The last decades have seen a proliferation of animal welfare charities round the world. This is particularly evident in post-Communist countries such as Bulgaria. Having grown up in Sofia in the so-called Transition years, always surrounded by street dogs and cats I loved and deeply sympathised with, I have witnessed the animal protection movement being born and growing up in its own turn. These pioneers are a motley crew, each with their different scope and methods, occasionally engaging in skirmishes with “rival groups” over allegations of bad practice or complicity with corrupt government officials.

And yet, at some level, concern for animals is a powerful uniting force, and Bulgarian NGOs have proven able to put old grudges aside in times of need. This happens, for example, when a municipality leans towards a quick-fix solution to the stray dog problem and threatens to kill dogs en masse, the innocent together with the guilty. Most recently, following a fatal dog attack on an old professor, Bulgaria’s extreme-right party “Ataka” (famous for its populist anti-Gypsy and anti-Turkish rhetoric) proposed changes in the law that would make it legal to dump stray dogs in temporary fenced-in group enclosures – a notion that sends shivers down the spine of anyone who has had the misfortune to witness first-hand the bleak horror of the Sofia isolator some years ago. For me, that was a traumatic sight equaled only by my visit to a Scottish slaughterhouse – and worse, it involved a dog whom I knew as an individual (the adults I was with were fortunately able to rescue Dolly). Animal activists responded to the radical propositions with a protest outside the Council of Ministers which was supported by almost all the NGOs, and received reassurance from the Prime Minister that their voices would be heard. The final outcome is yet to be seen.

To give you a taste of the character and diversity of these NGOs, I picked a small sample of five groups that I’m familiar with to a greater or lesser extent. The following descriptions are based on website content and on my own observations over the years, and may not be 100% accurate.

AFA – Bulgaria

One of the oldest organisations for animal protection (which means that it was founded in the 1990s). AFA is very active politically, setting up petitions and protests in support of Catch-Neuter-Return, and was among the NGOs that helped draft Bulgaria’s first anti-cruelty law. It’s also a leading member of a national network whose aim is to inspect the municipal dog pounds and coordinate humane efforts. It frequently criticises the appalling conditions in the Seslavci isolator in Sofia and the lack of transparency in the government’s work. Funding themselves from their own pockets, AFA’s members pay for vaccines, treatment and accommodation for desperately needy dogs; they do not collect private donations on a regular basis. They also try to give example in how to care properly for street and owned dogs, providing worming medication and even rudimentary kennels for shelter, and cleaning up residential spaces. Puppeteer Aksinia Bosneva has one more priority – humane work with children – and each year AFA holds the Greatest Little Friend of the Animals contest, giving out awards in different categories such as “Publicity Agent,” “Zoodetective,” and “Eco-Police Officer.”

Animal Rescue Sofia

ARS is a high-profile, new charity which operates a shelter for 500 dogs in Bogrov outside the capital Sofia. The fact that ARS emerged from an online community of dog lovers means they are also appropriately tech-savvy and make full use of the Internet like any modern Western organisation. The shelter belongs to the municipality but is managed and staffed with the help of private donors (mostly Bulgarians) and volunteers. In addition to taking in dumped puppies and other suffering or threatened dogs from the streets, ARS offers free sterilizations and microchipping. To date, they have neutered 2917 dogs and cats and have rehomed 1205. Many animals are adopted abroad, especially in Holland. Apparently ARS was the victim of slander when a newspaper accused them of lying about these foreign adoptions – a claim that can easily be exposed for the complete fabrication it is, once you meet the people behind the charity and see their ‘dog bus’ neatly packed with straw for the mutts who couldn’t find a home on native soil. By no means does that imply, however, that ARS has given up on local adopters – the colourful billboards all around the city and the ever more frequent sight of mongrel dogs on a leash testify to an ongoing effort to change public attitudes.

Cat Friends

This association was founded in 2007 with the aim to take care of all those cats and kittens who have been abandoned by their owners, run over by cars, or injured by dogs or people. They have a website, a blog and a Facebook page where they tirelessly look for foster and adoptive homes and collect money to treat sick animals. In addition, they help people who want to neuter, de-worm and vaccinate the feral cats in their care. Their blog was the first place where I read an in-depth article on animal hoarding in Bulgarian (the problem of “the cat lady” is as serious here as anywhere…).

Colonel Angel’s Bulgarian Street Dogs

I got to know a few of these wonderful people when I volunteered for the Bulgarian Society for Animal Protection and Preservation in 2010. Colonel Angel’s is run by two expats living in the Rhodope Mountains in Southern Bulgaria who have a handful of volunteers in different towns and even abroad. Undaunted by the challenges of this country, they are trying to neuter as many dogs as possible in their area, introduce humane education to the classroom and promote dog training with positive methods. They also work to improve the lives of chained dogs in villages – their Doorbell Dog project. Focusing on neuter/return, the group does not operate a shelter but always has foster dogs looking for forever homes. These dogs receive holistic health care using homeopathy and a raw diet.

