. Sneddon

Animal Welfare Collection

Fish captured by recreational anglers are often released either voluntarily or because of harvest regulations in a process called ‘‘catch-and-release’’. Catch-and-release angling is thought to be beneficial for the conservation of fish stocks based on the premise that most of the fish that are released survive. However, expanding interest in animal welfare has promoted debate regarding the ethics of catch-and-release angling. There is a growing recognition that fish can consciously experience nociception and that they have some capacity to experience pain and fear. Indeed, empirical anatomical, physiological, and behavioural evidence supports the notion that fish could experience these two forms …

The Public Perception Of Enrichment For Captive Animals, Elizabeth Marie Webb

All Master's Theses

The effects of providing participants with educational information on enrichment as measured by the looking time at and ratings of zoo photographs were examined. One hundred and seventeen participants viewed photographs of zoo exhibits, 10 from each of the following categories: artificial exhibit with artificial enrichment, artificial exhibit with naturalistic enrichment, naturalistic exhibit with naturalistic enrichment, and naturalistic exhibit with artificial enrichment. Participants rated the photographs on exhibit aesthetic appeal, perceived animal happiness, and effectiveness of the enrichment. Pre- and posttest ratings of the importance of zoo roles were also collected. Results showed support for the hypothesis that participants provided …

Individual Acoustic Variation In Fallow Deer (Dama Dama) Common And Harsh Groans: A Source-Filter Theory Perspective, Elisabetta Vannoni, Alan G. Mcelligott

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

Mammals are able to distinguish conspecifics based on vocal cues, and the acoustic structure of mammal vocalizations is directly affected by the anatomy and action of the vocal apparatus. However, most studies investigating individual patterns in acoustic signals do not consider a vocal production-based perspective. In this study, we used the source-filter model of vocal production as a basis for investigating the acoustic variability of fallow deer groans. Using this approach, we quantified the potential of each acoustic component to carry information about individual identity. We also investigated if cues to individual identity carry over among the two groan types …

Plasticity In Animal Personality Traits: Does Prior Experience Alter The Degree Of Boldness?, Ashley J. Frost, Alexandra Winrow-Giffen, Paul J. Ashley, Lynne U. Sneddon

Ethology Collection

Theoreticians predict that animal ‘personality’ traits may be maladaptive if fixed throughout different contexts, so the present study aimed to test whether these traits are fixed or plastic. Rainbow trout (Onchorhyncus mykiss) were given emboldening or negative experiences in the forms of watching bold or shy individuals responding to novelty or winning or losing fights to examine whether prior experience affected boldness. Bold individuals that lost fights or watched shy demonstrators became more shy by increasing their latency to approach a novel object, whereas shy observers that watched bold demonstrators remained cautious and did not modify their responses to novelty. …

Impact Of The Agricultural Sector On The Arkansas Economy In 2003, Jennie Popp, Nathan Kemper, Wayne Miller

AAES Research Reports and Research Bulletins

Agriculture and associated agricultural activities are major contributors to the Arkansas economy. Agriculture is defined as the sum of agricultural production and processing activities, unless otherwise specified, and includes crop and animal production and processing, agricultural support industries, forestry and forest products, and textile goods. Agriculture contributes to the economy through direct agricultural production and value-added processing, and also leads to economic activity in other parts of the economy.

Comparison Of Treatment Effects Between Animal Experiments And Clinical Trials: Systematic Review, Pablo Perel, Ian Roberts, Emily Sena, Philipa Wheble, Catherine Briscoe, Peter Sandercock, Malcolm Macleod, Luciano E. Mignini, Pradeep Jayaram, Khalid S. Khan

Validation of Animal Experimentation Collection

Objective To examine concordance between treatment effects in animal experiments and clinical trials.

Study design Systematic review.

Data sources Medline, Embase, SIGLE, NTIS, Science Citation Index, CAB, BIOSIS.

Study selection Animal studies for interventions with unambiguous evidence of a treatment effect (benefit or harm) in clinical trials: head injury, antifibrinolytics in haemorrhage, thrombolysis in acute ischaemic stroke, tirilazad in acute ischaemic stroke, antenatal corticosteroids to prevent neonatal respiratory distress syndrome, and bisphosphonates to treat osteoporosis.

