2011 seems to have been an exciting year for research in animal behaviour and welfare.
image from http://www.chickencare.net/
More studies emerged that found evidence of empathy in nonhuman species. Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, to feel his or her emotions. Scientists in Britain, cited by the Telegraph, found that when mother hens see their chicks experience something scary (having their feathers ruffled with puffs of air), they display the same signs of distress as the little chicks themselves. Meanwhile, a research group from the University of Chicago found that rats not only get “infected” by a trapped cagemate’s anxiety, but also gradually learn how to free their friend, with no training at all, and will choose to open his door rather than eat chocolate. Read the rest of this entry »
How to change the world? That is the question! god knows where the answer might lie. A quick glance at the history reveals that progress is always slow, sometimes brutal but progress occurs none the less. It often starts with a small group of people who stand up against a perceived wrong (most often against themselves) and they have to make a lot of noise to be noticed, for example, the suffragettes to acquire the vote for women or the Russian peasants against the monarchy – led by a group of well meaning intellectuals, not forgetting the African-American civil rights movement.
Change starts with an idea, it progresses with commitment, passion and a relentless pursuit of justice. The animal rights/welfare movement is unique in that people are fighting for individuals of another species against the collective will and accepted norms of their own ’species’. It is sometimes hard to believe that any progress can be made at all when there is still so much racial, cultural and religious prejudice between humans. How can we create justice for other species when we can’t even find the compassion to relate to others of own?
However there is no denying that humanity is becoming a more just, peaceful and open minded group. The ideas behind animal protection started in the 1800s with the immortal words of Jeremy Bentham ‘“The question is not, “Can they reason?” nor, “Can they talk?” but “Can they suffer?” It may seem like we haven’t progressed much in all this time but the words first uttered in the 1800s have propagated and gathered pace over the past 200 years, so that today, they have been explored by modern philosophers like Singer and Regan, they have formed the basis for a new scientific discipline – animal welfare science and they have guided legal protection for animals. People have spread the word and hundreds of animal protection groups have formed, some with influence at governmental level and the power of arrest. In some places it has spread faster than others aided by education, wealth and human rights but there is no longer a place on the planet where someone isn’t doing something to progress this movement.
I was a massive fan of the movie Avatar. It embodied everything that I want for this planet and animal protection. The Navi protected themselves and their planet in bold battle and won. I left the cinema feeling elated and inspired but then it dawned on me that the battle on this planet is much more arduous and cerebral. It involves winning the hearts and minds of 9 billion individual autonomous people in hundreds of different cultures and religions. We can’t win by fighting them. The time for making noise has ended. It’s time to engage in dialogue rather than fight, to include rather than judge. I sometimes feel like we forget that communication is a two way street and the best way to change people is to understand them, just as we would like there to be no ‘them’ and ‘us’ between humans and animals, we should also remember that there is no ‘them’ and ‘us’ between the animal protection movement and the rest of society. Yes I am angry about things that happen to non human animals but I want to change the world and expressing that anger will do no good. We must take society with us, we must communicate and engage with each and every one of them in a positive, productive manner. We don’t need any more angry jaded people, we need compassionate citizens who believe they can change the world for the better.
Any ideas or comments on the next step forward would be appreciated…..
I am writing an article about recent discoveries in the field of animal welfare and animal psychology. The wealth of new information is staggering; scientific papers are being churned out by the dozen every month. I just have to pick out a few juicy bits here and there: nothing easier than that. And yet, the moment came when I stopped dead in my tracks. “Wait a minute. What if people find this silly? You know, the way you shrug your shoulders at the millionth newspaper article which proclaims that 2+2=4 and calls it science?”
A pause for reflection is in order, then. I have to admit that in animal welfare science, a lot of the new evidence hardly amounts to a discovery but is mere validation of truths we know intuitively – or knew once but have forgotten in our post-industrial age. It is a little sad that we need statistical measurements of heart rates and cortisol levels to accept that cows have friends in their herd and get stressed when the farmer separates them, as reported in the Daily Mail. Another study which measured the heart rates of dairy cows showed that when one cow licks the face of another, the effect is profoundly calming.1
It is no secret to anyone who has ever lived with a pet dog that man’s best friend is a highly social, adaptable and intelligent animal. Both scientific studies and countless personal anecdotes demonstrate without a doubt the canine capacity for experiencing a wide range of emotions, and also for reasoning – and none of it is a surprise, given the dog’s unique position over the millennia as a responsive companion and working partner. Dogs may lack the problem-solving abilities for survival in the wild (compared to wolves, e.g.), but they possess excellent acumen for thriving in their particular ecological niche: the human jungle.