Together Against Animal Cruelty

A Facebook-based group which gained enormous popularity when the struggle to criminalise acts of animal cruelty was gathering momentum (after the sadistic mutilation of Mima the dog by her owner’s neighbour). The members of Together not only oppose cruelty to animals in principle but also actively work to help many individual cats and dogs. They believe that all charitable causes – whether aimed at humans, animals or nature as a whole – are deeply interconnected and not that, as their detractors claim, animal suffering should be ignored because “people come first.”

Having finished this list, I don’t know how to conclude. Animals in Bulgaria are in a big mess. Animals on Earth are in a big mess. In fact all of us, all living beings on this planet at the beginning of the 21^st century, exist in a state of borderline insanity when you peer down to the bottom of the human-made System. And yet the unprecedented vitality of noble causes like the one championed by these NGOs is such that it reminds me of the joy and the good that are out there in the world – in the words of Agent Mulder from The X-Files (misplaced, I know): “Maybe there’s hope.”

By Alina Lilova

Last month, Compassion in World Farming sent out a newsletter to alert to a horrible tragedy that had taken place at sea – thousands of cattle had died stranded on board the ship Gracia del Mar during her journey from Brazil to Egypt. At first, it was not entirely clear what had caused the animals’ deaths and what had happened to the survivors, but it seemed that extreme weather was involved in one way or another. The earlier report mentioned an engine failure which had disrupted the ventilation system on board, resulting in mass overheating. When further details emerged, it appeared that, on the contrary, cold weather was the culprit, with the ship having being caught in a snowstorm off the coast of Algeria. She tried to dock at different ports, but when the Egyptian vets inspected her and saw the animals, they refused to allow them in the country. It was a vicious cycle – all hell turned loose for those still alive and suffering on board, whose chances were being reduced every minute. Compassion had its supporters send more than 40,000 emails to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), asking for more efficient measures to prevent similar tragedies in the future. And yesterday Philip Lymbery published the whole story on his blog: a total of at least 2000 cattle have died, and the remaining 3600 survivors have finally been unloaded in Djibouti (a country at the southern tip of the Red Sea), awaiting further hardships.

So many “why”-s in this tragic tale. Why did Brazil, the exporting country, allow these animals to be shipped on board a 30-year-old vessel across the entire Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea, to latitudes they were completely unused to? The stress from the voyage certainly didn’t help them cope with the new climate, and something that even hardened human travellers should be quick to recognise is how journeying in groups, across multiple time zones, with our normal daily routine disrupted, often weakens our immune systems and make us more susceptible to disease. Why did Egypt, the importing country, not put in place isolation facilities where the Brazilian cattle could be safely unloaded and rested without posing a health risk to the local cattle – in violation of Article 7.2.11 of the OIE’s Terrestrial Code? Why did the port of Sokhna not even allow the vessel to dock? Did Egypt and Brazil call on the OIE to mediate, and if so, why didn’t it intervene in a timely manner?

Long-distance transport is one of the most terrifying prospects facing farm animals today. Potential problems abound: fear, stress and fatigue, physical injuries from crowding and rough handling, illness, heat stroke… Animals may also suffer and even die of thirst and starvation. Some are wounded and cannot reach the water; others – sheep especially – have no idea that they are expected to eat the things that look like dirt and sand (feed pellets).  Some countries have laws mandating that animals get used to the drinking and feeding before they travel, but it isn’t clear how strictly those laws are enforced.

Even in the European Union, the existing animal welfare laws are inadequate, not to mention frequently broken. For instance, recent daily investigations at the Bulgarian-Turkish border by Eyes on Animals showed that some livestock-carrying lorries crossing the border into Turkey had false documents that claimed their animals had rested for 24 hours at a facility in Svilengrad which in reality is closed. Thus, if sheep, cattle and goats are legally allowed to be transported for up to 29 hours (including only an hour of rest for watering), the animals in some of those lorries had actually travelled for over 50 hours… Eyes on Animals alerted the official vets in Bulgaria, who have since had the Svilengrad facility crossed out from the European Commission’s list of approved control posts. Naturally, that had been their responsibility in the first place! (Control posts are something like obligatory motels where animals get to rest for 12 or more hours – when they leave, an authorised vet must declare them fit to continue the journey.) In the same vein, an official EU audit carried out in Bulgaria in 2010 found evidence of weak controls and incompetence on the part of the official vets. For example, even though they are required by law to guarantee that animals entering and exiting the Union should be given priority over other consignments, no such arrangements were in place at the port of Varna.

While Regulation 1/2005 does contain some good provisions – e.g., long-distance drivers must have GPS and warning systems for the temperature inside the vehicles – there are still issues that are deeply unsettling, especially the length of the journeys. Even suckling animals can legally go without food and water for nine hours and travel for a total of 19 hours (though the smallest ones cannot be transported). Activists want to limit live animal transport to eight hours and have long campaigned for it; their petition was signed by over a million citizens and was adopted as the official position of the European Parliament in March 2012 (http://www.8hours.eu/). We may be getting closer to the day when all those horrid journeys to slaughter will finally be abolished, at least in Europe.

