In his remarkable book, Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter, environmental journalist Ben Goldfarb recounts the impact of the fur trade in decimating a continent’s beaver population, followed by the gradual realization of conservationists that this large rodent provided more than the raw materials for men’s hats.
A recently published study in the journal Science (Slabe et al., 2022) documented alarmingly high levels of lead in bald and golden eagle populations across the United States.
EARTH A New Wild is an upcoming series that will air on PBS and document a five-year, global journey, capturing encounters between wild animals and the people who live and work among them. The five episodes focus on different habitats and aspects of human-wildlife interactions: Home, Plains, Forests, Ocean and Water.
At its heart an ethnography, Eating the Ocean, by gender and culture professor Elspeth Probyn, is a challenging and unexpected contribution to the growing “food politics” genre. Although focused on questions concerning the sustainability of eating (and growing) seafood, the book has a basis in storytelling.
In 1987, eight years before gray wolves were released into Yellowstone National Park, the US Fish and Wildlife Service performed their first successful attempt at reintroducing a top carnivore into the wild. This took place not in the remote backcountry of the Rocky Mountains, but in the flat and swampy terrain of eastern North Carolina, where the Service decided to release red wolves into the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge.
In the Summer 2011 AWI Quarterly, AWI reported on the Yasuni-ITT Initiative—whereby the Ecuadorian government sought US$3.6 billion in financial contributions from the international community in exchange for a commitment by Ecuador to forego oil drilling in Yasuni National Park.
Environmental enrichment is designed to promote the behavioral health of understimulated nonhuman primates by providing them with species-appropriate conditions for the expression of species-typical behavioral dispositions (cf. USDA, 1991; CCAC, 1993). Housing nonhuman primates in permanent social isolation in barren cages raises self-evident ethical concerns.
There is a growing awareness that non-human primates kept in zoos and laboratories deserve more species-appropriate stimulation because of their biological adaptation to a challenging environment. Numerous attempts have been made to effectively emulate the gathering and processing aspects of natural feeding. Whole natural food items, woodchips mixed with seeds, the puzzle ceiling and the puzzle feeder stocked with ordinary biscuits, cost little or nothing but induce sustained food gathering and/or food processing.
Autoaggression and stereotypies in individually housed cynomolgus monkeys were compared in a standard primate cage and an enriched playpen environment. Stereotypy and autoaggression were markedly reduced in the playpen, but reappeared on return to the home cage. Some of the various activities available in the playpen but not others engaged the animals' attention.
Once an animal has been removed from its natural habitat every effort should be made not only to simulate the natural environment but also to ensure that the animal displays ecologically valid behaviour (Forthman Quick, 1984). Neither natural settings nor natural behaviour can be duplicated in captivity; however, complex captive settings may discourage the development of abnormal behaviour, induce activity and facilitate normal social behaviour and reproduction (Clarke et al., 1982). Markowitz (1975-79,1982, cited in Forthman Quick, 1984) has agreed that captive animals should exert some form of control over their environment.
For captive primates, environmental enrichment may improve psychological well-being, as indicated by changes in the frequency of species-typical and abnormal behaviours. The effects of enrichment on physical well-being have also been examined, but little attention has been devoted to the relationship between enrichment and animal health. We therefore studied the health records of 98 rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) to measure the effects that enrichment and social housing manipulations had on the number of veterinary treatments and days of therapy required by the monkeys.
At the University of Notre Dame we have a system in place that allows the principle investigators to utilize our trained laboratory animal technicians and registered veterinary technicians to perform routine animal procedures such as blood sampling.
The purpose of this study was to observe as many gorilla groups as possible and to compare their behaviour in different exhibits, social structures and visitor situation. Gorillas were studied in 15 zoos, they lived in 14 groups with male and female adults and immatures, 2 groups of adults without immatures, 3 adult pairs, 2 solitary silverbacks and several groups of immatures.
In July, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Representatives Adam Schiff (D-CA), Jared Huffman (D-CA), and Suzan DelBene (D-WA) introduced the Strengthening Welfare in Marine Settings (SWIMS) Act (HR 8514/S 4740).
In April, the Prohibit Wildlife Killing Contests Act (HR 7398) was introduced in the House by Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) to bar organizing, sponsoring, conducting, or participating in most types of wildlife killing contests on more than 500
Today the National Marine Fisheries Service announced a positive 60-day finding on a petition to designate the Sakhalin Bay-Amur River beluga whale population in the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, as depleted under the US Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). The petition was submitted by the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), Cetacean Society International (CSI), and the International Marine Mammal Project (IMMP) of the Earth Island Institute, on April 23rd, 2014. The petition was submitted to seek additional protections for this beluga population, which is the principal target of an ongoing global trade in live whales for the captive display industry.
In September 2021, AWI, along with the Center for Biological Diversity and VIVA Vaquita, petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to list the Atlantic humpback dolphin as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
In the former administration’s final days, the US Fish and Wildlife Service published a rule that weakens the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) by no longer penalizing individuals and corporations for the “incidental” killing of birds protected und
Recently, the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association teamed up with the National Association of SARA Title III Program Officials—an organization that represents emergency response and planning officials across all levels of government—to produce and disseminate a series of informational videos focused on emergency planning.
United Egg Producers (UEP), an industry group representing the interests of egg farmers throughout the United States, says it will seek to eliminate the culling of male chicks. Because male chicks cannot produce eggs—and other breeds are used to produce meat chickens—males of the egg-producing breeds have no economic value.
While most news for imperiled species is quite dire this year, North America’s largest flying bird is bucking the trend. California condors came frighteningly close to extinction: in 1982, just 22 birds survived in the wild.
Eight members of Congress were recognized yesterday by leading national conservation groups for their critical role in protecting the Endangered Species Act. The “Champions of the Endangered Species Act” reception featured former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and honored Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Tom Udall (D-NM), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and House members Don Beyer (D-VA), Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ), Betty McCollum (D-MN), and Niki Tsongas (D-MA).
The bipartisan Ejiao Act would prohibit the transport, sale, and purchase within the United States of products containing ejiao and of donkeys and donkey hides for the production of ejiao.
