Animal Studies Commons^™

The Evolving Animal Rights And Welfare Debate In China: Political And Social Impact Analysis, Peter J. Li

Animal Welfare Collection

In the past few years, a new debate has erupted in mainland China. This debate focuses on animal rights, animal welfare and animal treatment in general. In the not too distant past, such subjects were conveniently rejected as unworthy of serious academic attention. China’s rapid economic changes, increasing societal activism on environmental issues, continuous influx of foreign ideas and a rising societal awareness of the rights for the disadvantaged, including the nonhuman animals, are impacting the agendas of public discussions. Directly triggering this public debate were several highly publicized animal cruelty incidents involving, for example, five bears at Beijing Zoo …

The Effect Of Housing And Handling Practices On The Welfare, Behaviour And Selection Of Domestic Cats (Felis Sylvestris Catus) By Adopters In An Animal Shelter, N. Gourkow, D. Fraser

Shelter Management and Adoption Procedures Collection

As adult cats can often be difficult to re-home, they may spend long periods in rescue shelters where barren housing and inconsistent handling can reduce their welfare. In this study, 165 adult cats in an animal shelter in Vancouver, Canada, were assigned to four treatments. The Basic Single treatment reflected typical conditions in that particular shelter, with cats handled in an inconsistent manner by various staff and housed singly in relatively barren cages. Three alternative treatments involved more consistent, positive handling by only the experimenter and research assistants, plus three housing conditions: Enriched Single (individual cages with opportunities to perch …

Animals In Disasters: Issues For Animal Liberation Activism And Policy, Leslie Irvine

Animal Liberation Movement Collection

Non-human animals face significant risks in meteorological, geological, technological, and terrorist disasters. A large network of rescue organizations and policies has developed in response to the needs of animals. This paper examines the animal response system through four case studies, revealing issues and conflicts that can inform animal rights policy and activism. The first case examines the response to Hurricane Katrina, pointing out that emergency response plans reflect speciesist assumptions that give human lives priority, in all circumstances. The media highlighted accusations of racism during the Katrina response, but activists need to educate the public about the connections between these …

Reasonable Partiality And Animal Ethics, Bernard E. Rollin

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

Moral psychology is often ignored in ethical theory, making applied ethics difficult to achieve in practice. This is particularly true in the new field of animal ethics. One key feature of moral psychology is recognition of the moral primacy of those with whom we enjoy relationships of love and friendship -philia in Aristotle's term. Although a radically new ethic for animal treatment is emerging in society, its full expression is severely limited by our exploitative uses of animals. At this historical moment, only the animals with whom we enjoy philia - companion animals - can be treated with unrestricted moral …

Cruelty Toward Cats: Changing Perspectives, Randall Lockwood

State of the Animals 2005

Of all the species that have been domesticated, cats have historically been subjected to the widest diversity of treatment by humans. They have been worshipped as gods and reviled as devils, coddled and pampered, but also abandoned and abused. Our treatment of cats has likewise created a range of problems for professionals concerned with their care—from dealing with problems of obesity and overindulgence to tending to the needs of animals who have been neglected, intentionally harmed, or even tortured.

Tracking The “State Of The Animals”: Challenges And Opportunities In Assessing Change, Randall Lockwood

State of the Animals 2005

In this chapter we:

1. Review some of the measures that have been used in the past to attempt to assess the state of the animals and the extent to which we can continue to apply these measures to track future changes.
2. Review some of the emerging tools and developing technologies that can improve our tracking of the state of the animals and provide some quantitative measures of our progress.
3. Explore some examples of general measures of human interaction with animals that might prove useful in predicting and tracking changes in how they are treated.

The State Of The Animals Iii: 2005, Deborah J. Salem, Andrew N. Rowan

In this third, all new, volume in the State of the Animals series, scholars and experts in animal protection examine the challenges facing companion animals, marine mammals, and nonhuman primates and review legal protection for animals here and abroad.