I wonder, though, would they ban the exports by sea? Right now the maximum journey times are valid only for transport by road and rail, whereas sea voyages obviously tend to last far longer. The only advantage is that on livestock carrier vessels, the animals must, in theory, have permanent access to fresh water. The word “fresh” is a bit misleading; I’ve read that people sailing on nearby ships can tell a livestock carrier from miles away by its hideous smell…

As the recent tragedy proves, with maritime transport matters are very complicated because a livestock carrier travels in international waters, and there is no such thing as a universal Animal Welfare Act. In addition, she would be sailing under the flag of a country with very lax legislation – Panama, in the case of the Gracia del Mar. Many vessels are registered in countries like Panama and Liberia to avoid giving “too many” rights to their crews. According to Wikipedia, “A basis for many criticisms is that the flag-of-convenience system allows shipowners to be legally anonymous and difficult to prosecute in civil and criminal actions. Ships with flags of convenience have been found engaging in crime and terrorism, frequently offer substandard working conditions, and negatively impact the environment, primarily through illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.” It goes without saying that the animals on board would have no rights/protection either. Another problem is the age and condition of the ships: Gracia del Mar was built in 1981. From my brief experience in the container shipping industry, I am left under the impression that most container ships which undertake ocean journeys are much newer than that, usually built in the 1990s and 2000s. Perhaps the goods that are transported in containers – objects – are more valuable than living and breathing beings…

For a couple of days in March, I did a little experiment and looked at 23 livestock carriers that could then be found on the website portarrivals.com. More than half of them (12) were over 30 years old, and at least a few of those had recently sailed on long ocean journeys. Nine were flag-of-convenience ships. Another seven were registered in the Philippines – all owned by the Belgian company Vroon. Not one was registered in Australia, even though nine had made recent stops there (for the long and painful fight in defence of Australian animals shipped to the Middle East see, e.g., http://www.liveexportshame.com/). Only one was registered in a country with higher animal welfare standards (Denmark). Besides Australia, countries that appeared to be regularly involved in the trade as points of import & export included Turkey and the Middle East, France, Spain, Russia, China, the USA and Uruguay.

That most vessels sail under the flags of third-world countries highlights the fundamental problem – nobody wants to take responsibility for the fate of animals at sea and the parties involved are very much free to exempt themselves from responsibility. I don’t know to what extent the major shipping lines are involved in the live export trade, either with specialised containers or with entire livestock carrier vessels – and the question of who owns, who manages, who charters and who benefits from a vessel seems deliberately murky and shrouded in secrecy. Still, I think that the fine print of MSC’s and Maersk’s Bill of Lading is very telling of the general attitude:

“[L]ivestock, whether or not carried on deck, are carried without responsibility on the part of the Carrier for loss or damage of whatsoever nature or delay arising during the Carriage whether caused by unseaworthiness or negligence or any other cause whatsoever and neither the Hague Rules nor US COGSA shall apply.”

CMA’s chilling clause is more precise:

“The Hague Rules shall not apply to the Carriage of live animals, which are carried at the sole risk of the Merchant. The Carrier shall be under no liability whatsoever for any injury, illness, death, delay or destruction howsoever arising. Should the Master in his sole discretion consider that any live animal is likely to be injurious to any other live animal or any Person or property on board, or to cause the vessel to be delayed or impeded in the prosecution of the Carriage, such live animal may be destroyed and thrown overboard without any liability attaching to the Carrier.”

This site on Maritime Law http://www.jus.uio.no/lm/sea.carriage.hague.visby.rules.1968/doc.html points out that the Hague Rules only waive liability for losses when the animals have been treated with utmost care, but the above quotes make it clear that vessel operators are not in any great hurry to acknowledge that. I imagine their lawyers would fiercely contend the issue of what exactly constitutes “utmost care.” Not that shipping companies are the sole to blame: so are farmers, sellers, purchasers, forwarding agents and veterinary authorities. The OIE’s Terrestrial Code states that all parties involved are responsible for the welfare of the animals. That much is clear. What is not clear, in light of the Gracia del Mar incident, is just how binding and how enforceable the OIE’s standards are for the international community.

***

This week, when we commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, the National Geographic channel showed a documentary with filmmaker and explorer James Cameron. It was almost two hours long and full of technical details about the fate of the unfortunate ship, but it was Cameron’s words at the end that stuck with me. Ships are powerful archetypes, and the Titanic is perhaps the most potent symbol of all real and imaginary ships in the collective unconscious. Cameron acknowledged her relevance today by comparing modern society to a massive ship headed towards the iceberg of environmental catastrophe, and when she hits that iceberg and breaks down, it will be the lowest classes who will suffer the most terrible harm.

I can read the Gracia del Mar disaster as a kind of sign, too.  It reminds me of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner… the story of a cursed ship, a ship with death on board, all because the Mariner shot an innocent Albatross with his crossbow – and the curse will not begin to break until the Mariner feels love for some water-snakes and blesses them in his heart. Can we pray for the grace of the sea, or the gods, before we ourselves have shown grace to the animals?

Since I wrote the last article much has happened over in Thailand.  A famous Thai musician went down to WFFT to show his support which held up proceedings for a day but culminated in his arrest. The DNP then went away for a long weekend and returned with a vengeance. More armed guards than ever camped out on WFFT grounds and the Director General arrived on site in a helicopter. Despite promising on National Television that he would leave WFFT alone once he had seen the paperwork, he then deemed that he wasn’t happy with the animal welfare at WFFT and the DNP proceeded to confiscate animals. This is laughable, considering the conditions most wild animals are kept in Thailand and the state of the DNP ‘rescue’ centres (example).

