Animal Studies Commons^™

Resolving Animal Distress And Pain: Principles And Examples Of Good Practice In Various Fields Of Research, Alicia Karas, Matthew C. Leach, Karl A. Andrutis, Kathleen Conlee, John P. Gluck, Andrew N. Rowan, Martin L. Stephens

Laboratory Experiments Collection

Pain and distress are central topics in legislation, regulations, and standards regarding the use of animals in research. However, in practice, pain has received greatly increased attention in recent years, while attention to distress has lagged far behind, especially for distress that is not induced by pain. A contributing factor is that there is less information readily available on distress, including practical information on its recognition, assessment and alleviation.

This chapter attempts to help fill that void by reversing the usual pattern and giving greater attention to distress than to pain. In addition, we also bypass the pain versus distress …

What Is New On The Animal Protection Radar?, John Hadidian

Animal Welfare Collection

American attitudes toward wildlife have often been cast as falling within an urban/rural dichotomy that separates protectionist from utilitarian value orientations. Long held as a major challenge to wildlife managers the urban/rural dichotomy may be yielding to change as new attitude and value orientations arise from direct conflicts people have with wild animals as well as from a generational disenfranchisement of young people who lack direct experience with the outdoors. Both may loom as larger challenges for the future and shift the focus of once opposing interests more toward efforts to establish cooperation. Currently, much of the disagreement over wildlife …

The “Babe” Vegetarians: Bioethics, Animal Minds And Moral Methodology, Nathan Nobis

Attitudes Towards Animals Collection

Here I discuss the role the film “Babe” has played in helping people address these challenges and make this moral progress. It is thought that a significant number of young people (mostly girls, now young women) became vegetarians due to their seeing “Babe.” These people are often called “Babe Vegetarians,” influence by what has been called “The Babe Effect.” Many of their stories are found on the internet.

Understanding Norms Without A Theory Of Mind, Kristin Andrews

Sentience Collection

I argue that having a theory of mind requires having at least implicit knowledge of the norms of the community, and that an implicit understanding of the normative is what drives the development of a theory of mind. This conclusion is defended by two arguments. First I argue that a theory of mind likely did not develop in order to predict behavior, because before individuals can use propositional attitudes to predict behavior, they have to be able to use them in explanations of behavior. Rather, I suggest that the need to explain behavior in terms of reasons is the primary …

Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews

Sentience Collection

Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well …

Ethics And Euthanasia, Bernard E. Rollin

Animal Welfare Collection

No abstract provided.

Welfare Assessment: Correlations And Integration Between A Qualitative Behavioural Assessment And A Clinical/Health Protocol Applied In Veal Calves Farms, Marta Brscic, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Elena Tessitore, Flaviana Gottardo, Giulio Cozzi, Cornelis G. Van Reenen

Agribusiness Collection

This study is aimed at finding correlations and possible integration among Qualitative Behavioural assessment (QBA) and a specific protocol of clinical/health evaluation. Both welfare assessment methods were based on direct animal observation and were applied in 24 Italian veal calves farms at 3 weeks (wks) of rearing. Principal component analysis (PCA) summarized 20 QBA descriptors on two main components (PC1 and PC2) with eigenvalues above 4 and explaining 29.6 and 20.3% of the variation respectively. PCA on residuals obtained after correcting for housing condition yielded highly similar results, indicating that the rearing environment of the calves was not an important …

Resources, Not Kinship, Determine Social Patterning In The Territorial Gunnison’S Prairie Dog (Cynomys Gunnisoni), J. L. Verdolin, C. N. Slobodchikoff

Sentience Collection

In this study, we describe patterns of relatedness in Gunnison’s prairie dog (Cynomys gunnisoni) social groups. Kin selection is often cited as a mechanism for the evolution and maintenance of social groups, and Gunnison’s prairie dog females are occasionally described as being strongly philopatric. Overall, randomization tests revealed that females within territorial groups were not more closely related to each other than expected at random. A similar pattern was found among males and between males and females, indicating that there was no sex-biased dispersal occurring in these populations. Ecological variables measured in this study, such as food abundance and food …

Constructive And Deconstructive Tool Modification By Chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes), Amanda E. Bania, Stephany Harris, Hannah R. Kinsley, Sarah T. Boysen

Sentience Collection

Nine chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) were tested for their ability to assemble or disassemble the appropriate tool to obtain a food reward from two different apparatus. In its deconstructed form, the tool functioned as a probe for one apparatus. In its constructed form, the tool functioned as a hook, appropriate for a second apparatus. Each subject completed four test trials with each apparatus type. Tool types were randomized and counter-balanced between the two forms. Results demonstrated that adult and juvenile chimpanzees (N = 7) were successful with both tool types, while two infant chimpanzees performed near chance. Off-line video analyses revealed …

Landscape Heterogeneity And Marine Subsidy Generate Extensive Intrapopulation Niche Diversity In A Large Terrestrial Vertebrate, Chris T. Darimont, Paul C. Paquet, Thomas E. Reimchen

Population Distribution and Habitat Collection

1 Inquiries into niche variation within populations typically focus on proximate ecological causes such as competition. Here we examine how landscape heterogeneity and allochthonous (marine) subsidy might ultimately generate intrapopulation niche diversity.