In this inspirational TED lecture Zoe Weil, the co-founder and president of the Institute for Humane Education (www.HumaneEducation.org) talks about the value of humane education. She is considered a pioneer in the comprehensive humane education movement, which provides people with the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be conscientious choicemakers and engaged changemakers for a better world.
Two researchers – Matthew Cole and Kate Stewart recently produced a paper that examined how movies encourage children to conceptually distance the animals they eat from those which they form an emotional bond such as pets. This post examines some of the points made in the paper.
I have often wondered why Disney films which frequently feature stories about animals don’t encourage more empathy and respect amongst children. For example ‘Finding Nemo’ appears to convey the message that fish belong in the sea and deserve their freedom. Yet sales in tropical fish, rocketed after the film indicating that the wider audience did not take home that message.
Cole and Stewart argue that in most films animals only become important when they transcend their species typical behaviours and take on human qualities. The characters become exceptions to the rules that define our relationship with that species. For example, Babe finds acceptance as a sheep dog-pig not as a pig (it is acceptable to care about dogs) or Nemo is special because he speaks like a human. In Happy Feet the Penguins are saved by dancing and in Chicken Run the Chickens conquer flight to escape their fate as food animals. The animal characters in these films are essentially humans in animal bodies and I think this is what limits our capacity to learn the lesson of empathy and respect for other animals.
Both Charlotte’s Webb and Babe have been cited as being responsible for a decrease in pork sales. However this trend was fleeting and consumer behaviour returned back to normal soon after. Perhaps this was because in the eyes of the viewer Babe was a special pig and eventually they dissociated the character from the food they eat.
Carnivourous animals often enjoy more complex characterisations where as prey animals are represented as a homogenous faceless mass. Cole and Stewart cite the Lion King as prime example of this. Pumba and Timone are prey species but they are given special ‘companion animal’ status by the Lion. Stewart and Cole argue that where animals are allowed to transcend their fates as food it is because they have been given special consideration by the characters that the audience identify with (most like humans). Of course in more recent films like Madagascar the prey and the predator become friends and the predator fights against his nature to stop himself preying on other animals. In the end he eats sushi because in this film at least, fish don’t matter because they haven’t been given a human-like personality and therefore their feelings don’t matter – if they have any at all!
Stewart and Cole also argue that childrens fiction has a tradition of associating the loss of sympathy or empathy for animals with growing up. For example in the Jungle book, Mowgli is tempted away from Baloo by the lithe water carrying girl in the local village.
Whilst this review is far from exhaustive, I do think that personifying animals in childrens literature does very little to foster respect and understanding for other species and this may account for why children don’t take home the messages that the films convey to me. This begs the question: How do we produce childrens fiction that doesn’t personify animals and encourages respect and empathy for other species independently of the human relationship with them? Answers please!
Reference: Stewart, K., Cole, M. (2009) The Conceptual Separation of Food and Animals in Childhood. Food, Culture and Society 12(4): 457-476;
Temple Grandin is a wonderfully acted, engaging biopic about the famous autistic scientist who changed the lives (and deaths) of farm animals in America and around the world. The HBO production, which won multiple Emmys this year, is a must-see for animal lovers and for anybody with a voyeuristic penchant for minds that are “different, not less.” The subject matter is very camera-friendly because Temple’s thinking is visual. She may have trouble with languages or facial expressions, but when the movie reveals the complex geometric plans inside her head – or when the phrase “waking up with the roosters” triggers a picture of her aunt and uncle crowing on the roof – you know you’re in for a great TV treat that’s not going to leave you depressed.
What I love about this film is the clever way it constructs a sort of empathy chain. We can see the world through the eyes of a high-functioning autistic person, and Claire Danes’ Temple in turn can see it through the eyes of a cow, or a horse. So we can feel for cows and horses too. Even though Temple eats meat, she doesn’t want to be like a wild predator – because predators can’t put themselves in a cow’s shoes (or hooves), but she can. “Nature is cruel, but we don’t have to be” is a phrase heard more than once in the film, and it will resonate in your head, like the mooing of distressed cattle in a feedlot, long after you’ve switched off the TV. Ditto for the other, more lyrical question Temple keeps asking whenever a human or an animal dies: “Where do they go?” Where, indeed? The movie gives no answer, but the question itself is stunning in its simplicity and earnestness, especially when Grandin shouts it out amidst the noise of a macabre slaughterhouse.