They started with the sun bears – this is interesting considering they are of high commercial value in the illegal wildlife trade! By the time I woke up this morning they had drowned a macaque in their clumsy, inexperienced attempts to capture it! In total yesterday, 54 animals were cruelly snatched away from their homes including; 26 macaques,11 gibbons, 5 bears, 8 leopard cats, 1 otter, 2 oriental pied hornbill and 1 great hornbill.

I can’t imagine the stress this is putting on all the animals, staff and volunteers at WFFT! It make me so angry that these animals have been rescued from animal abuse once  and are now suffering as pawns in a game of retribution!

Actions

Today I think we should focus on tourism in Thailand. The Department of National Parks is clearly corrupt or on a vendetta against WFFT from the bottom to the top of the department. So, we need to force their hand using another, more powerful, government department. Tourism is a huge part of the Thai economy and they will care what the world thinks of Thailand!

1.   Tweet your views on the wildlife raid to @ThailandFanClub and don’t forget to use the hashtag #ThaiWildLifeRaid

2. Post your views on the wildlife raid on the Tourism Thailand Facebook wall https://www.facebook.com/AmazingThailand

3. Send a message via the contact form on the Tourism Thailand website http://www.tourismthailand.org/contact-us

4. This is a link to the resource centre set up to help people find information and take action for WFFT. If you are interested in finding out more or taking further action then please visit http://www.wix.com/anoelle45/wffthelp#!

The Department of National Parks in Thailand have been carrying out raids on NGO sanctuaries after an ‘anonymous’ tip off about animal cruelty and holding animals without the correct paperwork.

WFFT, a well respected wild animal rescue centre, was ambushed by National Park officials and given 3 hours to present the paperwork for 450 animals. They then proceeded to arrest staff and confiscate the animals. The same thing happened at Elephant Nature Park and several other smaller NGOs.  The animals are being man handled and mistreated by National Park staff, then loaded on to trucks in tiny cages, whilst the volunteers and staff at the sanctuary look on in horror. In a further ludicrous act the confiscated wildlife were taken to profit making, run down zoos. Hundreds of animals which have already had a rough life are now scared and suffering unnecessarily.

Why not raid trekking operators or zoos or even confiscate all the poor animals used for tourist photos on beaches? Well, probably because they didn’t vocalise their concern about recent elephant poaching in National Parks. It is believed that certain people in the  forestry department were involved in this activity and the raids are an act of retribution for the NGOs implicating the forestry department in these crimes.

WFFT Thailand is a well respected animal sanctuary in Thailand that has been rescuing abused wildlife and assisting wild animals in need for many years. Elephant Nature Park rescues begging elephants, performing elephants and elephants used for trekking and provides them with a natural sanctuary where they don’t have to perform and are free to behave as elephants should.

The raids have been going on for four days now – causing immense distress to all concerned. We need to make Thailand aware that the world is watching and their tourism industry will suffer if they allow these kinds of corrupt heavy handed tactics to continue.

Actions

1.  Tweet  with this hashtag #ThaiWildlifeRaid – lets make the whole world aware of what is going on!

2. Sign this petition http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/urgent-plea-for-rescued-thai-wildlife/

3. Email the Director General of National Parks in Thailand  @ dg@dnp.go.th

4.Write to your Thai Embassy to make your feelings on the matter clear!

His Excellency Mr Kitti Wasinondh
Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary
Royal Thai Embassy
29-30 Queen’s Gate
London
SW7 5JB

Email: thaiduto@btinternet.com

Concerned individuals outside of the UK will find the relevant contact details for their Thai Embassy athttp://www.thaiembassy.org/www.thaiembassy.org/

Lets do this people!!

Recently PETA filed a law suit against Seaworld claiming that they had imprisoned legal persons, namely 5 orcas, and this was against the 13th amendment of the United States constitution, which outlaws slavery and involuntary servitude.  Surprise, Surprise, today it was thrown out of court because it has not yet been established that Orcas are ‘persons’ in the legal sense of the word. Surely anyone in their right mind would know that the issue of ‘person-hood’ needed addressing first? Just because they believe it goes without saying doesn’t mean it does. If you are going to take the game in to the court-room then you need to play by the rules of society. It just seems like a huge waste of time and like most things with PETA, just an excuse for publicity. If animal protection could be advanced by miles of press clippings then PETA would have already won the battle.  They must adhere to the mantra of  ’all publicity is good publicity’.

Sometimes I wonder if PETA is actually an organisation run by people who would rather discredit animal rights as a concept and halt all progress in animal protection. There is no doubt about it, they give animal protection/rights/welfare a bad name.  Their extreme publicity stunts make a mockery of us all and more importantly do nothing to change people that don’t already share their views, the words ‘preaching to the converted’ spring to mind. But, hey what does it even matter?  They take the moral high ground, they get coverage and their supporters give them more money and so it goes on!!

Perhaps if they had consulted with or listened to these guys at  www.nonhumananimalrightsproject.org then they would have made better use of their resources, then again do they care?

