Concerns about the welfare of animals typically include 3 questions: is the animal functioning well (e.g., good health, productivity, etc.), is the animal feeling well (e.g., absence of pain, etc.), ...and is the animal able to live according to its nature (e.g., perform natural behaviors that are thought to be important to it, such as grazing)? We review examples, primarily from our own research, showing how all 3 questions can be addressed using science. For example, we review work showing 1) how common diseases such as lameness can be better identified and prevented through improvements in the ways cows are housed and managed, 2) how pain caused by dehorning of dairy calves can be reduced, and 3) how environmental conditions affect cow preferences for indoor housing versus pasture. Disagreements about animal welfare can occur when different measures are used. For example, management systems that favor production may restrict natural behavior or can even lead to higher rates of disease. The best approaches are those that address all 3 types of concerns, for example, feeding systems for calves that allow expression of key behaviors (i.e., sucking on a teat), that avoid negative affect (i.e., hunger), and that allow for improved functioning (i.e., higher rates of body weight gain, and ultimately higher milk production).
In this provocative inquiry into the status of animals in human society from the fifth century BC to the present, Rod Preece provides a wholly new perspective on the human-animal relationship.
Melson examines children's many connections to animals and to explore their developmental significance. She looks not only at the therapeutic power of pet-owning for children with handicaps, but also ...the ways in which zoo and farm animals, and even certain TV characters, become confidants or teachers for children--and sometimes, their victims.
Eat this book Lestel, Dominique
2016., 20160308, 2016, 2016-03-08
eBook
If we want to improve the treatment of animals, Dominique Lestel argues, we must acknowledge our evolutionary impulse to eat them and we must expand our worldview to see how others consume meat ...ethically and sustainably. The position of vegans and vegetarians is unrealistic and exclusionary.Eat This Bookcalls at once for a renewed and vigorous defense of animal rights and a more open approach to meat eating that turns us into responsible carnivores.
Lestel skillfully synthesizes Western philosophical views on the moral status of animals and holistic cosmologies that recognize human-animal reciprocity. He shows that the carnivore's position is more coherently ethical than vegetarianism, which isolates humans from the world by treating cruelty, violence, and conflicting interests as phenomena outside of life. Describing how meat eaters assume completely-which is to say, metabolically-their animal status, Lestel opens our eyes to the vital relation between carnivores and animals and carnivores' genuine appreciation of animals' life-sustaining flesh. He vehemently condemns factory farming and the terrible footprint of industrial meat eating. His goal is to recreate a kinship between humans and animals that reminds us of what it means to be tied to the world.
The seventeen contributions to this volume, written by leading experts, show that animals and humans in Graeco-Roman antiquity are interconnected on a variety of different levels and that their ...encounters and interactions often result from their belonging to the same structures, 'networks' and communities or at least from finding themselves together in a certain setting, context or environment - wittingly or unwittingly. Papers explore the concrete categories of interaction between animals and humans that can be identified, in what contexts they occur, and what types of evidence can be productively used to examine the concept of interactions. Articles in this volume take into account literary, visual, and other types of evidence. A comprehensive research bibliography is also provided.
Animals at Work Hamilton, Lindsay; Taylor, Nik
2013, 2013-05-31, Volume:
16
eBook
Animals at Work considers the ways in which humans make meaning from their interactions with non-humans in a range of organizations. This is done through ethnographic research in a range of ...workplaces, from farms and slaughter-houses to rescue shelters and veterinary practices.
Spatial memory and animal movement Fagan, William F; Lewis, Mark A; Auger‐Méthé, Marie ...
Ecology letters,
October 2013, Volume:
16, Issue:
10
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Memory is critical to understanding animal movement but has proven challenging to study. Advances in animal tracking technology, theoretical movement models and cognitive sciences have facilitated ...research in each of these fields, but also created a need for synthetic examination of the linkages between memory and animal movement. Here, we draw together research from several disciplines to understand the relationship between animal memory and movement processes. First, we frame the problem in terms of the characteristics, costs and benefits of memory as outlined in psychology and neuroscience. Next, we provide an overview of the theories and conceptual frameworks that have emerged from behavioural ecology and animal cognition. Third, we turn to movement ecology and summarise recent, rapid developments in the types and quantities of available movement data, and in the statistical measures applicable to such data. Fourth, we discuss the advantages and interrelationships of diverse modelling approaches that have been used to explore the memory–movement interface. Finally, we outline key research challenges for the memory and movement communities, focusing on data needs and mathematical and computational challenges. We conclude with a roadmap for future work in this area, outlining axes along which focused research should yield rapid progress.
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