Animal Studies Commons^™

The Effect Of Neutering On The Risk Of Urinary Incontinence In Bitches – A Systematic Review, W. Beauvais, J. M. Cardwell, D. C. Brodbelt

Endocrinology Collection

An increased risk of urinary incontinence in bitches has often been associated with previous ovariohysterectomy but remains controversial. The objective of this study was to evaluate the strength of evidence for an association between neutering or age at neutering and urinary incontinence in bitches and to estimate the magnitude of any effect found. A systematic review of peer‐reviewed original English analytic journal articles was conducted, based on Cochrane guidelines (Higgins and Green 2009) Of 1,853 records screened, seven studies were identified that examined the effect of neutering or age at neutering on the risk of urinary incontinence but …

An Hsus Report: Food Safety Risks Associated With U.S. Horse Slaughter, The Humane Society Of The United States

Impact of Animal Agriculture

Meat originating from U.S. horses may contain residues from substances banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Union for use in animals intended for consumption. Phenylbutazone, for example, is commonly administered to U.S. horses and has been associated with life-threatening reactions in humans. Requiring a thorough drug history for each U.S. horse intended for human consumption may help circumvent human health risks.

Social Effects On Vocal Ontogeny In An Ungulate, The Goat, Capra Hircus, Elodie F. Briefer, Alan G. Mcelligott

Sentience Collection

Vocal plasticity is the ability of an individual to modify its vocalizations according to its environment. Humans benefit from an extreme form of vocal plasticity, allowing us to produce a wide range of sounds. This capacity to modify sounds has been shown in three bird orders and in a few nonhuman mammal species, all characterized by complex vocal communication systems. In other mammals, there is no evidence for a social impact on vocal development. We investigated whether contact calls were affected by social environment and kinship during early ontogeny in goats, a highly vocal and social species. To test the …

A Blood Sport For The Rich And Famous?, Harold Herzog

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

A new report finds horse racing carnage is getting worse.

A Blood Sport For The Rich And Famous?, Harold Herzog

Harold Herzog, PhD

Whip Use By Jockeys In A Sample Of Australian Thoroughbred Races—An Observational Study, Paul D. Mcgreevy, Robert A. Corken, Hannah Salvin, Celeste M. Black

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

The use of whips by jockeys is an issue. The current study viewed opportunistic high-speed footage of 15 race finishes frame-by-frame to examine the outcomes of arm and wrist actions (n = 350) on 40 horses viewed from the left of the field. Any actions fully or partially obscured by infrastructure or other horses were removed from the database, leaving a total of 104 non-contact sweeps and 134 strikes. For all instances of arm actions that resulted in fully visible whip strikes behind the saddle (n = 109), the outcomes noted were area struck, percentage of unpadded section making contact, …

Horse Racing: Cruelties We Condone And Cruelties We Condemn, Harold Herzog

Competitive Animal Racing Collection

Why the deaths of HBO's "Luck" horses were predictable.

Horse Racing: Cruelties We Condone And Cruelties We Condemn, Harold Herzog

Harold Herzog, PhD

Chimpanzee Personhood: Supporting Scientific Documentation, Jonathan Balcombe

Sentience Collection

The aim of this document is to provide scientific support for granting chimpanzees and bonobos the legal status of persons. The studies summarized here have been selected because they show these species to have levels of awareness, cognition, emotionality and virtue that rivals that of their hominid cousins, Homo sapiens. Chimps, like other great apes, have long-term relationships, grieve the loss of a loved-one, can solve complex puzzles, display a sense of justice, and can learn hundreds of signs and put them together in logical sentences.

The Ban On The Use Of Chimpanzees In Biomedical Research And Testing In The Uk Should Be Made Permanent And Legally Binding, Michelle Thew, Jarrod Bailey, Michael Balls, Michelle Hudson

Laboratory Experiments Collection

The Coalition Government is currently considering how to transpose Directive 2010/63/EU on animal experimentation into UK law. The Directive bans the use of Great Apes in laboratories, but EU Member States can seek (now or, more likely, at some time in the future) a derogation from the Commission to permit such use, where this is considered essential for the preservation of the species in question or in relation to an unexpected outbreak of a life-threatening or debilitating clinical condition in human beings. Currently, the policy of the Government is not to approve any experiments on Great Apes, but it is …

The Welfare Of Animals In The Foie Gras Industry

Agribusiness Reports

The production of pâté de foie gras involves force-feeding ducks and geese by placing a long tube down the birds’ esophagi and pumping an unnatural quantity of food directly into their stomachs. Force-feeding induces hepatic lipidosis and causes the birds’ livers to become diseased and enlarged. Substantial scientific evidence suggests that force-feeding can cause pain and injury from feeding tube insertion, fear and stress during capture and handling, gait abnormality due to distended livers, pathologies in liver function, and increased mortality. Force-feeding birds to produce foie gras is detrimental to their welfare.