In light of today’s news that the Greek government has banned the use of all animals in circuses, it would be timely to explore this situation in the UK. Greece joins a growing number of countries to prohibit or limit the use of animals in circuses. National measures have been adopted in Bolivia, Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Peru, Portugal, Sweden, Singapore, Costa Rica, India and Israel. So, why is the UK, a nation of animal lovers, lagging behind not only European countries but also third world countries not normally known for their animal welfare standards? Despite a unanimous vote in the House of Commons in favour of a ban on June 23^rd 2011, the UK government has failed to implement a ban on wild animals in circuses.

The Tory led government appears adamant that there won’t be a ban but the reasons for their position remain unclear. There are very few circuses in UK that even have performing wild animals and unlike fox hunting – visiting the circus is not a favourite past time of Tory MPs and the general elite. Perhaps there is a connection between the Conservatives and powerful people in the circus industry or perhaps they view any measures to improve animal welfare to be another affront on their lifestyle and another step on the slippery slope to ruining all of their country pursuits?

Initially the government said that a ban might be an illegal act under European Union law as it could be seen to contravene the European Services Directive. The European Commission clarified their position to concerned MEPs, stating that in theory a ban could be against the Services Directive but it could also be justified by ‘overriding reasons of public interest’ and that public concern for animal welfare is a legally valid reason under this exemption. The British government said that there was already a legal challenge against Austria after they banned wild animals in Circuses and they would wait to see what the outcome of this challenge would be. In December 2011, the Austrian Constitutional Court in Vienna announced that it had thrown out an application by Circus Krone to overturn Austria’s ban on wild animals in circuses – therefore negating another of the governments arguments.

So what is public opinion in the UK on this matter? In 2011, an independent poll carried out by YouGov revealed that 72% of the public backed the ban with only 8% against. Furthermore, In 2010, Defra announced the results of their 2009 public consultation on animals in circuses, which resulted in a huge 94.5% public support for a ban.

All the arguments against a ban have been answered; by the European Commission, by the Austrian courts, by public opinion and by a unanimous vote in parliament.  If like me you think the government should get their act together and take in to account the opinions of democratically elected MPs and the general public they are supposed to represent, then please write to your MP and ask them to sign EDM 2563 directing the Government to use its powers under section 12 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006 to introduce a regulation banning the use of all wild animals in circuses to take effect by 1 July 2012.

You can see if your MP has already signed here

Find out how to contact your MP here

Read more about this campaign here

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.

Animal friendships and other close social bonds are as much a privilege of the great as of the small. African elephants in all-male groups were studied by Patrick Chiyo and an international team of scientists which included Cynthia Moss from the Amboseli Trust for Elephants. Among their findings was the central role played by older males, which “suggests that [they] are sources of ecological and social knowledge in all-male elephant groups, just as older females are in family groups.”1

This is significant from the point of view of animal welfare because it implies that poaching and trophy hunting may have a hidden cost that extends beyond the life of the individual animal, even when the victim is not the herd’s matriarch. Recent years have seen an increase in human-elephant conflict in Africa and Asia – attacks on humans and crop-raids – and research has highlighted a few causes besides the obvious one of habitat fragmentation. For example, elephants may remember the trauma of witnessing a massacre in their youth and become vengeful towards people. In addition, with fewer older bulls left (because of hunting), there is no one to keep rough play in check, and young males do not learn to control their own aggressive urges.2

In 2011, animals continued to surprise us with their intelligence. Golden paper wasps recognise each other’s faces, according to an article published in Nature. Dogs watch out for acts of generosity between people to figure out whom to beg for food. (Daily Mail) Humpback whales “globalise” their culture not unlike humans – a few travelling males can spread their unique songs to remote populations, across thousands of kilometres. (BBC) Chimps will give a watch-out warning to those who haven’t noticed a snake coiled in the grass: they use directed, meaningful sound communication, taking into account who their audience is. (BBC) Another chimp study demonstrated that many of these animals are as insightful as to spit water (or even urinate!) into a glass tube in order to raise the water level and reach a floating peanut. This is a tough task; even human children (4-, 6-, and 8-year-old) struggled with it, with the chimpanzees actually outperforming the four-year-olds. Orang-utans (but so far, not gorillas) have also done the feat, and rooks have done it too, by dropping stones into the tube like in Aesop’s fable. (BBC) Wild-caught New Caledonian crows, who are famous for their tool use and problem-solving skills, showed that they could retrieve a hidden food treat just by looking in a mirror. One of the birds got the hang of it immediately, while some of the others needed more time to learn.

