Showing papers on "Animal welfare published in 1997"

The Abuse of Animals and Domestic Violence: A National Survey of Shelters for Women who are Battered

Abstract: The maltreatment of animals, usually companion animals, may occur in homes where there is domestic violence, yet we have limited information about the prevalence of such maltreatment. We surveyed the largest shelters for women who are battered in 49 states and the District of Columbia. Shelters were selected if they provided overnight facilities and programs or services for children. Ninety-six percent of the shelters responded. Analysis revealed that it is common for shelters to serve women and children who talk about companion animal abuse. However, only a minority of respondents indicated that they systematically ask about companion animal maltreatment in their intake interview. We discuss the implications of these results for domestic violence programs, animal welfare organizations, and programs serving children of women who are battered by their partners.

Childhood Cruelty to Animals: Assessing Cruelty Dimensions and Motivations

Abstract: Preventing and treating childhood cruelty to animals will require a) qualitative, as well as quantitative, assessment methods and b) specification of the varied motivations for such behavior. Although some information is available about the prevalence and frequency of animal maltreatment in samples of children and adolescents, especially those diagnosed with Conduct Disorder, other dimensions of such maltreatment (e.g., severity, chronicity) are only beginning to be explored.We describe the research and development process leading to construction of a semi-structured interview, the Children and Animals (Cruelty to Animals) Assessment Instrument (CAAI), for use with children over four years of age and their parents, to obtain information on animal maltreatment. The CAAI was field-tested with a community and clinical sample of twenty children and included children in day treatment and residential programs for emotionally disturbed youth, incarcerated adolescents, and children accompanying their moth...

Pet Ownership and Adults' Views on the Use of Animals

Abstract: Four hundred and twenty-two adults completed a postal questionnaire in which they provided information regarding pet ownership and their attitudes toward 13 issues involving the use of animals. Over 63% of the sample owned a household pet, with the dog being the most common. Household pets were more commonly owned by respondents who were married, younger than 65 years of age, living in detached houses, or with a child/children present in the home. Most concern was expressed toward those types of animal uses which lead to death or injury, especially dog fighting. Females expressed more disagreement than males with most of the uses o f animals examined. Dog owners expressed more approval offox-hunting and hare-coursing than non-dog owners, and horse owners expressed more approval offox-hunting than non-horse owners. This study reveals that some of the ways in which people use animals are considered more acceptable than others, and suggests that it is incorrect to group different kinds of animal use into one broad category. The authors argue that future years may see a shift in the way society uses animals, from manipulation toward care for their well-being.

Ethical Decision Making About Animal Experiments

Abstract: Laboratory animals, being vulnerable subjects, need the protection provided by adequate ethical review. This review falls primarily to Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees. A review committee's first duty is to identify which procedures ethically are unacceptable irrespective of any knowledge that might be derived. Examples are provided. These projects should be disapproved. Then, "on balance" judgments are assessed that weigh the animal harms against the potential benefits to humans. Several countries (but not the United States) use a classification system for ranking the degree of animal pain and distress. This type of assessment is essential for careful ethical analysis. Another way to enhance ethical discussion is to strive for a more balanced perspective of different viewpoints among members of decision making committees. Inclusion of representatives of animal welfare organizations and a greater proportion of nonanimal researchers would likely achieve this objective.

Ethical aspects and dilemmas of fertility control of unwanted wildlife: an animal welfarist's perspective.