Review methods Data were extracted on study design, allocation concealment, number of randomised animals, type of model, intervention, and outcome.

Results Corticosteroids did not show …

An Hsus Report: Human Health Implications Of U.S. Live Bird Markets In The Spread Of Avian Influenza, The Humane Society Of The United States

Impact of Animal Agriculture

After millions of years of existing as a harmless infection of aquatic birds, some strains of avian flu have developed the ability to mutate into highly pathogenic forms that may not only be deadly for birds, but potentially more dangerous for humans as well. Experts from the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations have joined leading scientists in implicating industrialized poultry production for providing fertile ground for the transformation of benign bird flu into highly pathogenic strains.

Live bird markets can be the conduit by which waterfowl …

Their Bugs Are Worse Than Their Bite: Emerging Infectious Disease And The Human-Animal Interface, Michael Greger

State of the Animals 2007

In the twenty-five years since that announcement, what we now know as AIDS has killed 20 million people (National AIDS Trust 2005). Where did the AIDS virus— and other emerging diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Ebola, mad cow— come from?

The Demographics Of The U.S. Equine Population, Emily R. Kilby

State of the Animals 2007

In this demographic examination of America’s equine population, the numbers clearly show upward trends in all things equestrian over the past fifty years. Will that trajectory continue, adding year after year to the current ten million population, or will loss of open spaces turn the tide as it limits horse housing and riding room? Will ownership patterns undergo fundamental changes when population density, land costs, and escalating environmental controls eliminate the “backyard”- keeping concept and make suburban boarding stables untenable? Will horse production expenses rise in the face of land pressures to the point that equestrian involvement, now a highly …

The Steady State Economy, Habitat Stability, And The Humane Treatment Of Wild Animals, Brian Czech

State of the Animals 2007

Economic growth is not intended to kill, torture, or harass animals, and in that respect is not as detestable as various other forms of inhumanity. Yet economic growth is surely the greatest of all forms of inhumanity in terms of the gross amount of wild animal suffering that results. Therefore, for those concerned with the humane treatment of wild animals, perhaps nothing is so important to address as the policy and process of economic growth.

Free-Roaming Dogs In Developing Countries: The Benefits Of Capture, Neuter, And Return Programs, Jennifer Jackman, Andrew N. Rowan

State of the Animals 2007

This chapter provides an overview of animal welfare and public health problems associated with free-roaming dog populations and strategies to resolve these problems. Placing CNR programs in the context of earlier dog and rabies control methods, the chapter explores CNR’s potential to overcome some of the shortcomings of earlier approaches and to improve animal welfare, reduce dog population growth, and prevent the spread of rabies and other canine-transmitted diseases. Constraints and current debates on current implementation of CNR programs are also examined.

The Human/Animal Interface: Emergence And Resurgence Of Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Michael Greger

Transgenesis Collection

Emerging infectious diseases, most of which are considered zoonotic in origin, continue to exact a significant toll on society. The origins of major human infectious diseases are reviewed and the factors underlying disease emergence explored. Anthropogenic changes, largely in land use and agriculture, are implicated in the apparent increased frequency of emergence and reemergence of zoonoses in recent decades. Special emphasis is placed on the pathogen with likely the greatest zoonotic potential, influenzavirus A.

‘Concentration Camps For Lost And Stolen Pets’: Stan Wayman’S Life Photo Essay And The Animal Welfare Act, Bernard Unti

Laws and Legislation Collection

In the 1960s, LIFE was America's single most important general weekly magazine, its photo-essay formula catering to a middle class constituency of millions. By the halfway point of that tumultuous decade, readers were accustomed to seeing searing and unpleasant images of a changing nation, one racked by civil unrest and entangled in a bloody war in Southeast Asia. But when LIFE's February 4, 1966 issue landed on newsstands and in mailboxes across the United States, with the cover's warning "YOUR DOG IS IN CRUEL DANGER," tens of millions of readers became acquainted for the first time with another kind of …

The Poor Contribution Of Chimpanzee Experiments To Biomedical Progress, Andrew Knight