Temple bores fellow party goers with her chatter about the horribly designed head restraints for cattle. Yet a topic that can easily become tiresome to ordinary folks, or even scare them away, becomes important and fascinating here because the film challenges you to shift your perspective. The heroine of the movie is no longer a sad little psychiatric case, but an intelligent and compassionate person whose phobia of sliding doors and fondness for weird-looking “squeeze machines” have – by an irony of fate – proven a gift to farm animals in America. Cows are no longer simple burger robots, but individuals with feelings as real as yours or mine, animals who know pain and fear and comfort. This exercise in empathy is why Temple Grandin succeeds – why it is so beautiful and humane.
*If you’re interested in Grandin’s unique insight into animal minds, you can also get a hold of her international bestseller Animals in Translation. I actually haven’t read that one, but I can recommend her newest book, Making Animals Happy.*
Summer is great for the elderly pooch, especially with a light T-shirt on for sun protection
But winter feels just miserable... Can't we breed iggies who are more heat-efficient?
I believe that the best, fastest way to change the status quo is if everybody who has a favourite breed could try to identify, honestly, both the positive and the negative welfare aspects of this breed—and accept the possibility that its appearance may have to change in the future. Confronting ourselves in this manner may be hard, but one day our dogs will be thankful that we did it. Just like our choices as farmers or consumers affect the lives of billions of sentient farm animals, our choices as breeders or members of the dog-buying public matter greatly to the world’s dogs.
With this belief, I will start with myself. I adore sighthounds – especially the smallest among them, the Italian greyhounds. My computer and drawers are full of “iggy” and greyhound pictures: photographs, old paintings, calendars. For 13 years, I owned a wonderful male Italian greyhound called Ernesto, or “Nesto.” Fortunately, despite the rarity of these dogs and the inbreeding atrocities visible in Nesto’s pedigree just four generations back, he didn’t suffer from the ailments commonly listed in breed descriptions – such as Progressive Retinal Atrophy or von Willebrand Disease. He did have epilepsy, though (and a family history of epilepsy), but he was lucky to be relatively unaffected by it, as it occurred only a few times in his life – which is not the case with all epileptic dogs.
“It is fascinating to speculate how dogs and humans might co-evolve further. We cannot say exactly what the domestic dogs of the future will look like because we do not know what future humans will need and therefore value. But pedigree dogs, as they are currently defined, are doomed.”
–Paul McGreevy, comment in The New Scientist (“We must breed happier, healthier dogs,” 8 October 2008)
Irish Wolfhound Sam, photo by Tirwhan, Wikipedia
Contributed by Alina Lilova
In my early teens, I used to worship the world of the dog fancy, which I was familiar with through hobby magazines and occasional direct contact. I could recognise dozens upon dozens of breeds, I would read their entire standards, I thought dog shows were fascinating, and I dreamt of studying “cynology,” or canine science.
How disenchanted I am today. Over the years, I slowly came to realise that canine science rests on shaky biological grounds because it is not dog-centric as its name implies. The individual dog doesn’t matter as much as the frozen ideal of the breed. Selective breeding isn’t used to create happy and well-adjusted family pets, but to improve “breed quality,” i.e. match ever more closely what the dog looked like in a mythical past or will look like in a utopian future, as laid out in the sacred books of the kennel club. Other concerns exist, but they are secondary.
Obsessively pursuing the Breed Standard like a pack of hounds, breeders risk losing sight of the animal welfare problems that come with their quest. The first problem is inbreeding, or the crossing of related individuals. While many laypeople believe that pedigrees serve to make sure no close relatives are mated, in fact the opposite is often true. The second problem is exaggerated physical traits: dog shows, like those fashion shows with super-skinny models, don’t always have the participant’s welfare in mind. In this article, I’m going to discuss the two issues as well as give my amateur opinion on the historical roots of the problem. Read the rest of this entry »
1. Start by putting a layer of leaves in to the container. Compact them down dense.
2. Sprinkle bits of dog food
3. Add more leaves and compact
4. Drizzle honey over the leaves
5. Add more leaves and compact
6. Repeat this process until the container is full
7. Take to the enclosure and gently turn the container upside down and shake out the cake
As you may have guessed this cake is not fit for human consumption but I know a couple of sun bears that enjoyed it muchos. The leafcake is excellent environmental enrichment and could be adapted for other species. It allows the bears to express their motivation to forage and use their senses of touch and smell to find the food. It also prolongs the feeding process and gives them something to do. Animals in captivity can become very bored and it is important to provide environmental enrichment that allows them to express their natural internally motivated behaviours. These bears spent ages delicately sifting through the leaves to find the food and licking the honey coated leaves. They really seemed to enjoy themselves.