Tool Use In Fishes, Culum Brown

Sentience Collection

Tool use was once considered the sole domain of humans. Over the last 40 years, however, it has become apparent that tool use may be widespread across the animal kingdom. Pioneering studies in primates have shaped the way we think about tool use in animals, but have also lead to a bias both in terms of our expectations about which animals should be capable of using tools and the working definition of tool use. Here I briefly examine tool use in terrestrial animals and consider the constraints of the current working definition of tool use in fishes. Fishes lack grasping …

Isotopic Niche Differentiation Among Mammals From A Rainforest In Peninsular Malaysia, Kae Kawanishi, Song Horng Neo Liang, Chris T. Darimont, Thomas E. Reimchen, Melvin E. Sunquist

Biochemistry Collection

We performed stable isotope analysis on eight mammalian species: pig-tailed macaque (Macaca nemestrina), long-tailed macaque (M. fascicularis), dusky leaf monkey (Trachypithecus obscurus), brush-tailed porcupine (Atherurus macrourus), wild boar (Sus scrofa), lesser mouse-deer (Tragulus javanicus), greater mouse-deer (T. napu), and barking deer (Muntiacus muntjac), to test the hypothesis that the differences in diet and habitat types among species, guilds and foraging strategies are reflected in the δ¹⁵N and δ¹³C signatures of their tissues. Whereas the isotopic ratios differed among taxa, the four major isotopic groups observed were: mouse-deer species, primate species, brush-tailed porcupine, and wild boar. The …

Bias During The Evaluation Of Animal Studies, Andrew Knight

Morality and Ethics of Animal Experimentation Collection

My recent book entitled The Costs and Benefits of Animal Experiments seeks to answer a key question within animal ethics, namely: is animal experimentation ethically justifiable? Or, more precisely, is it justifiable within the utilitarian cost:benefit framework that fundamentally underpins most regulations governing animal experimentation? To answer this question I reviewed more than 500 scientific publications describing animal studies, animal welfare impacts, and alternative research, toxicity testing and educational methodologies. To minimise bias I focused primarily on large-scale systematic reviews that had examined the human clinical and toxicological utility of animal studies. Despite this, Dr. Susanne Prankel recently reviewed my …

Complex Patterns Of Male Alliance Formation In A Dolphin Social Network, Joanna Wiszniewski, Culum Brown, Luciana M. Möller

Sentience Collection

The formation and maintenance of alliances is regarded as one of the most socially complex male mating strategies in mammals. The prevalence and complexity of these cooperative relationships, however, varies considerably among species as well as within and between populations living in different ecological and social environments. We assessed patterns of alliance formation for Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops aduncus, in Port Stephens, New South Wales, Australia, to investigate the stability of these alliances, the structure of associations, as well as variation in schooling patterns among males. Our results showed that association patterns among males within this population showed considerable variability. …

Whaling: Don’T Trade The Moratorium Away, Mark Peter Simmonds, Sue Fisher

Conservation Collection

In their proposal to allocate ‘whale shares’ to both whalers and conservationists as an alternative to the International Whaling Commission (IWC) moratorium on commercial whaling, Christopher Costello and colleagues overlook several factors (Nature 481, 139–140; 2012).

Superglue Is Not Super: An Assessment Of Superglue For Suturing Tag Incisions In A Cultured Marine Fish, Vincent Raoult, Culum Brown, Jane E. Williamson

Aquaculture Collection

No abstract provided.

Natural Healers: The Four Pillars Of Medicine And How Animals Use Them, Harold Herzog

'Animals and Us' Blog Posts

Is meat-eating the reason pet-owners get sicker than their dogs?

Arkansas Animal Science Department Report 2011, David L. Kreider

Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station Research Series

No abstract provided.

Natural Healers: The Four Pillars Of Medicine And How Animals Use Them, Harold Herzog

Harold Herzog, PhD