Humane treatment of farm animals is of increasing importance to consumers, according to a tracking poll conducted to help the food industry keep up-to-date on evolving consumer trends.
I used to associate cruelty against monkeys with pictures of individual animals subjected to experimental procedures that obviously inflicted extreme pain. Personally I see no ethical justification for any research which inflicts pain, distress or suffering on animals, and primates in particular.
In The Inner Life of Animals: Love, Grief, and Compassion— Surprising Observations of a Hidden World, author Peter Wohlleben expertly blends anecdote, personal observation, scientific conclusion, and inference from physiology and behavior to show us that a wide variety of animals experience a broad range of thoughts and feelings, many of which are very similar to our own.
Thomas McNamee provides a window into what makes cats tick in The Inner Life of Cats: The Science and Secrets of Our Mysterious Feline Companions. Anecdotes centering on his own cats, especially beloved Augusta, are interspersed with cat history, behavioral studies, linguistic analysis of the meow (you read that right), and even discourses on cat-related controversies, such as feral cats and the keeping of wild animals as pets.
Amy Hatkoff makes clear in her new book, The Inner World of Farm Animals: Their Amazing Social, Emotional, and Intellectual Capabilities, that these animals feel pleasure and sadness, excitement and resentment, depression, fear and pain.
Having been removed from the wild as an infant in 1982, the gorilla Julia became the focus of much controversy when bought by Dutch journalists and smuggled from Belgium into the Netherlands as part of an exposé on trade in endangered species. The ownership of her was eventually passed to the WWF Netherlands, and under their direction she was returned to Africa to lead a semi-wild existence in the Gambia in readiness for participation in an envisaged pilot gorilla rehabilitation project.
The International Whaling Commission, established in Washington, DC, and headquartered in the United Kingdom since the 1950s, celebrated its 75th anniversary on December 2, 2021.
The Killer Whale Who Changed the World, by Mark Leiren-Young, tells a fascinating story. Everything has to start somewhere, and captive display of this or that species is no exception. In most cases, the first time a wildlife species was displayed to amaze the public—especially a species that is extremely popular as an exhibit animal today.
Both the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate have passed versions of the 2013 Farm Bill, and the two chambers of Congress must now reconcile their respective bills and agree upon the provisions that will become law.
In The Last of the Butterflies: A Scientist’s Quest to Save a Rare and Vanishing Creature, Dr. Nick Haddad explores his journey to becoming a butterfly biologist and discusses how butterflies are the proverbial canary in the coal mine for species decline.
The Last Great Ape: A Journey Through Africa and a Fight for the Heart of the Continent, by Ofir Drori and David McDannald, chronicles the path of Ofir, an adventure seeker who leaves his Israeli homeland for Africa.
As part of an ethnographic study, Katja Guenther—an associate professor of gender and sexuality studies at UC Riverside—spent three years as a volunteer at a high-intake animal shelter in metropolitan Los Angeles. In the opening of The Lives and Deaths of Shelter Animals, we are introduced briefly to Monster, a pit bull slated to die the next day. Guenther’s book examines Monster’s death—and the deaths of many other such animals—in the context of multiple social processes linked to societal attitudes concerning race, class, gender, ability, and species.
Surprising to some, honey bees are not native to North America. In the book, The Lives of Bees: The Untold Story of the Honey Bee in the Wild, biologist Thomas Seeley writes that the dark European honey bee was brought to the northeast in the early 1600s. Commercial beekeepers refined systems for increasing the size and accessibility of beehives, boosting a colony’s honey production, and an industry was born.
A survey of 96 primatological articles revealed that cage location of research monkeys is rarely mentioned, although the environment of upper and lower row-housed animals markedly differs in terms of light quality, light intensity, and living dimension. Not accounting for these uncontrolled variables may increase variability of data and, consequently, the number of experimental animals needed to obtain statistically acceptable results. This study concluded that single-tier housing would be an important refinement of research methodology.
Intriguing studies and arresting anecdotes fill the pages of the new second edition of The Magic of Touch: Healing Effects of Animal Touch & Animal Presence, by Viktor and Annie Reinhardt.
Geoffroy's marmoset(Callithrix geoffroyi) originally occurred throughout the Atlantic forest area of southern Bahia, Espirito Santo and adjacent parts of Minas Gerais in south-eastern Brazil. Through habitat destruction and capture for the pet trade, it is now restricted to small forest fragments and has been pushed into the 'endangered' status.
When Massachusetts citizens voted overwhelmingly in 1996 to outlaw steel jaw leghold traps, other body-gripping traps, and snares for capturing fur-bearing animals, critics of the law loudly proclaimed that disaster was imminent.
As Rob Percival, author of The Meat Paradox: Eating, Empathy, and the Future of Meat, recounts, an Inuit shaman stated a century ago that “the greatest peril in life lies in the fact that human food consists entirely of souls.” Percival is head of policy for the Soil Association, a UK-based organic farming charity and, admittedly, a meat eater. Yet he advocates for “ethical meat consumption,” which he defines as eating less meat and eating only that which is produced under sustainable, organic, and higher-welfare conditions.
Captive rhesus macaques are not naturally aggressive, but poor husbandry and handling practices can trigger their aggression toward conspecifics and toward the human handler. The myth of the aggressive monkey probably is based on often not taking into account basic ethological principles when managing rhesus macaques in the research laboratory setting.
Photographer Andrew Garn’s book is a coffee table love letter to a bird that doesn’t always get much love. Garn explains their long history cohabitating with humans. He examines their physiology and development. He talks up their underrated intelligence. And he profiles pigeon people—the ones you see feeding the birds at the park or keeping coops on Brooklyn rooftops—who cherish these strutting, head-bobbing birds.
Recognition of individual animals enables detailed studies of movement patterns, foraging, life histories and survival. It is also important for understanding the ecology and behavior of species.
In this long-awaited sequel to Applegate’s Newbery Medal-winning 2012 book, The One and Only Ivan (recently adapted into a feature film streaming on Disney+), the Big Top Mall has closed and the animal residents have been dispersed to zoos and sanctuaries around the country. Ivan and Ruby, a baby elephant, now reside in the local zoo. Bob has found a home with the family of the former mall caretaker, but he’s having trouble settling in—even after a year he still has the sense that he has to find shelter, safety, somewhere to belong. And, although Bob bills himself as “untamed and undaunted,” deep down he believes himself to be a coward.
The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, a poignant book with a strong animal welfare theme, has won the 2013 Newbery Medal—a prestigious award given annually to the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children.
Grieving the loss of his beloved miniature pinscher Wolfgang, Steve Greig begins rescuing elderly, unwanted, “unadoptable” dogs, welcoming them into his Colorado home, and giving them a new lease on life. When he reaches nine, he decides his family is complete (to him, 10 dogs feels like too many, but eight just aren’t enough). Along the way, Greig also takes in Stuart the rabbit, Betty the chicken, and Bikini the pig—and together, they become the inseparable, incomparable, one and only Wolfgang.
South America’s Pantanal—one of the world’s most biodiverse regions—is burning with a ferocity not seen in the historic record, with devastating suffering and death inflicted on the wild animals who live there.
