Animal Studies Commons^™

Subjective Measures Of Temperament In Beef Heifers Are Reliable Indicators Of Physiological Stress And Indicate Acclimation To Repeated Handling, Jamie T. Parham

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Associations between excitable temperament and many economically relevant traits have been established. In being heritable, temperament can be augmented through selection. Current methods to evaluate temperament in a production setting include numerous subjective and objective measurements, which some producers may find cumbersome to navigate. Those who utilize these methods may not do so efficiently if selection criteria are not indicative of an animal's response to stress, or initial evaluations are not strong indicators of future temperament. The objectives of this research were to develop a procedure for evaluation of calf behavior, indicative of physiological stress, and then determine whether stress …

Goats Prefer Positive Human Emotional Facial Expressions, Christian Nawroth, Natalia Albuquerque, Carine Savalli, Marie-Sophie Single, Alan G. Mcelligott

Social Cognition Collection

Domestication has shaped the physiology and the behaviour of animals to better adapt to human environments. Therefore, human facial expressions may be highly informative for animals domesticated for working closely with people, such as dogs and horses. However, it is not known whether other animals, and particularly those domesticated primarily for production, such as goats, are capable of perceiving human emotional cues. In this study, we investigated whether goats can distinguish human facial expressions when simultaneously shown two images of an unfamiliar human with different emotional valences (positive/ happy or negative/angry). Both images were vertically attached to a wall on …

Importance Of Welfare And Ethics Competence Regarding Animals Kept For Scientific Purposes To Veterinary Students In Australia And New Zealand, Teresa Collins, Amelia Cornish, Jennifer Hood, Chris Degeling, Andrew D. Fisher, Rafael Freire, Susan J. Hazel, Jane Johnson, Jennifer K.F. Lloyd, Clive J.C. Phillips, Vicky Tzioumis, Paul D. Mcgreevy

Professional Science Research Ethics Collection

Veterinarians are in a strong position of social influence on animal-related issues. Hence, veterinary schools have an opportunity to raise animal health and welfare standards by improving veterinary students’ animal welfare and ethics (AWE) education, including that related to animals used for scientific purposes. A survey of 818 students in the early, mid, and senior stages of their courses at all eight veterinary schools across Australia and New Zealand was undertaken on their first day of practice (or Day One Competences) to explore how veterinary students viewed the importance of their competence in the management of welfare and ethical decision-making …

Expectations For Dog Ownership: Perceived Physical, Mental And Psychosocial Health Consequences Among Prospective Adopters, Lauren Powell, Debbie Chia, Paul Mcgreevy, Anthony L. Podberscek, Kate M. Edwards, Brendon Neilly, Adam J. Guastella, Vanessa Lee, Emmanuel Stamatakis

Human-Companion Animal Relationships Collection

Dog ownership is popular worldwide, with most human-dog dyads forming successful attachment bonds. However, millions of dogs are surrendered to animal shelters annually, possibly due to mismatches between owner expectations and the realities of dog ownership. The aim of the current study was to explore the benefits and challenges people expect from dog ownership and how these expectations vary with previous ownership history. An Australian-wide sample of 3465 prospective adopters completed a self-administered online questionnaire about the physical, mental and psychosocial health benefits and challenges they associated with dog ownership. Among the potential benefits, respondents expected increased walking (89%), happiness …

Application Of Fraser’S “Practical” Ethic In Veterinary Practice, And Its Compatibility With A “One Welfare” Framework, Anne Fawcett, Siobhan Mullan, Paul Mcgreevy

Professional Veterinary Ethics Collection

Ethically challenging situations are common in veterinary practice, and they may be a source of moral stress, which may in turn impact the welfare of veterinarians. Despite recognition of the importance of ethical reasoning, some veterinary students may struggle to apply theoretical ethical frameworks. Fraser developed a “practical” ethic consisting of four principles that can be applied to ethically challenging situations. We apply Fraser’s “practical” ethic to three cases that veterinarians may encounter: animal hoarding, animal neglect, and treatment of wildlife. We argue that Fraser’s “practical” ethic is consistent with a One Welfare framework, and may have increasing currency for …