2 Using stable isotope analysis, we detected extensive terrestrial–marine isotopic niche variation among subpopulations, social groups, and individual grey wolves (Canis lupus) that occupy a spatially heterogeneous landscape in coastal British Columbia comprising a mainland area and adjacent archipelago.

3 The inner island subpopulation exhibited the widest isotopic niche in the population, consuming extensive terrestrial and marine resources. Mainland and outer island subpopulations occupied comparatively narrow …

Relationship Between Pre-Slaughter Stress Responsiveness And Beef Quality In Three Cattle Breeds, V. Muchenje, K. Dzama, M. Chimonyo, P. E. Strydom, J. G. Raats

Slaughter and Slaughtering Practices Collection

The relationship between stress responsiveness and beef quality of 40 Nguni, 30 Bonsmara and 30 Angus steers was determined. The L* values, pHu, cooking loss (CL) and Warner-Bratzler shear force (WBSF) were determined. Catecholamine levels were determined from urine samples collected at slaughter. Bonsmara steers had the highest (P < 0.05) levels of catecholamines with respective epinephrine, norepinephrine and dopamine concentrations of 10.8, 9.7 and 14.8 nmol/mmol. Nguni steers had the lowest (P < 0.05) levels of catecholamines, with respective catecholamine concentrations of 5.1, 4.3 and 4.0 nmol/mmol. In the Nguni steers, there were significant (P < 0.05) correlations between catecholamines and L* and between dopamine and tenderness in meat aged for two days (WBSF2). In the Bonsmara, dopamine was correlated (P < 0.05) pHu, WBSF2 and CL. No significant correlations were found in the Angus. Therefore the relationship between stress responsiveness and certain beef quality traits may not be similar in different breeds.

Animal Welfare: Review Of The Scientific Concept And Definition, Corrado Carenzi, Marina Verga

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

The aim of this paper is to present a review of the current scientific viewpoints about the concept and definition of animal welfare. The need of interaction among different disciplines is stressed, as well as the need to scientifically assess welfare, using validated indicators. The role of applied ethology in animal welfare science is stressed.

The paper provides a brief overview of the historical steps in the development of the concept and presents scientific viewpoints, briefly explaining their theoretical foundation.

The possibility of defining welfare on a scientific basis is explained, identifying the main problems according to the scientific, cultural …

Effect Of Restricted Access Time To Pasture On Dairy Cow Milk Production, Grazing Behavior, And Dry Matter Intake, E. Kennedy, M. Mcevoy, J. P. Murphy, M. O'Donovan

Housing and Confinement of Farm Animals Collection

The objective of this experiment was to investigate the effect of restricting pasture access time on milk production and composition, body weight and body condition score change, dry matter intake, and grazing behavior of autumn calving dairy cows in midlactation. Fifty-two (19 primiparous and 33 multiparous) Holstein-Friesian dairy cows (mean calving date, August 17 ± 91.2 d) were randomly assigned to a 4-treatment (n = 13) randomized block design grazing study. The 4 grazing treatments were: (i) full-time access to pasture (22H; control), (ii) 9-h access to pasture (9H), (iii) two 4.5-h periods of access to pasture after both milkings …

The Welfare Of Cows In The Dairy Industry

Agribusiness Reports

More than 9 million cows compose the U.S. dairy herd. Repeated reimpregnation, short calving intervals, overproduction of milk, restrictive housing systems, poor nutrition, and physical disorders impair the welfare of the animals in industrial dairy operations. Once their productivity wanes, the cows are often weak as a result of high metabolic output. Typically, these “spent” dairy cows are culled and processed as ground beef. In their fragile end-of-production state, handling, transport, and slaughter raise additional welfare concerns.

