Animal Studies Commons^™

The Impact Of Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals On Wildlife Conservation, Eda Reed

Honors Theses

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), such as those from plastics and pesticides, have been hypothesized to affect wildlife populations. According to the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, EDCs ‘are chemicals that may interfere with the body’s endocrine system and produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife.’ A growing number of studies suggest wildlife are being exposed to EDCs, but how EDCs affect wildlife health and wildlife conservation is less well-understood. Through scientific literature analysis and a survey of wildlife conservationists and practitioners, this study aims to determine the current state of knowledge and data …

Cognitive Phenotypes And The Evolution Of Animal Decisions, Tamra C. Mendelson, Courtney L. Fitzpatrick, Mark E. Hauber, Charles H. Pence, Rafael L. Rodríguez, Rebecca J. Safran, Caitlin A. Stern, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Faculty Publications

Despite the clear fitness consequences of animal decisions, the science of animal decision making in evolutionary biology is underdeveloped compared with decision science in human psychology. Specifically, the field lacks a conceptual framework that defines and describes the relevant components of a decision, leading to imprecise language and concepts. The ‘judgment and decision-making’ (JDM) framework in human psychology is a powerful tool for framing and understanding human decisions, and we apply it here to components of animal decisions, which we refer to as ‘cognitive phenotypes’. We distinguish multiple cognitive phenotypes in the context of a JDM framework and highlight empirical …

Living With Owning, Matt Ampleman, Douglas A. Kysar

Indiana Law Journal

In October, 2011, Terry Thompson committed suicide by gunshot after cutting open the cages of fifty-six exotic animals on his farm in Zanesville, Ohio. Fearing for pub-lic safety, law enforcement officers systematically hunted down the escaped animals in an episode that garnered international attention and prompted renewed discus-sion of the propriety of exotic animal ownership. This Article retells and discusses the circumstances surrounding Terry Thompson’s unhinging, applying frameworks of legal theory, chiefly in the realm of property law, to assess the fabric that held Thompson’s delicate system together and the tensions that led to its unravelling. As an autopsy, the …

Social Movement Prostitution: A Case Study In Nonhuman Animal Rights Activism And Vegan Pimping, Corey Lee Wrenn

Animal Rights Movement Collection

This article explores the sexual objectification of female-identified volunteers in social movements as a form of tactical prostitution, arguing that tactical prostitution constitutes a violation of the dignity of women in social movement spaces, while posing a threat to the wellbeing of women and children in the larger public. This article investigates the Nonhuman Animal Rights movement, particularly suggesting that tactical prostitution is particularly counterintuitive in this context as it asks the public to stop objectifying Nonhuman Animals with the same oppressive logic that it wields by objectifying female activists. This critique is placed within a systemic analysis of neoliberalism …

Out Of The Mouth Of Babes: Lessons From Research On Human Infants, Stan A. Kuczaj, Malin K. Lilley

Psychology Faculty Publications (Archived)

Marine mammal behavior and cognition researchers often face a number of challenges, including the research subjects’ lack of interest and verbal abilities, as well as choosing a paradigm with appropriate stimuli for the subjects’ perceptual and cognitive abilities. Researchers who work with human infants often encounter similar challenges when studying infant cognition and have developed strategies to overcome these challenges, including using stimuli that capture the infants’ attention, determining what tasks are age-appropriate, and using conditioned responses to test discrimination abilities. This paper encourages marine mammal researchers to learn from the research paradigms and techniques used in human infant research …

Use Of Anti-Mullerian Hormone To Select For Fertility In Beef Heifers, Hannah Newberry, Beth Kegley, Charles Rosenkrans, Rick Rorie

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

A study was conducted to determine whether concentration of serum Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH) at weaning and/or breeding could predict subsequent fertility in beef heifers. Frequency distribution was used to assign serum AMH concentration measured at weaning, breeding, and the change from weaning to breeding into quartiles. Comparison of heifers based on serum AMH quartiles at weaning failed (P ≥ 0.35) to detect any effect of AMH on subsequent heifer cyclicity at breeding, estrous response after synchronization, artificial insemination (AI) pregnancy rate, overall breeding season pregnancy rate, or estimated estrous cycle of the breeding season when conception occurred. Based on AMH …