Use Of On-Farm Emergency Slaughter For Dairy Cows In British Columbia, Katherine E. Koralesky, David Fraser

Slaughter and Slaughtering Practices Collection

On-farm emergency slaughter (OFES), whereby inspection, stunning, and bleeding occur on the farm before the carcass is transported to a slaughterhouse, is permitted in some jurisdictions as a means to avoid inhumane transportation while salvaging meat from injured animals. However, OFES is controversial and its use for dairy cows has been little studied. Inspection documents for 812 dairy cows were examined to identify how OFES was used for dairy cows in British Columbia, Canada, over 16.5 mo. Producers used OFES for dairy cows aged 1 to 13 yr (median of 4 yr). Leg, hip, nerve, spinal, foot, and hind-end injuries …

La Femme Bisclavret: The Female Of The Species?, Alison Langdon

Medieval Feminist Forum: A Journal of Gender and Sexuality

Conventional humanist readings of Bisclavret approach the lai from an anthropocentric perspective, in which animal nature is merely an allegory for human nature. In such a reading, the werewolf protagonist is a foil for his much more beastly if wholly human wife, with the underlying assumption being that animal nature is something to be rejected. That the marker of Lady Bisclavret's bestial nature—her noselessness—is transmitted through the generations of only female descendants seems to echo medieval antifeminist truisms about female perfidy. However, approaching the lai from a critical animal studies perspective can help dismantle conventional assumptions about the privileged status …

Human Demonstration Does Not Facilitate The Performance Of Horses (Equus Caballus) In A Spatial Problem-Solving Task, Joan-Bryce Burla, Janina Siegwart, Christian Nawroth

Spatial Cognition Collection

Horses’ ability to adapt to new environments and to acquire new information plays an important role in handling and training. Social learning in particular would be very adaptive for horses as it enables them to flexibly adjust to new environments. In the context of horse handling, social learning from humans has been rarely investigated but could help to facilitate management practices. We assessed the impact of human demonstration on the spatial problem-solving abilities of horses during a detour task. In this task, a bucket with a food reward was placed behind a double-detour barrier and 16 horses were allocated to …

The Laterality Of The Gallop Gait In Thoroughbred Racehorses, Paulette Cully, Brian Nielsen, Bryony Lancaster, Jessica Martin, Paul Mcgreevy

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

Laterality can be observed as side biases in locomotory behaviour which, in the horse, manifest inter alia as forelimb preferences, most notably in the gallop. The current study investigated possible leading-leg preferences at the population and individual level in Thoroughbred racehorses (n = 2095) making halt-to-gallop transitions. Videos of flat races in the UK (n = 350) were studied to record, for each horse, the lead-leg preference of the initial stride into gallop from the starting stalls. Races from clockwise (C) and anti-clockwise (AC) tracks were chosen alternately at random to ensure equal representation. Course direction, horse age and sex, …

The Private And Free Roaming Street Dog Population In Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India, Tamara Kartal, Amit Chaudhari

Stray and Feral Animal Populations Collection

Humane Society International - India (HSI- India) together with Humane Animal Society (HAS) and a team of volunteers conducted two dog population surveys in 100 wards of Coimbatore, India (The 2011 census provides a human population of 10507211; An estimate from 2017 estimates a human population of 18900002). The first was a street dog survey and the other was a household survey of the private (pet) dog population and their owners.

Ethical Foundations For The Lethal Management Of Double-Crested Cormorants (Phalocrocorax Auritus) In The Eastern United States: An Argument Analysis, Chelsea Batavia, Michael Paul Nelson

Ethics and Conservation Biology Collection

Lethal management of Double-crested Cormorants (Phalocrocorax auritus) has been implemented in many areas of the United States. In this paper, the philosophical method of argument analysis is used to assess ethical premises underlying the proposition that Double-crested Cormorant populations should be culled to reduce pressures on wild fisheries in the Great Lakes region of the eastern USA. This influential argument has been used to justify the destruction of more than half a million Double-crested Cormorants and hundreds of thousands of their nests and eggs. Three versions of the argument are formulated and assessed. It is shown that each of the …

Political Populations Of Large Carnivores, Chris T. Darimont, Paul C. Paquet, Adrian Treves, Kyle A. Artelle

Wildlife Population Management Collection

No abstract provided.