Experimentation Collection

Biomedical research on captive chimpanzees incurs substantial nonhuman animal welfare, ethical, and financial costs that advocates claim result in substantial advancements in biomedical knowledge. However, demonstrating minimal contribution toward the advancement of biomedical knowledge generally, subsequent papers did not cite 49.5% (47/95), of 95 experiments randomly selected from a population of 749 published worldwide between 1995 and 2004. Only 14.7% (14/95) were cited by 27 papers that abstracts indicated described well-developed methods for combating human diseases. However, detailed examination of these medical papers revealed that in vitro studies, human clinical and epidemiological studies, molecular assays and methods, and genomic studies …

A Holistic Approach To Taking Research Animal Suffering Seriously, Martin Stephens, Kathleen Conlee

Experimentation Collection

It is widely agreed, and often legally required, that distress and pain in research animals should be minimized--for the sake of animal welfare, ethical obligation, and public concern, as well as scientific quality. As testimony to the importance of distress and pain to stakeholders interested in research animals, many countries compile and publish annual statistics documenting overall patterns and trends on distress and pain in research animals.

We argue for a holistic approach to minimizing research animal suffering, with all relevant parties sharing in this responsibility. Researchers, laboratory personnel, oversight committees, and facility administrators are central to day-to-day animal care. …

Overcoming Ideology: Why It Is Necessary To Create A Culture In Which The Ethical Review Of Protocols Can Flourish, Bernard E. Rollin

Experimentation Collection

My objective in this commentary is to describe and discuss a major threat to the continued thriving of science in our society, which is all the more insidious because it is largely unrecognized by those in the scientific community who are in a position to rectify the problem. Astute people in that community are well aware of many threats to science that include but are not limited to the following: appalling public scientific illiteracy; the unfortunate resurgence of “magic thinking”—reflected in turn in the reappearance of Creationism, which is hostile to evolution—and the billions of dollars spent on evidentially baseless …

Of Mice And Men, Bernard E. Rollin

Experimentation Collection

No abstract provided.

How Animals Communicate Quality Of Life: The Qualitative Assessment Of Behaviour, F. Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

The notion ‘quality of life’ (QoL) suggests that welfare in animals encompasses more than just an absence of suffering; it concerns the quality of an animal’s entire relationship with its environment, of how it lives its life. Judgements of such quality are based on the integration of perceived details of how animals behave over time in different contexts. The scientific status of such judgements has long been ambiguous, but in recent decades has begun to be addressed by animal scientists. This paper starts with a brief review of qualitative approaches to the study of animal behaviour, which tend to address …

Grey Parrots Do Not Always ‘Parrot’: The Roles Of Imitation And Phonological Awareness In The Creation Of New Labels From Existing Vocalizations, Irene M. Pepperberg

Sentience Collection

Evidence exists for a form of imitation, vocal segmentation, by a Grey parrot. Data show that the bird understands that his labels are comprised of individual units that can be recombined in novel ways to create a novel referential vocalization; that is, a novel act. Previous data suggested, but could not substantiate, this behaviour. Such evidence implies that a parrot not only has phonological awareness but also demonstrates true imitation rather than mimicry, and has implications for the studies of both the evolution of communicative competence and the development of robotic speech.

Aquatic Animals, Cognitive Ethology, And Ethics: Questions About Sentience And Other Troubling Issues That Lurk In Turbid Water, Marc Bekoff

Sentience Collection

In this general, strongly pro-animal, and somewhat utopian and personal essay, I argue that we owe aquatic animals respect and moral consideration just as we owe respect and moral consideration to all other animal beings, regardless of the taxonomic group to which they belong. In many ways it is more difficult to convince some people of our ethical obligations to numerous aquatic animals because we do not identify or empathize with them as we do with animals with whom we are more familiar or to whom we are more closely related, including those species (usually terrestrial) to whom we refer …

Chimpanzee Research: An Examination Of Its Contribution To Biomedical Knowledge And Efficacy In Combating Human Diseases, Jarrod Bailey, Jonathan Balcombe, Theodora Capaldo

Experimentation Collection

Research on captive chimpanzees incurs considerable animal welfare, ethical and financial costs. Advocates of such research claim these costs are outweighed by substantial advancements in biomedical knowledge, and that the genetic similarity of chimpanzees to humans enables the former to make critical contributions to preventing, diagnosing and combating human diseases. To assess these claims, we examined the disciplines investigated in 749 studies of captive chimpanzees published from 1995-2004 inclusive, and subjected 95 randomly selected papers to a detailed citation analysis:

49.5% (47/95) of papers had not been cited at the time of this study; 38.5% (34/95) were cited by 116 …

Critter Psychology: On The Possibility Of Nonhuman Animal Folk Psychology, Kristin Andrews

Psychology Collection

No abstract provided.