Abstract: Proposals to manipulate the fertility of wild, free-living animals extend the domination humans already exercise over domesticated animals. Current lethal methods for population control include poisoning, trapping, hunting, dogging, shooting, explosives, fumigants, and deliberately introduced disease. Animal welfare interests are based on individual animal suffering, but those interests are often overshadowed by labelling of groups of animals as pests, resource species, national emblem or endangered species. Public concern for animal welfare and acceptance of new population control methods will be influenced by such labels. The animal welfare implications of new population control technology must be balanced against the existing inhumane lethal methods used. It will be difficult to resolve the dilemma of a mechanism for disseminating a fertility control agent that will cause some animal suffering (e.g. a genetically-manipulated myxoma virus for European rabbits), yet may reduce future rabbit populations and therefore the number suffering from lethal methods. An Animal Impact Statement is proposed as a tool to assist debate during development of fertility control methods and for decision making prior to their use. A comprehensive and objective Animal Impact Statement may introduce an ethic that moves the pendulum from attitudes that allow sentient animals to be destroyed by any and all available means, towards a more objective selection of the most effective and humane methods.

The importance of food presentation for animal welfare and conservation.

Abstract: The feeding of all captive animals is more complex than offering a diet with the correct balance of nutrients; the diet should be offered in a manner that is appropriate for the reasons why that animal is kept in captivity. The roles of the modern zoo are to conserve species from extinction, to educate people about conservation, to provide a place of scientific research and to provide a place of public entertainment (Tudge, 1991). Underpinning these four roles is the welfare of the animals. Thus, an appropriate feeding programme for zoo-housed animals must consider the diet in terms of nutrients and how the diet is presented to the animals in terms of the four objectives of modern zoos and animal welfare. TYPE OF FOOD OFFERED TO CARNIVORES Within many of the world’s zoological collections three types of food are commonly offered to obligate carnivores such as felids; these are, whole carcasses, prepared (muscle) meat and complete (soft textured) diets. Each of these types of foods offered can create problems with physical health, animal welfare, re-introduction or animal husbandry.

From babirusa (Babyrousa babyrussa) to domestic pig: the nutrition of swine.

Abstract: Interest in the nutrition of wild and captive wild animals has grown exponentially during the last few years. In the past, the amount of research carried out on domesticated animals, mainly geared towards improving economic efficiency of production of meat and dairy products, vastly outweighed research performed on wild animals. During the last two decades heightened public awareness of the need for nature conservation and for respect for animal welfare have brought new reasons for, and meaning to, further research in the fields of both domestic and wild animal nutrition. As natural habitat becomes more and more fragmented and as wild animals are more and more confined to protected wildlife areas designated by man, a thorough knowledge of the feeding ecology of the wild animals living in these areas becomes essential for the successful conservation of these species. Furthermore, assisting nature conservation now constitutes one of the main goals of modem zoos

Ethics and the Genetic Engineering of Food Animals

Abstract: Biotechnology applied to traditional foodanimals raises ethical issues in three distinctcategories. First are a series of issues that arise inthe transformation of pigs, sheep, cattle and otherdomesticated farm animals for purposes that deviatesubstantially from food production, including forxenotransplantation or production of pharmaceuticals.Ethical analysis of these issues must draw upon theresources of medical ethics; categorizing them asagricultural biotechnologies is misleading. The secondseries of issues relate to animal welfare. Althoughone can stipulate a number of different philosophicalfoundations for the ethical assessment of welfare,most either converge on Bernard Rollin‘s ’’principle ofwelfare conservation‘‘ (Rollin, 1995), or devolve intodebates over the ethical significance of animaltelos or species integrity. The principle of welfareconservation prohibits disfunctional geneticengineering of food animals, but would permit alteringanimal‘s biological functions, especially when (as inmaking animals less susceptable to pain or suffering)do so improves an individual animal‘s well being.Objections to precisely this last form of geneticengineering stress telos or species integrity asconstraints on modification of animals, and thisrepresents the third class of ethical issues. Most whohave formulated such arguments have failed to developcoherent positions, but the notion of ’’species being,‘‘derived from the 19th century German tradition,presents a promising way to analyze the basis forresisting the transformation of ’’animal natures.‘‘

The rights of humans and other animals.

Abstract: Human moral rights place justified limits on what people are free to do to one another. Animals also have moral rights, and arguments to support the use of animals in scientific research based on the benefits allegedly derived from animal model research are thus invalid. Animals do not belong in laboratories because placing them there, in the hope of benefits for others, violates their rights.