The Welfare Of Sows Used For Breeding In The Pig Industry

Agribusiness Reports

The conditions afforded sows (adult female pigs) used for breeding on industrial pig production operations present a number of welfare problems. Sows are routinely confined in gestation and farrowing crates barely larger than their own bodies, where they are unable to turn around during their pregnancy and lactation periods, often in excess of 128 consecutive days. Behavioral abnormalities such as stereotypic bar-biting and aggression arise due to environmental deficiencies and restricted feeding regimens. Sows in large, industrial operations are also affected by a number of production-related diseases and suffer from higher mortality rates. A reevaluation of current confinement systems and …

Welfare Issues With Conventional Manual Catching Of Broiler Chickens And Turkeys

Agribusiness Reports

Approximately 9 billion chickens and 270 million turkeys are raised for meat annually in the United States. When these farmed birds reach market weight, they must be caught and crated for transport from production facilities to slaughter plants. Conventional manual catching results in severely compromised welfare. Birds experience stress and fear, and can be physically harmed, suffering bruises, broken bones, dislocated joints, and other injuries. Alternatives to conventional manual catching practices that improve bird welfare exist, including mechanical harvesters, gentle manual catching, and, for turkeys, herding into specially designed transport crates.

The Impact Of Industrialized Animal Agriculture On World Hunger

Agribusiness Reports

Of the world’s nearly 6.8 billion humans, almost 1 billion people are malnourished. Feeding half the world’s grain crop to animals raised for meat, eggs, and milk instead of directly to humans is a significant waste of natural resources, including fossil fuels, water, and land. Raising animals for food is also a major contributor to global warming, which is expected to further worsen food security globally. To meet the daily nutritional needs of a rapidly expanding population, the world’s human community, particularly in Western countries, must reduce its reliance on animal products and shift to a more plant-based diet.

The Implications Of Farm Animal-Based Bioenergy Production

Agribusiness Reports

As the current and potential impacts of climate change become more evident and increasingly urgent, entities such as governments, corporations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are seeking out non-fossil fuelbased sources of energy to mitigate those effects. In addition, many governments are investigating ways to promote their own domestic energy sources as a result of rising oil prices. Bioenergy—made from recently living organic matter, such as plants, agricultural waste and crop residue, meat processing wastes, or farmed animals’ fats and manure—has quickly become one of the fastest growing, and controversial, alternative energy sources. Globally, production of biofuels, generally used for transport, …

Critical Evaluation Of Bacteriophage To Prevent And Treat Colibacillosis In Poultry, G. R. Huff, W. E. Huff, N. C. Rath, A. M. Donoghue

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

There is a continuing need to find alternatives to antibiotics in animal and human medicine. Bacteriophages are viruses that infect and kill bacteria, with no known activity to plant and animal cells. We have conducted research to critically evaluate the efficacy of bacteriophage to both prevent and treat colibacillosis in poultry. Bacteriophages lytic to an Escherichia coli pathogenic to poultry were isolated from municipal waste water treatment plants and poultry processing plants. Two bacteriophage isolates were selected to use in studies designed to determine the efficacy of these bacteriophage to prevent and treat severe colibacillosis in poultry. Colibacillosis was induced …

Effectiveness Of Zinc Given Intra-Nasally Or Orally To Newly Received Stocker Cattle Against Bovine Respiratory Disease And Effects On Growth Performance, Amy Guernsey, Beth Kegley, Jeremy Powell, Doug Galloway, Alicia White, Steve Breeding

Discovery, The Student Journal of Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences

Beef calves (n = 88) were purchased from regional auction barns and delivered as a single group. Upon arrival, cattle were assigned to eight pens. Pens were assigned randomly to one of three treatments; two pens received 3 mL of a nasal spray solution (10.8 mg Zn/mL) into each nostril using a single-use nasal atomizer; three pens received 40 mL of an oral drench (16.25 mg Zn/mL), and three pens received no Zn at processing (negative control). Appropriate treatments were administered at processing on d 0 of the 43-d study. After treatment, cattle were worked and housed so they did …

Nutritional Immunomodulation As An Approach To Decreasing The Negative Effects Of Stress In Poultry Production, G. R. Huff, W. E. Huff, N. C. Rath

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Stress can lead to changes in the immune response resulting in both increased and decreased resistance to opportunistic bacterial pathogens. Growth-promoting antibiotics have been a major tool in modulating hostpathogen interactions and limiting clinical and subclinical bacterial infection in confined animal production. Regulatory pressures to limit antibiotic use in poultry production and recent international marketing agreements that prohibit treating poultry with antibiotics have limited the disease-fighting tools available to poultry and livestock producers, particularly in Europe. There is a need to evaluate potential antibiotic alternatives to improve both production and disease resistance in high-intensity food animal production. Nutritional approaches to …