Photo: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/14897544

Of course, new studies may also show that (just like people) animals who are “experts” in one area can be lacking the brains to excel in another. The crows didn’t recognize themselves in the mirror, or at least the time they spent with that strange new object was not enough for them to grasp its nature. (Magpies have been successful in this task.)3 A series of experiments comparing two closely related species of Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands – the tool-using woodpecker finch and the small tree finch (which doesn’t have tools) – suggested that the tool-using ability, so praised by humans, cannot be regarded as some absolute measure of general “smartness,” because the small tree finches did just as well as the woodpecker finches in various cognitive tasks and even outperformed them. Perhaps, the researchers posit, it was shared qualities such as flexibility and the tendency to explore, that allowed one of the species to develop tool use in the first place – because it was the smart thing to do in their ecological niche. To the other finches, using cactus spines to pry grubs out of branches was simply irrelevant.4

Bad welfare may hinder an animal’s natural ability to learn. This was apparent in a recent experiment with broiler breeders, originally aiming to explore their dietary preferences. The parents of chickens slaughtered for meat are always hungry because their genetics are so warped that, were they allowed to eat all they wanted, they would die of obesity, skeletal and heart problems and would have problems with fertility. Says researcher Louise Buckley, “Our findings came as such a surprise. We had originally expected that hungry birds would be able to learn a task that gave them more food. After all, they should have been very motivated to learn a task that made them less hungry! Instead, we found that being very hungry really did make these chickens ‘bird – brained.” 5

The chicken industry is not the only industry whose breeding animals suffer from learning deficits and other psychological problems. American scientists obtained, for the first time, quantitative evidence that the welfare of breeder dogs in “puppy mills” is very poor. (You risk supporting puppy mills if you buy a puppy from a pet shop or another place where you can’t see the mother in a home environment.) They compared hundreds of ex-breeders to pet dogs and found that the former were much more fearful of humans, animals, stairs, and just about anything. Ex-breeders were also less trainable and more likely to soil the house, among other problems. The authors stress, however, that such dogs can be rehabilitated with patience and skill, and should be given the chance to live normal lives in adoptive homes.6

Another dog study examined the effect of various factors on the interactions between dogs during walks, in the Czech town of Brno. Not surprisingly, dogs of opposite genders played with each other more often and threatened each other less than did dogs of the same gender. The gender of the owners also played a role: when both owners were men, dogs were four times more likely to show a threat or bite than when both owners were women. The leash was also a factor, as dogs who were off-leash behaved more benevolently towards each other. Maybe the reason is that some owners transmit their tension to the dog by pulling on the lead when another dog approaches, or maybe a tied dog simply feels more vulnerable.7

Instead of a conclusion, one final nod goes to our own teammate Anna Claxton, who, inspired by her big cat project, published a review article about the value of bonding time between zoo animals and their keepers. The keeper-animal relationship, she says, is actually a form of enrichment for a creature in captivity, and has the potential not only to reduce its fear in the presence of unfamiliar people (zoo visitors) and other ‘strange stuff’, but even to teach it to enjoy them. For more information, I’ve referenced Anna’s article below.8

Photo by Benchill (Wikimedia Commons)

Journal sources:

1 Chiyo, P., Archie, E., Hollister-Smith, J., Lee, P., Poole, J., Moss, C., and Alberts, S. (2011) “Association patterns of African elephants in all-male groups: the role of age and genetic relatedness.” Animal Behaviour 81: 1093-1099.

2 Bradshaw, G.A., Schore, A.N., Brown, J.L., Poole, J.H. & Moss, C.J. (2005) “Elephant breakdown.” Nature 433: 807.

3 Medina, F., Taylor, A., Hunt, G., and Gray, R. (2011) “New Caledonian crows’ responses to mirrors.” Animal Behaviour 82: 981-993.

4 Teschke, I., Cartmill, E., Stankewitz, S., and Tebbich, S. (2011) “Sometimes tool use is not the key: no evidence for cognitive adaptive specializations in tool-using woodpecker finches.” Animal Behaviour 82: 945-956.

5 Buckley, L., Sandilands, V., Tolkamp, B., and D’Eath, R. (2011) “Quantifying hungry broiler breeder dietary preferences using a closed economy T-maze task”. Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133: 216-227.

6 McMillan, F., Duffy, D., and Serpell, J. (2011) “Mental health of dogs formerly used as ‘breeding stock’ in commercial breeding establishments.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 135: 86-94.

7 Rezac, P., Viziova, P., Dobesova, M., Havlicek, Z., and Pospisilova, D. (2011) “Factors affecting dog–dog interactions on walks with their owners.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 134: 170-176.

8 Claxton, A. (2011) “The potential of the human–animal relationship as an environmental enrichment for the welfare of zoo-housed animals.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133: 1-10.

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

Unnecessary? Maybe so, but the fact is that modern-day people, who consume meat and dairy at unprecedented rates, need to re-learn such simple facts of animal existence. Last year, I went to the cinema to see Emmanuel Gras’s documentary Bovines – a film with no music or words – and I was mesmerised by how blissful a cow could look when her friend was massaging her face with her thick tongue. There was no difference between that so-called “beef cattle” and my street dog Tracy, who could fall asleep during a belly rub, and myself, who will melt like warm butter if anyone plays with my hair. And, as much as the licking, grazing and apple-picking were cute to watch, the documentary left me deeply troubled when it ended with the mother cows mooing in distressed chorus when their calves were taken away. Their anxiety was obvious, and heart-breaking.