Models of motivational decision-making and how they affect the experimental assessment of motivational priorities

Abstract: Measuring motivation has recently become a key issue in animal welfare, yet it can be difficult to implement in practice and even more difficult to apply validly to the specific animals whose welfare it is hoped to improve. Ethologists have modelled motivation in a number of ways. Here, we review these models (along with consumer demand approaches) to identify some of the factors that need to be controlled to conduct experiments with maximum internal and external validity. They indicate that to conduct experiments that make valid assessments of animals’ priorities, bouts of behaviour should not be curtailed, measurements should not be restricted to only one period or context and subjects should be kept in closed economies; time spent with resource should not be used as the only measure of consumption, as rate can vary with motivation and if demand curves are desired, the cost paid and amount of opportunity ‘bought’ must co-vary. Having avoided these pitfalls, further factors must be taken into account to ensure external validity. Animals’ priorities are affected by many aspects of their internal state and external environment, including the presence of eliciting stimuli, the number of behavioural opportunities available and the size of their time and energy budgets. A well fed animal in an enriched enclosure with excess energy but only limited time to allocate to many different activities would thus be likely to have quite different priorities from an under-fed animal with excess time available, housed in a barren environment. Hence studies of the former could not validly be applied to improve the welfare of the latter.

The nutritional choices of farm animals: to eat or what to eat?

Abstract: Irrespective of whether farm animals are given access to a single homogeneous food or to two or more heterogeneous foods as a choice, their feeding behaviour raises one of two questions (i) how much to eat, and (ii) what to eat? Despite frequent comment to the contrary, their feeding behaviour appears to be goal-orientated rather than random or purposeless. I therefore consider first the goals of farm animals in relation to their feeding behaviour. In general it is accepted that the overall biological framework in which all animals are trying to maximize fitness’ also applies to farm animals. However, some modification is called for in order to account for those situations in which intensive genetic selection has led to relatively ‘unfit’ reproducing animals and for those cases where animals are given access to foods which have not figured in their evolution On the basis that feeding behaviour is goal orientated, I then consider whether farm animals achieve their goals by monitoring their behaviour in the short or longer term. The conclusion drawn is that while short-term feeding behaviour may be a device to exploit the feeding environment effectively, it is largely unrelated to short-term fluctuations in an animal’s internal state. By contrast, longer-term feeding behaviour is very closely related to longer-term change in internal state, implying the maintenance of close control over feeding behaviour in terms of food intake and diet selection. All animals, including farm animals, are considered to be creatures of habit which maintain habitual feeding behaviour until a change is provoked by a significant alteration in their internal state. Such an alteration requires to be of significantly large magnitude and to be unlike the usual short-term, systematic fluctuations which occur over a day in the profiles of metabolites or hormones. Based on this premise, I contend that the mechanisms by which these disturbances are perceived by the animal will be general rather than specific. The notion that animals can fully achieve their goals by monitoring their feeding behaviour is obviously applicable in situations where they are given appropriate nutritional choices. Where animals are given inadequate or inappropriate choices, as is predominantly the case with farm animals, their feeding behaviour is designed to bring them as close as possible to their goals. Finally I consider the relevance of nutritional choices to farm animals by addressing the possibility of exploiting the goal orientation of feeding behaviour. I conclude that greater recognition of the goal-orientated nature of farm animals’ feeding behaviour can bring benefits in three areas: (i) improved biological understanding of animals’ goals; (ii) improved animal welfare; and (iii) improved animal performance.