The State Of The Animals Iv: 2007, Deborah J. Salem, Andrew N. Rowan

In the fourth volume of the State of the Animals series, a stellar array of researchers, scholars, and leaders in the field explores current and emerging issues in animal protection.

Wild Neighbors : The Humane Approach To Living With Wildlife, John Hadidian

Wild Neighbors provides practical, humane, and effective advice on how to share living space with 35 of the most common species, from alligators to woodpeckers, found in the lower 48 states. Advice focuses on how to: properly and accurately define a wildlife problem; determine what type of animal is causing it; identify the damage; effectively take action for a humane and permanent solution; and proactively avoid future conflicts. This long-awaited, new and expanded edition provides invaluable information to any homeowner who seeks to live in harmony with the wildlife in his backyard and in his community.

Physiology, Propaganda, And Pound Animals: Medical Research And Animal Welfare In Mid-Twentieth Century America, John Parascandola

Opposition to Animal Research Collection

In 1952, the University of Michigan physiologist Robert Gesell shocked his colleagues at the business meeting of the American Physiological Society by reading a prepared statement in which he claimed that some of the animal experimentation being carried out by scientists was inhumane. He especially attacked the National Society for Medical Research (NSMR), an organization that had been founded to defend animal experimentation. This incident was part of a broader struggle taking place at the time between scientists and animal welfare advocates with respect to what restrictions, if any, should be placed on animal research. A particularly controversial issue was …

Stable Isotopic Niche Predicts Fitness Of Prey In A Wolf–Deer System, C. T. Darimont, P. C. Paquet, T. E. Reimchen

Evolutionary Biology Collection

Interindividual variation in niche presents a potentially central object on which natural selection can act. This may have important evolutionary implications because habitat use governs a suite of selective forces encountered by foragers. In a free‐living native black‐tailed deer, Odocoileus hemionus, population from coastal British Columbia, we used stable isotope analysis to identify individual variation in foraging niche and investigated its relationship to fitness. Using an intragenerational comparison of surviving and nonsurviving O. hemionus over 2 years of predation by wolves, Canis lupus, we detected resource‐specific fitness. Individuals with isotopic signatures that suggested they foraged primarily in cedar ( …

Emerging Near-Real Time Forage Monitoring Technology With Application To Large Herbivore Management In Mongolia, Dennis P. Sheehy, Jerry W. Stuth, Douglas E. Johnson, Jay Angerer, Douglas Tolleson

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

Large herbivore livestock and wildlife in Mongolia depend almost entirely for substance on forage standing crop produced each year on natural pastureland. Consequently, both livestock and wildlife are continuously subject to environmental risk, especially drought and severe winter storms, while livestock are also subject to financial risk. As consumption-based livestock production changes to commercialized livestock production, steps taken by the livestock herder to avert both environmental and financial risk to livestock can increase environmental risk to large wild herbivores. A realistic and workable pastureland and risk management system will be critical for conservation of large herbivore habitat. New technologies are …

Observations Of Rough-Toothed Dolphins (Steno Bredanensis) Off The Coast Of Utila, Honduras, Stan A. Kuczaj Ii, Deirdre Yeater

Psychology Faculty Publications

Local dive shop operators and fishermen report that rough-toothed dolphins (Steno bredanensis) are frequently encountered off the coast of Utila, Honduras, (16°05'46.5"N 86°55'47.8"W). Our observations suggest that at least some of these animals may constitute a resident population, although the extent of the resident group’s home range has not been determined. Twenty-eight rough-toothed dolphins were identified using photoidentification techniques, 15 of which were re-sighted on two or more occasions. The 12 animals that were re-sighted four or more times were typically seen together, suggesting that they constitute a stable social group. At least one of these dolphins is …