Licking and disruption of social bonds – precisely the two things those research projects studied… Why all the science then? Can’t we just get more people to watch films or, better yet, go out in the fields (while cows can still be found in fields) and observe? Unfortunately, the industry stakeholders have powerful lobbies, and in the current zeitgeist “hard facts” seem to fare better than common knowledge or intuition when animal defenders appeal to lawmaking bodies for change. That’s also how the EU supposedly reaches its decisions. Consider their Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, for example:

This independent Scientific Committee gives the Commission high quality scientific advice on animal health and animal welfare issues. The Committee considers all available and up-to-date scientific data and evidence and provides the Commission with a sound scientific basis for the drafting of legislation and other proposals.

The scientific method has another practical value in contemporary animal protection: it is good at yielding numbers. When an animal welfare problem is also a production problem, such as feather pecking in barn and free-range hens, the farmers may want the problem “quantified” in order to decide if it will be profitable to do something to solve it. How many hens die in these aggressive incidents that wouldn’t otherwise die in the battery cage (or, post 1-1-2012, the “enriched cage”)? If there is a solution to reduce deaths without going back to the cage system, what does it cost – and just how effective is it?

Anyone who looks at a flock of content house chickens can notice things they have that most of their commercially-farmed relatives, even the free-range ones, do not. Not only more space, but space filled with stuff: grass and litter to explore, suitable nests (hens are very picky about them), perches to feel safe, a rooster – harem bodyguard … And – if allowed to roam around freely – bushes and trees. Domestic chickens evolved from the wild jungle fowl, and to this day they need to feel the safety of the “jungle,” the way you and I need clothes in public even when the weather is fine.

A few years ago, McDonalds UK required all of its egg suppliers to plant trees for their laying hens. Then last year, scientists published the results of a project done in collaboration with McDonalds, which showed how much the birds’ injuries were reduced in proportion to the canopy cover. The more shady trees, the better, it turned out – in terms that even the profit-minded businessman would understand. In contrast, merely increasing space was not very effective.2

Instead of a conclusion, I think it worthy to mention that sometimes behavioural research does yield results that are curious and counter-intuitive (to some people at least)… even when the subject is a familiar domesticated species. An article published last spring revealed that with dog training, repetition is not necessarily the mother of learning. Dogs who are trained by the ‘crash course’ method, daily and/or in more than one training session per day, learn the task more slowly than dogs who are trained at a more leisurely pace – just once or twice a week, and not more than once a day. It appears that their minds need enough time – including nights full of dreaming – to process the new knowledge in peace…3

Journal sources:

1 Laister, Simone; Barbara Stockinger, Anna-Maria Regnera, Karin Zengera, Ute Knierim and Christoph Winckler (2011). “Social licking in dairy cattle—Effects on heart rate in performers and receivers.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 130: 81-90.

2 Bright, A., Brass, D., Clachan, J., Drake, K.A. and A.D. Joret (2011). “Canopy cover is correlated with reduced injurious feather pecking in commercial flocks of free-range laying hens.” Animal Welfare 20: 329-338.

3 Demand, Helle; Jan Ladewig, Thorsten J.S. Balsby and Torben Dabelsteen (2011). “The effect of frequency and duration of training sessions on acquisition and long-term memory in dogs.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 133: 228– 234.

Lika Yanko - Self-Potrait with a Dog, 1962

Contributed by Alina Lilova

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.

Dogs and Wolves

In the well-publicized recent work by Adam Miklosi and his colleagues in Hungary, dogs were shown to be better than hand-raised wolves at reading human social cues. For example, they tend to understand that when you point a finger at an object, it means “hey, look at that!” Both wolves and dogs have developed an analogous signal for communicating with their own species – they orientate their whole body in order to point to a certain direction – so that alone cannot explain the difference that was observed. It seems more likely that dogs have evolved to understand the human way of pointing, and wolves have not because they sort of don’t care.

In a similar vein of findings, dogs gaze at people when in need of help – but wolves do it far less. Miklosi et al. also showed that their hand-raised wolf pups generally preferred the company of a dog over that of a human, while the opposite was true of dog pups. It is also worth noting that people, in turn, seem to be instinctively proficient in telling apart the different kinds of dog barks. Scientists speculate that the reason why dogs bark in so many situations has to do with their co-evolution with humans – “the other ‘noisy’ terrestrial mammal on Earth.”

Theory of Mind

American psychologists Kundey et al. devised an interesting experiment to test whether dogs take into consideration what people around them can or cannot hear. The results were published last year in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science. Twenty shelter dogs and twenty private pets each had to choose food from one of two plastic containers – one ‘silent,’ the other ‘noisy.’ The dogs were first taught that the humans didn’t want them to ‘steal’ food from a plate (using “No!” or a similar command). Then they were presented with the containers, which were filled with tasty treats. The containers looked exactly the same: transparent, open at the front, with brass jingle bells hung across the opening. However, the ringers from the bells had been removed in the silent container. With the dog watching, the experimenter would place the treats into each container and carefully demonstrate which one made noise and which one didn’t. Then she would either sit between the two containers looking straight ahead, or hold her head between her knees, facing the ground. Each dog was then given 30 seconds to approach the containers.

The results showed that when the experimenter was looking, less than half of the dogs approached the silent container. In other words, it didn’t matter if the woman was going to hear their transgression because she could see it anyway.  However, when the experimenter wasn’t looking, almost all dogs went up to the silent container – 19 out of 20. They paid attention to what the human would hear and tried to be stealthy.