Current Status Of The Northern Saw-Whet Owl (Aegolius Acadicus) In Arkansas, Mitchell L. Pruitt, Kimberly G. Smith

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

The secretive Northern Saw-whet Owl (Aegolius acadicus) is believed to be much more widespread during fall and winter than previously thought. Of the few places in the southern United States conducting research on this species, all have been successful at capturing birds. A total of 12 historic records existed for Arkansas until our work began in fall of 2014. The first confirmed record was in 1959 and the most recent, prior to this research, was in 2010. Over the course of two field seasons, we captured and banded 24 Northern Saw-whet Owls in rural Madison County. All birds were mist-netted …

Reflections Of The Social Environment In Chimpanzee Memory: Applying Rational Analysis Beyond Humans, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Julian N. Marewski, Lael J. Schooler, Ian C. Gilby

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

In cognitive science, the rational analysis framework allows modelling of how physical and social environments impose information-processing demands onto cognitive systems. In humans, for example, past social contact among individuals predicts their future contact with linear and power functions. These features of the human environment constrain the optimal way to remember information and probably shape how memory records are retained and retrieved. We offer a primer on how biologists can apply rational analysis to study animal behaviour. Using chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) as a case study, we modelled 19 years of observational data on their social contact patterns. Much …

Cognitive Phenotypes And The Evolution Of Animal Decisions, Tamra C. Mendelson, Courtney L. Fitzpatrick, Mark E. Hauber, Charles H. Pence, Rafael L. Rodriguez, Rebecca J. Safran, Caitlin A. Stern, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Despite the clear fitness consequences of animal decisions, the science of animal decision making in evolutionary biology is underdeveloped compared with decision science in human psychology. Specifically, the field lacks a conceptual framework that defines and describes the relevant components of a decision, leading to imprecise language and concepts. The ‘judgment and decision-making’ (JDM) framework in human psychology is a powerful tool for framing and understanding human decisions, and we apply it here to components of animal decisions, which we refer to as ‘cognitive phenotypes’. We distinguish multiple cognitive phenotypes in the context of a JDM framework and highlight empirical …

Context-Dependent Seed Dispersal By A Scatter-Hoarding Corvid, Mario B. Pesendorfer, T. Scott Sillett, Scott A. Morrison, Alan C. Kamil

Avian Cognition Papers

1. Corvids (crows, jays, magpies and nutcrackers) are important dispersers of large-seeded plants. Studies on captive or supplemented birds suggest that they flexibly adjust their scatter-hoarding behavior to the context of social dynamics and relative seed availability. Because many corvid-dispersed trees show high annual variation in seed production, context-dependent foraging can have strong effects on natural corvid scatter-hoarding behavior.

2. We investigated how seed availability and social dynamics affected scatter-hoarding in the island scrub jays (Aphelocoma insularis). We quantified rates of scatter-hoarding behavior and territorial defense of 26 colormarked birds over a three-year period with variable acorn crops. …

Effects Of Visitors And Enrichments On Behavior Of Captive Red Wolves’ (Canis Rufus) At The Great Plains Zoo, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Kylee S. Shotkoski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Red wolves (Canis rufus) are the first animals to maintain a wild population from captive, released individuals. A captive breeding program for red wolves was started before complete extirpation, and 4 breeding pairs were released in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge (North Carolina) in 1987 and a small wild population still exists there. Currently, there are several captive breeding facilities for red wolves within the Species Survival Plan (SSP) program. The Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, South Dakota participates in the SSP program. My study was initiated to create a natural history background and evaluate interaction between …

Why Animal Welfarism Continues To Fail, Lori Marino

Animal Sentience

Welfarism prioritizes human interests over the needs of nonhuman animals. Despite decades of welfare efforts other animals are mostly worse off than ever before, being subjected to increasingly invasive and harmful treatments, especially in the factory farming and biomedical research areas. A legal rights-based approach is essential in order for other animals to be protected from the varying ethical whims of our species.