Uncaging New Zealand's Sows: Scrutinizing Farrowing Crates, Andrew Knight

Housing and Confinement of Farm Animals Collection

This 13,000 word report was published by SAFE (a leading NZ animal advocacy organisation). It documents the welfare problems experienced by around 15,000 New Zealand sows annually, who are confined within metal cages barely larger than their own bodies, in a practice claimed to decrease piglet mortality. It was delivered to NZ’s Primary Production Select Committee along with SAFE’s own submission in June 2018. The Committee was reviewing a 112,844 signature petition to Parliament (the largest in 5 years), which requested a ban on sow farrowing crates.

Incubation Under Climate Warming Affects Behavioral Lateralisation In Port Jackson Sharks, Catarina Vila Pouca, Connor Gervais, Joshua Reed, Culum Brown

Laterality Collection

Climate change is warming the world’s oceans at an unprecedented rate. Under predicted end-of-century temperatures, many teleosts show impaired development and altered critical behaviors, including behavioral lateralisation. Since laterality is an expression of brain functional asymmetries, changes in the strength and direction of lateralisation suggest that rapid climate warming might impact brain development and function. However, despite the implications for cognitive functions, the potential effects of elevated temperature in lateralisation of elasmobranch fishes are unknown. We incubated and reared Port Jackson sharks at current and projected end-of-century temperatures and measured preferential detour responses to left or right. Sharks incubated at …

Formalizing The Umwelt, Rohit J. Parikh

Publications and Research

In the early part of the XXth century, Jacob from Uexkuell introduced the notion of the Umwelt which is the personal world which animals and humans live in. It is understood that each of us has our own Umwelt. This paper is an attempt to understand the notion of Umwelt using tools from logic and decision theory.

Variables Affecting Latency Of Rats Running On A Maze, Divya Subramanian

Honors Scholar Theses

When rats are running on a maze, what factors affect their latency? This project examines how time of day of training and hunger levels of the rats affect how long they take to complete the sessions of a behavioral task. A training day consists of three sessions, each with 20 runs. I hypothesize that the rats’ performance will improve if they are trained later in the day, if they are hungrier, and in successive sessions.

Darkness As A Positive Reinforcer In Weakly Electric Fish, Amber Lea D. Kincaid

Theses and Dissertations

Darkness was used as a positive reinforcer in 14 Gnathonemus petersii fish in an object discrimination task. One subject showed a significant learning response. This study provides preliminary support for the use of darkness as positive reinforcement in weakly electric fish and presents potential areas of interest for future study.

Playing It Cool: Characterizing Social Play, Bout Termination, And Candidate Play Signals Of Juvenile And Infant Tibetan Macaques (Macaca Thibetana), Kaitlin R. Wright, Jessica A. Mayhew, Lori K. Sheeran, Jake A. Funkhouser, Ronald S. Wagner, Li-Xing Sun, Jin-Hua Li

All Faculty Scholarship for the College of the Sciences

Play behaviors and signals during playful interactions with juvenile conspecifics are important for both the social and cognitive development of young animals. The social organization of a species can also influence juvenile social play. We examined the relationships among play behaviors, candidate play signals, and play bout termination in Tibetan macaques (Macaca

thibetana) during juvenile and infant social play to characterize the species play style. As Tibetan macaques are despotic and live in groups with strict linear dominance hierarchies and infrequent reconciliation, we predicted that play would be at risk of misinterpretation by both the individuals engaged in the play …

Behavioural Risks In Male Dogs With Minimal Lifetime Exposure To Gonadal Hormones May Complicate Population-Control Benefits Of Desexing, Paul Mcgreevy, Bethany Wilson, Melissa Starling, James A. Serpell

Endocrinology Collection

Castration of dogs is a widespread practise with clear justification in population control and knock-on benefits for animal welfare. Deleterious behavioural consequences of castration are believed to be negligible. Gonadectomy is widely recommended as part of a multi-factorial approach to prevent problems including aggression in dogs. However, the consequences of early castration on health are still being debated. The current study focused on the reported behaviour of 6,235 male dogs castrated before 520 weeks of life for reasons other than behavioural management, and calculated their percentage lifetime exposure to gonadal hormones (PLGH) as a proportion of their age at the …