Environmental choices of farm animals

Abstract: To assess farm animal welfare we need to understand how animals make choices and how these choices relate to preference strength. Studies of environmental choice can be categorized by the method used to investigate them, or by the underlying basis on which the animal is choosing. Choices made between resources that vary along a single dimension should meet certain criteria e.g. those of transitivity. Choices made between resources that vary along more than one dimension may or may not meet these criteria, depending how the animal evaluates each option. Understanding how farm animals choose will allow the results of individual experiments to be applied in a wider context. It is also important to know how preferences are formed during development. Evidence suggests that preferences for nests and pecking substrates in hens may be influenced by prefunctional experience. Experimental data from studies of environmental choice may enable us either to provide important resources in commercial systems, or to provide facilities for animals to continue to make their own decisions.

Evaluation of a pet loss support hotline

Abstract: This article outlines a qualitative pilot study which evaluates the Pet Loss Support Hotline at the Ohio State University Veterinary College. The study focuses on the veterinary and social work professions' understanding of the social and emotional aspects of pet loss by looking at the common themes of callers to the hotline and the hotline volunteers' reactions to the callers. Euthanasia and the lack of social supports were other frequent issues discussed by callers to the hotline

Role of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee in Monitoring Research

Abstract: During the 1980s, federal regulations transferred significant portions of the responsibility for monitoring the care and use of research animals from animal care programs to Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs). After a brief review of the history of the regulation of the use of animals in research preceding and during the 4 decades following World War II, this article raises 4 problems associated with the role IACUCs currently play in monitoring the use of animals in research: (a) lack of expertise, (b) diverted resources, (c) conflict of interest, and (d) restrictions of academic freedom. It is concluded that the care and treatment of animals used in research would be served better and organized more rationally if the day-to-day responsibilities for approving projects and caring for animals were separated more clearly from broader, oversight functions, with the former being assigned to animal care programs and the latter to IACUCs.

Animal rights and violent protest

Abstract: The arguments for the better treatment of animals underwent a dramatic change in the 1970s with the publication of Peter Singer's Animal Liberation and the work of Tom Regan. These new works challenged the previous moral orthodoxy which had suffused the animal welfare/protection movement and espoused the view, in the case of Regan, that animals had rights or, according to Singer, that they should be granted ‘equal consideration’. The 1970s also saw the emergence of new groups, such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), who were not only willing forcibly to free animals from laboratories, but also to employ violence in the fight against animal abuse. This article seeks to show that the appearance and development of such groups is related to the growth of the demand for animal rights/liberation at a philosophical level.

Laboratory exercise using "virtual rats" to teach endocrine physiology.

Abstract: Animal experimentation is limited in many curricula due to the expense, lack of adequate animal facilities and equipment, and limited experience of the teachers. There are also ethical concerns dealing with the comfort and safety of the animals. To overcome these obstacles, we developed a "dry laboratory" using "virtual rats." The "virtual rat" eliminates the obstacles inherent in animal experimentation, such as inadequate budgets, as well as avoiding important animal rights issues. Furthermore, no special materials are required for the completion of this exercise. Our goal in developing this dry laboratory was to create an experience that would provide students with an appreciation for the value of laboratory data collection and analysis. Students are exposed to the challenge of animal experimentation, experimental design, data collection, and analysis and interpretation without the issues surrounding the use of live animals.

Animal Welfare In Europe, European Legislation And Concerns

Abstract: Part 1 Analysis of major areas of concern for animal welfare in Europe farmed animals wild animals companion animals animal experimentation animals in sport entertainment and exhibitions animal welfare and the European Union treaty system animal welfare and international trade. Part 2 Summary of legislation relative to animal welfare at the levels of the European Community and the Council of Europe index to legislation judgments of the European Court of Justice wild animals farm animals animal experimentation genetic engineering and biotechnology companion animals animals - general.

Use of Feral Cats in Psychotherapy

Abstract: Animal-assisted therapy typically involves the use of domesticated, well controlled animals that are trained to permit approach behavior and interaction by patients. This report describes the use of undomesticated, feral cats as adjuncts to psychotherapy. This approach provides advantages not attainable when domesticated pets are used. Case examples are provided to illuminate the various applications of this unique therapeutic technique.