Responses To Familiar And Unfamiliar Humans By Belugas (Delphinapterus Leucas), Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), & Pacific White-Sided Dolphins (Lagenorhynchus Obliquidens): A Replication And Extension, Heather M. Hill, Deirdre Yeater, Sarah Gallup, Sara Guarino, Steve Lacy, Tricia Dees, Stan A. Kuczaj Ii

Psychology Faculty Publications

Previous research has documented that cetaceans can discriminate between humans, but the process used to categorize humans still remains unclear. The goal of the present study was to replicate and extend previous work on the discrimination between familiar and unfamiliar humans by three species of cetaceans. The current study manipulated the familiarity and activity level of humans presented to 12 belugas (Delphinapterus leucas) housed between two facilities, five bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), and six Pacific white-sided dolphins (Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) during free-swim conditions. Two measures of discrimination were coded from video recordings of each trial: …

What Would The Babel Fish Say?, Monica Gagliano

Animal Sentience

Starting with its title, Key’s (2016) target article advocates the view that fish do not feel pain. The author describes the neuroanatomical, physiological and behavioural conditions involved in the experience of pain in humans and rodents and confidently applies analogical arguments as though they were established facts in support of the negative conclusion about the inability of fish to feel pain. The logical reasoning, unfortunately, becomes somewhat incoherent, with the arbitrary application of the designated human criteria for an analogical argument to one animal species (e.g., rodents) but not another (fish). Research findings are reported selectively, and questionable interpretations are …

Behavioral Phenotyping Of Vmat1 Knockout Mice: Relevance To Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Kevin A. Webster Ph.D.

Theses and Dissertations

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental disorder that causes a large economic burden and is prevalent across all cultures and countries around the world. Although both environmental factors and genetics are known to play an important role in the etiology of schizophrenia, the exact role of genetics and its interaction with environmental factors in an individual’s predisposition to develop schizophrenia is poorly understood. Schizophrenia is characterized by symptoms that include positive symptoms (e.g. delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and speech), negative symptoms (e.g. avolition, anhedonia, depressive-like behavior), and cognitive dysfunctions (e.g. executive functioning deficits in learning and memory, attention, and vigilance). Genomic …

Ultrasonic Vocalizations As A Predictor Of Resilience To Intermittent Swim Stress-Induced Anxiety: An Investigation Of Re-Exposure Effects, Yandan Wang, Robert C. Drugan, Nathaniel Stafford

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

What’S The Common Sense Of Just Some Improvement Of Some Welfare For Some Animals?, Liv Baker

Animal Sentience

The goal of Animal Welfare Science to reduce animal suffering is commendable but too modest: Suffering animals need and deserve far more.

From Sentience To Science: Limits Of Anthropocentric Cognition, Charukeshi Chandrasekera

Animal Sentience

Donald Broom’s Sentience and Animal Welfare (2014) is an intellectually and morally engaging book written with radical new concepts in mind. It deals with many issues that are central to the animal welfare debate such as brain complexity, cognitive ability, when in life sentience begins, and how it all affects the way we endorse welfare. It addresses how our insatiable quest to define the uniqueness of our own species has led us to ignore logic and scientific evidence. It also brings greater clarity to these precarious positions and outlines pragmatic approaches to tackling this complex topic of sentience and welfare.

Animal Welfare And Animal Rights, M.E. Rolle

Animal Sentience

This overview of Broom’s book, Sentience and Animal Welfare (2014), considers the role the book could play in the animal rights debate. In a thoroughly researched and objectively presented text, Broom lays out information that could place doubt in the minds of decision-makers. By highlighting not just the ways animals resemble humans, but also the ways humans resemble animals, Broom shines a light on a solidly grey area in the animal rights debate.

Is Humanitarianism Recent?, Andrea L. Sammarco

Animal Sentience

Although there is the need for textbooks in this field, the literary style of Broom’s Sentience and Animal Welfare detracts from the readability of the book. The author attempts with mixed success to define the field and differing opinions regarding the definitions of “sentience” and “animal welfare,” but makes a number of questionable assumptions concerning the history of the subject area.