Effects Of Environmental Enrichment On Behavior In A Domestic Goat Herd, Stephanie Peramas

Senior Honors Projects

Animal welfare is one of the most important parts of animal management. Apart from other measures of good animal welfare, like being in good health, animal behavior can be indicative of the animal’s internal state and is often one of the first signs of improper welfare. Stereotypies, or stereotypic behavior, are commonly viewed as a symptom of improper animal welfare. Unenriched, or barren, environments associated with farmed livestock have long been associated with inducing stereotypic behavior. The addition of precise enrichment to the animals’ environment is a common remedy for stereotypic behavior. With respect to stereotypic goat behavior, few empirical …

Dog Population & Dog Sheltering Trends In The United States Of America, Andrew N. Rowan, Tamara Kartal

Demography and Statistics for Companion Animal Populations Collection

Dog management in the United States has evolved considerably over the last 40 years. This review analyzes available data from the last 30 to 40 years to identify national and local trends. In 1973, The Humane Society of the US (The HSUS) estimated that about 13.5 million animals (64 dogs and cats per 1000 people) were euthanized in the US (about 20% of the pet population) and about 25% of the dog population was still roaming the streets. Intake and euthanasia numbers (national and state level) declined rapidly in the 1970s due to a number of factors, including the implementation …

Winter Bat Activity In A Landscape Without Traditional Hibernacula, Amy M. Hammesfahr, Rene E. Ohms

United States National Park Service: Publications

Abstract

Prior to 2014, bat research at Devils Tower National Monument (DETO) focused on bats present during the summer months. Biologists at DETO assumed local bats were strictly summer residents due to the presumed lack of typical habitat features associated with bat hibernation, such as caves and mines. This lack of traditional hibernacula features at DETO discouraged staff and research cooperators from studying winter bat populations. Despite the earlier assumption that bats were unlikely to hibernate on the monument, DETO documented significant winter bat activity through passive winter acoustic monitoring. This study is the first study at DETO that documents …

Evaluating In Situ Grazing Patterns Of Lytechinus Variegatus And Their Effects On Seagrass Beds Of Thalassia Testudinum, Adrianna Parson

Master of Science in Integrative Biology Theses

The sea urchin Lytechinus variegatus is a known grazer of the seagrass Thalassia testudinum, and has been known to denude vast stands of seagrass beds at high densities. Outside of these denudation events, the effects of sea urchins on seagrass are poorly understood. This study examines the effects of L. variegatus on T. testudinum in situ, to understand how sea urchins are affecting seagrasses in situ. Results indicate that urchins were found in the offshore portion of the seagrass bed at densities up to 4 urchins/m². Changes in temperature and sediment size in the bay indicate …

The Vaginal Microbiome Related To Reproductive Traits In Beef Heifers, Maryanna Wells Mcclure

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The greatest impact on profitability of a commercial beef operation is reproduction. In the human vaginal microbiome, dominance by Lactobacillus is a sign of reproductive health and fitness. In other species (non-human primates and ewes), Lactobacillus is found in low amounts and dominators of these microbial communities are considered to be pathogenic in humans. In beef heifers, little is known about the vaginal and fecal microbiota with respect to their relationship with fertility. To this end, we followed heifers through gestation to examine the dynamics of vaginal and fecal microbial composition throughout pregnancy.