Findings like these provide evidence that animals have some “theory of mind” – the ability to imagine what others know or believe. The brass bells and the whole set-up of the experiment were new to the dogs. They wouldn’t have been able to calculate in a robotic fashion what’s likely to happen if bells go “jingle-jingle” when you swallow a salami. The authors point out that various species – primates, goats, members of the crow family – have demonstrated a similar ability to benefit from Knowing If Others Know.

The Stray Way

The shelter dogs in Kundey’s study were all found as strays, rather than surrendered by their owners. Yet they did just as well as the pet dogs in deciphering the signals (contrary to what some previous studies had found). The authors suggest a possible explanation – that stray animals, including dogs, often need to find food without being noticed by nearby humans.

Maybe there are a lot of non-pet animals living in close association with humans who are able to read us with surprising skill. It would be nice if we had urban “Jane Goodall’s” venturing out to the many so-called less developed cities and villages of the world to do field studies of the behaviour of free-ranging dogs. We could learn a lot about the evolution, cognitive capacities and psychological needs of our companions.

Of course, some studies have already been done, and scientists usually divide free-ranging dogs into several categories based on their dependence on humans – from owned dogs allowed to roam without supervision to completely feral animals. In my home town of Sofia, the most conspicuous street dogs are probably community pets who live near apartment blocks and on parking lots. They are generally well socialised and attached to certain people but don’t lavish attention on strangers. There are also feral dogs who have to make it on their own in abandoned factory yards or remote wooded areas. They are wary of humans and avoid contact, more like urban foxes in the UK, coyotes in American cities, and pariah dogs in Asia.

However, there is another broad class of dogs that I feel would make a very interesting object of behavioural observation: the street-savvy downtown dwellers who live in the most crowded places of the city. What beggar tactics do they employ towards the large variety of people they meet? How do they cope with the traffic? Are they less territorial? How big are their home ranges? And how about those few who learn to ride on public transportation? A docile temperament, flexibility and high sensitivity to human social cues would all be necessary for success in such an environment.

Cute metro rider in Moscow:

A Personal Story

A month ago my friend and I had a hilarious encounter with just such a smart and hypersocial four-legged citizen. She was a chubby, spayed female who apparently went by the name Siamese (no, she was not a cat!). She bumped into our bench in Borisova Garden while playing with another dog. It took only one word and a brief stroke, and she was all over me: she hopped on the bench, onto my lap, nearly climbed on my head, licking my nose and wagging her tail frantically – behaving as if we were old friends. It was a total assault, and most unexpected! (I have to say my friend was quite startled by this extreme display of affection ). The dog was well versed in people behaviour and knew, on the basis of my one-second signals, that her tactic would pay off. It immediately made me feel as if we were old friends indeed, and Siamese gained 15 minutes of company for her walk and even a little food treat.

Together with her playmate, she followed us around and ran up to other benches to say hello. The dogs’ antics seemed to be well tolerated by some people and not so much by others, but the animals acted as if fully aware when it was going to “work” and when it wasn’t. When told off, they did not persist, yet did not appear to lose their good spirits. Siamese strutted around like she owned the place. The second dog vanished, but she followed us right to the end of the park and into the downtown area. There she waited patiently at two very busy streets, and from experience I knew not to worry about her. She would stand on the sidewalk with her head tilted slightly sideways, perhaps watching the cars go by, and would start crossing just before the traffic light changed to green. My friend, a psychologist, wondered if she was going along with the crowd, but then noticed that Siamese was putting her feet on the street before any of the human pedestrians. The dog paid attention to the cars, the people – to the traffic lights.

Behind me, a boy was telling a girl the story of a dog who had taken to riding on trams: “They learn,” he said to her, and he was right. We don’t see a lot of downtown strays who lack the ability to dodge traffic or cross the street along the shortest route. The reason is simple and sad – those who cannot learn, often do not make it to adulthood…

Cars are surely a new evolutionary pressure for the domestic dog as well as for the cat and many other animals, both in towns and in the countryside – almost as if a new super predator has appeared on the face of the Earth – and if not for the widespread use of dog leashes and the restriction of cats indoors, perhaps the entire dog and cat populations would be turning “traffic smart” by now. I do advocate keeping your dog on a lead when out in the streets (not just the busiest streets), but observing free souls like Siamese reminds me that everything has pros and cons.

This is like the debate over children’s right to play: how safe is too safe? The kids of both human and nonhuman mammals love a good game, and they learn a lot of vital physical and social skills in play situations that involve some risk and danger. Parents as well as pet owners, and society as a whole, need to be creative and think up environments that are both challenging and safe enough, so that young minds can develop to their full natural potential.*

*For more on that, you can read the article “Play, Play, and Play Some More: Let Children Be the Animals They Have the Right to Be” on ethologist Mark Bekoff’s blog.

Sources:

Kundey, Shannon, et al. “Domesticated dogs (Canis familiaris) react to what others can and cannot hear.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 126 (2010), pp. 45-50.

Miklosi, Adam. “Human-Animal Interactions and Social Cognition in Dogs.” In The Behavioural Biology of Dogs, ed. by Per Jensen, CAB International 2007.