Reviewing Existing Knowledge Prior To Conducting Animal Studies, Andrew Knight

Experimentation Collection

Highly polarised viewpoints about animal experimentation have often prevented agreement. However, important common ground between advocates and opponents was demonstrated within a discussion forum hosted at www.research-methodology.org.uk in July–August 2008, by the independent charity, SABRE Research UK. Agreement existed that many animal studies have methodological flaws — such as inappropriate sample sizes, lack of randomised treatments, and unblinded outcome assessments — that may introduce bias and limit statistical validity. There was also agreement that systematic reviews of the human utility of animal models yield the highest quality of evidence, as their reliance on methodical and impartial methods to select significant …

Increasing Our Compassion Footprint: The Animals’ Manifesto, Marc Bekoff

Human and Animal Bonding Collection

Our relationships with animals are wide-ranging. When people tell me that they love animals and then harm or kill them I tell them I’m glad they don’t love me. Many individuals, including scientists, ignore their responsibility when they interact with animals and fail to recognize that doing something in the name of science, which usually means in the name of humans, is not an adequate reason for intentionally causing suffering, pain, or death. “Good welfare” usually is not “good enough.” Existing regulations allow animals to be treated in regrettable ways that demean us as a species. Compassion is the key …

Developmental Toxicity Testing: Protecting Future Generations?, Jarrod Bailey

Experimentation Collection

A recent editorial is discussed, which implied that animal-based developmental and reproductive toxicology tests will continue to be crucial, that the thalidomide disaster could have been prevented by more animal testing, and that tests on juvenile animals would help to protect children (as developing adults) from the adverse effects of pharmaceuticals. It is argued that animal tests in these scientific areas do not provide reliable data that are predictive for human responses and, even if they did, the tests are too expensive and time-consuming for application to the very large number of substances that need to be tested. It is …

Faecal-Centric Approaches To Wildlife Ecology And Conservation; Methods, Data And Ethics, C. T. Darimont, T. E. Reimchen, H. M. Bryan, P. C. Paquet

Ethics and Conservation Biology Collection

Abundant and commonly encountered in the field, wildlife faeces have long attracted scientists. Recent advances in molecular techniques, however, especially when coupled with creative study designs, can now yield a great variety of high quality data. Herein, we review the opportunities and challenges of faecal-centric approaches to address ecological and conservation questions using wolves of coastal British Columbia, Canada, as a case system. We begin by discussing methodological considerations, which should have broad applicability to any wildlife study system. We then summarize the extensive and unique variety of data that has emerged from our ‘facts from faeces’ approach with wolves, …

Understanding The Human Aspects Of Animal Hoarding, Amanda I. Reinisch

Passive Cruelty to Animals Collection

The Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium reviewed the case records of 71 incidents from across the United States and Canada to determine what characterizes a typical animal hoarding case (5). Of the cases reviewed, 83% involved women (71% involved individuals, who were widowed, divorced, or single); 53% of the animal hoarding residences were home to other individuals including children (5%), elderly dependents and disabled people (21%). Often essential utilities and major appliances such as showers, heaters, stoves, toilets, and sinks were not functional. Residential home interiors were usually unsanitary, 93%; 70% had fire hazards; and 16% of residences involved in …

Arkansas Animal Science Department Report 2008, Zelpha B. Johnson, D. Wayne Kellogg

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

No abstract provided.

It's In Your Nature: A Pluralistic Folk Psychology, Kristin Andrews

Sentience Collection

I suggest a pluralistic account of folk psychology according to which not all predictions or explanations rely on the attribution of mental states, and not all intentional actions are explained by mental states. This view of folk psychology is supported by research in developmental and social psychology. It is well known that people use personality traits to predict behavior. I argue that trait attribution is not shorthand for mental state attributions, since traits are not identical to beliefs or desires, and an understanding of belief or desire is not necessary for using trait attributions. In addition, we sometimes predict and …

Behavioural Analysis Of A Nociceptive Event In Fish: Comparisons Between Three Species Demonstrate Specific Responses, Siobhan C. Reilly, John P. Quinn, Andrew R. Cossins, Lynne U. Sneddon

Sentience Collection

Nociception is the sensory mechanism by which potentially harmful stimuli are detected in animals and humans. The behavioural responses to noxious stimulation have been studied in two fish species thus far. However, since species-specific differences are seen in mammals, more species need to be examined to determine whether nociceptive responses are generic in fish. The present study investigated the behavioural and respiratory response to an acute noxious or potentially painful stimulus in common carp (Cyprinus carpio), zebrafish (Danio rerio) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Behavioural parameters such as frequency of swimming, use of cover and any anomalous behaviour were measured …

Counting The Contributions: Benchmarking For Your Organization And Your State, Andrew N. Rowan

Demography and Statistics for Companion Animal Populations Collection

An analysis of per-capita donations can help shelters assess their effectiveness in raising funds and awareness in their communities.