Carl Cohen’S ‘Kind’ Arguments For Animal Rights And Against Human Rights, Nathan Nobis

Animal Welfare Collection

Carl Cohen’s arguments against animal rights are shown to be unsound. His strategy entails that animals have rights, that humans do not, the negations of those conclusions, and other false and inconsistent implications. His main premise seems to imply that one can fail all tests and assignments in a class and yet easily pass if one’s peers are passing and that one can become a convicted criminal merely by setting foot in a prison. However, since his moral principles imply that nearly all exploitive uses of animals are wrong anyway, foes of animal rights are advised to seek philosophical consolations …

The Problem Of Unwanted Pets: A Case Study In How Institutions “Think” About Clients’ Needs, Leslie Irvine

Pets Collection

The research on organizational framing and the metaphor of institutional “thinking” highlight the ways that social problems organizations shape the ameliorative services they deliver. Social problems work then perpetuates representations of problems that may not match the conditions clients face. This study extends social problems literature to argue that organizations sometimes “think” differently about the problems they intend to solve than do persons involved with these problems in everyday life. Using ethnographic research and interviews, this article contrasts the way in which animal sheltering, as an institution, frames the problem of unwanted animals with how the public interprets that problem. …

Interspecies Encounters: An Ethnography Of A Veterinary Hospital, Dana Atwood-Harvey

Dissertations

There were three broad reasons for this research. The larger goal was to continue to advance the incorporation of 'other' animals and the rest of nature in general in sociological theory and research. The second was to suggest to those who have incorporated 'other' animals into their research, to include them as participants. The third was to redirect the focus of those who have incorporated 'other' animals as participants, to the impact that ideological structures and other social factors have on human-'other' animal encounters. Toward this end, I directed the focus of my study to examine human-'other' animal encounters ina …

The No-Kill Controversy: Manifest And Latent Sources Of Tension, Arnold Arluke

State of the Animals 2003

Although some argue that everyone in the debate shares a passionate concern for the welfare of animals, a rift over this issue divides the shelter community. Ultimately, the best interests of animals may not be best addressed in a climate of controversy and criticism. To understand and perhaps reduce this controversy, the tensions fueling the no-kill conflict need to be identified and the breadth of the gulf separating its two camps assessed.

A Strategic Review Of International Animal Protection, Paul G. Irwin

State of the Animals 2003

The level of animal protection activity varies substantially around the world. To some extent, the variation parallels the level of economic development, as countries with high per capita incomes and democratic political structures have better financed and better developed animal protection organizations. However there is not a one-to-one correlation between economic development and animal protection activity. Japan and Saudi Arabia, for example, have high per capita incomes but low or nonexistent levels of animal protection activity, while India has a relatively low per capita income but a fairly large number of animal protection groups.

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 Quality Of Mercy: Organized Animal Protection In The United States 1866-1930, Bernard Unti

Animal Welfare Collection

Historians have largely neglected the animal protection movement, despite its unique accomplishments and its relationship to other reform efforts. While humane advocates in the pre-World War U era rarely transcended anthropocentrism, they launched significant initiatives to extend ethical concern beyond the species barrier. From 1866 onward, they waged campaigns against cruelty to animals in transportation, slaughter, education, entertainment, science, recreation, municipal animal control, and food and fur production.

This study situates organized concern for animals in relation to other post-Civil War reforms--including temperance and child protection. It explains the rise of humane work in light of antebellum trends in law, …

The Quality Of Mercy: Organized Animal Protection In The United States 1866-1930, Bernard Unti

This study situates organized concern for animals in relation to other postCivil War reforms--including temperance and child protection. It explains the rise of humane work in light of antebellum trends in law, education, philosophy, and religion, and the perception that animals were at the heart of many sanitary and public health concerns. It qualifies interpretations that reduce animal protection to an exercise in social control. It denies the importance of the Darwinian assertion that humans were animals to the movement's formation. Finally, it disputes claims that concern for animals served a "displacement" function until some human reforms became socially acceptable.

Inquiries Into Dog Ownership In Abaco With Specific Referene To Aarf/Snip Sn Project, William J. Fielding

Management and Control of Companion Animal Populations Collection

Abaco, an island in the Bahamas, has a population of 10,003 in 2,998 households. Of this population, 3,381 (or 34%) live in 1,177 (or 39%) of the households in Marsh Harbour, the largest community on the island (Bahamas Department of Statistics, 2000). Two studies of the Abaco dog population in Marsh Harbor were conducted. The first was in February, 2000 and the second was in October 2000. Three AARF/SNIP clinics were held between the two studies in February, May and July, 2000. A fourth clinic was held in October after the second survey.