Heifers were exposed to an estrus synchronization …

Effects Of Norharmane And Nicotine On The Conditioned Place Preference Of Mice, Lindsey Galbo

All NMU Master's Theses

Tobacco smoking in the United States is used by approximately 25% of adults. Many studies using animal models have suggested that nicotine has rewarding properties. Contrastingly, several studies have also found it to be a weakly reinforcing substance at low and high dose levels. Due to this, other tobacco constituents, such as the monoamine oxidase inhibitor norharmane which is found in tobacco leaf and smoke, may be responsible for tobacco addiction by potentiating the rewarding properties of nicotine. Several studies have attempted to observe this phenomenon, however, monoamine oxidase inhibitors that are not found in tobacco leaf or smoke have …

Personality In California Sea Lions (Zalophus Californianus) And Harbor Seals (Phoca Vitulina): Methodological Convergence And Species-Specific Emotional Repertoires, Amber De Vere

Dissertations

Despite the wide acceptance of animal personality as a valid area of study, research on marine mammal personality remains remarkably scarce. What literature does exist predominantly focuses on bottlenose dolphins (Frick, 2016; Highfill & Kuczaj, 2007; Kuczaj, Highfill & Byerly, 2012; Lilley, de Vere, Yeatre & Kuczaj, 2018; Moreno, Highfill & Kuczaj, 2017). There is also strong evidence for individual differences in grey seals (Robinson et al., 2015; Twiss & Franklin, 2010; Twiss, Culloch & Pomeroy, 2011; Twiss, Cairns, Culloch, Richards & Pomeroy, 2012), and preliminary research has provided evidence of broad personality factors in pinniped species using behavioral coding …

Identifying The Social Contexts Present For Mouthing Behaviors In Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Erin E. Frick

Dissertations

Much of the research on dolphin communication has focused on the acoustic signals produced in a variety of social contexts. Although acoustic signals are undoubtedly an important aspect of dolphin communication systems, dolphin communication is multifaceted and multimodal (e.g., postural, visual and tactile signals, acoustic cues). The present study examined behaviors that involve the mouth (i.e., mouthing behaviors) in a group of captive dolphins using 2,696 minutes of underwater acoustic and video recordings collected from 2010 – 2014. Target behaviors are described as primarily visual (e.g., open-mouth display), both visual and acoustic (e.g., jaw claps), and tactile (e.g., mouthing, biting). …

Characterization Of Swine Production Using Measurements Collected Via Indoor Positioning System, Shaun Perisho

Dissertations

Legislative and market initiatives are requiring that gestating sows move from individual housing to group settings. Little information is known about coping styles of individual sows in these more socially complex environments and thus the impact of different behavioral strategies on sow reproductive success and efficiency was investigated. The movements of 70 sows during periods of reintroduction into large pen gestational housing following insemination was measured with a commercially available system that tracked animal location and accelerations. Principle component analysis (PCA) was used to establish composite variables characterizing each animal’s behavioral response to social reintroduction and revealed the presence of …

Evaluation Of The Efficacy Of A Candidate Turkey Dermatitis/Cellulitis Oil Emulsion Vaccine On Immune Response, Morbidity, And Mortality Under Laboratory And Commercial Conditions, Brittany Danielle Graham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Alpha-toxigenic Clostridium septicum (CS), the cause of turkey cellulitis, results in devastating mortality with high costs for the industry. Various vaccinations have been evaluated to prevent this disease with moderate success. Ability of a CS bacterin-toxoid, in conjunction with adjuvants such as aluminum hydroxide, mannoslyated chitosan, or a water-in-oil Seppic Montanide 71 R VG adjuvant (OE) to induce immunity was evaluated in a 7-week study (Experiment 1). Poults (20/group) were vaccinated day-of-hatch, boosted at 5 weeks-of-age and compared to unvaccinated controls. Antibody titers were determined by ELISA for all experiments. In experiment 1, initial vaccination with OE resulted in significantly …

The Effects Of Super-Dosing Phytase On Nursery And Grower Pigs, Joshua Paul Knapp

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

To determine the effects of super-dosing on pigs fed phosphorous and calcium adequate or deficient diets (Experiment 1); the optimum level of corn express phytase (CEP, Experiment 2); and the effects of xylanase/phytase on growth performance (Experiment 3) in pigs fed reduce nutrient diets, weaned pigs were blocked with initial body weight (BW) and allotted to dietary treatments. Treatments were: Positive control (PC), P/Ca adequate diets (NRC 2012); Negative Control (NC), low P (-0.15%) and Ca (-0.12%), +0, 1000, and 4000 FTU/kg of CEP in both PC and NC (Experiment 1); PC, P/Ca adequate diets; NC, decreased P (0.15%) and …