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.

A Social History Of Postwar Animal Protection, Bernard Unti, Andrew N. Rowan

State of the Animals 2001

After World War II, the animal protection movement enjoyed the revival that we discuss in this chapter. Contemporary scholarship suggests that social movements are more or less continuous, shifting from periods of peak activity to those of relative decline. The renaissance of animal protection during the past half century involved several distinct phases of evolution. Such divisions are discretionary, but they can clarify important trends. This analysis relies on a three-stage chronology in considering the progress of postwar animal protection, one that emphasizes revival, mobilization and transformation, and consolidation of gains.

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 …

Animal Protection In A World Dominated By The World Trade Organization, Leesteffy Jenkins, Robert Stumberg

State of the Animals 2001

Animal issues are playing a crucial role in making the World Trade Organization (WTO), the international body responsible for initiating and enforcing global trade rules, publicly visible. Current WTO rules prohibit the types of enforcement mechanisms relied upon by sovereign nations to make animal protection initiatives effective; as a result, many animal protection measures in this country and abroad have been reversed or stymied in the face of WTO challenges or threatened challenges. The WTO’s adverse impact on animal protection is one of the reasons why the WTO’s new-found public image is increasingly a negative one.

Overview: The State Of Animals In 2001, Paul G. Irwin

State of the Animals 2001

From the animals’ perspective, the past half-century has not been one of uninterrupted progress. Indeed, as some conditions have improved, others have remained frustratingly unchanged, and still others have undoubtedly deteriorated.

How then to assess progress and failure? In the absence of a universally accepted, consistently applied set of standards for data collection and analysis, any attempt to answer the question, What is the state of animals in 2001?, must be based on a series of snapshots, an accumulation of statistics from which we can draw conclusions.

The State Of The Animals: 2001, Deborah J. Salem, Andrew N. Rowan

How has the state of animals improved in the last half century? How has it worsened? Where are gains made on behalf of animals under threat? In one landmark volume, distinguished scholars and experts examine these questions–and offer often-provocative answers–for farm animals, companion animals, laboratory animals, zoo animals, and wildlife worldwide.

Animal Ethics And Animal Welfare Science: Bridging The Two Cultures, David Fraser

Animal Welfare Collection

Since the 1970s, scientists studying animal welfare and philosophers writing about animal ethics have worked toward the common goal of understanding and articulating our proper relationship to animals of other species. However, the two groups approached this task using such different concepts, assumptions, and vocabulary that they functioned as two distinct ‘‘cultures’’ with little mutual understanding or communication. Some of the best known ethical writing created barriers for scientists because it tended (1) to focus only on the level of the individual rather than making some decisions at the level of the population, ecosystem or species, (2) to advocate single …

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 …

Attitudes And Dispositional Optimism Of Animal Rights Demonstrators, Shelley L. Galvin, Harold A. Herzog

Animal Welfare Collection

Mail-in surveys were distributed to animal activists attending the 1996 March for the Animals. Age and gender demographic characteristics of the 209 activists who participated in the study were similar to those of the 1990 March for the Animals demonstrators. Most goals of the animal rights movement were judged to be moderately to critically important, although beliefs about their chances of being realized varied considerably. Movement tactics judged to be least effective included the liberation of laboratory animals and the harassment of researchers. Education was seen as being a particularly important instrument of future social change. Demonstrators' scores on the …

Animal Rights Talk: Moral Debate Over The Internet, Harold A. Herzog Jr., Beth Dinoff, Jessica R. Page

Animal Welfare Collection

Messages sent over Animal Rights-Talk, an electronic mail network devoted to the discussion of issues related to the animal rights movement, were analyzed. Messages typically fell into the following categories: questions and information, discussions of philosophical issues, ethical problems associated with the treatment of particular species, the politics of the animal rights movement, problems of moral consistency, the ethics of particular uses of non-human species (e.g., meat consumption, biomedical research with animal subjects), and matters pertaining to the internal life of the network (e.g., efforts at control of perceived norm violations). Debates between animal activists and animal researchers over the …

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 …