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Living Conditions

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How To Assess Stress in Reptiles
This paper considers different methods to measure stress in reptiles, as well as the environmental factors that might lead to stress responses in the first place. There are many factors that could contribute to the stress of different species of reptiles, but this paper highlights capture and living in captivity as stressful situations that cause corticosteroid release in many reptile species. The author uses previously published literature to demonstrate how different levels of stress may result in different physiological responses in reptiles, and describes non-invasive, non-captive ways of measuring stress in reptile populations. READ MORE

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Towards a ‘Good Life’ for Farm Animals: Development of a Resource Tier Framework to Achieve Positive Welfare for Laying Hens
This paper by a group of researchers in the U.K., looks at ways of going beyond a basic definition of animal welfare towards providing animals, specifically laying hens, with a "good life." Using the U.K.'s Farm Animal Welfare Committee's "Five Freedoms," which focused on negative aspects of welfare (such as freedom from pain, and so on), the paper seeks to build a regulatory framework that focuses on positive welfare, and opportunities rather than freedoms. Through a literature review as well as consultations with chicken welfare experts, they arrive at a potential system of grading (Welfare +, ++, and +++). Visits and evaluations at farms around the U.K. offers some initial findings that could help such a system be implemented. READ MORE

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Evaluating Children’s Conservation Biology Learning at the Zoo
In this study of youth zoo attendees in the UK, researcher Eric Jensen attempts to get to the heart of a key question surrounding the existence of zoos: If a central role of zoos is to promote conservation education among attendees, how well do they accomplish this task? In this particular study, Jensen attempts to address a gap in the literature by focusing on youths, who have rarely been represented in surveys that measure the learning outcomes of zoo attendance. His results show that, while there is a potential for attendance at zoos to result in a positive learning experience, this possibility cannot be taken for granted, and could be the result of numerous factors that are more related to the person guiding the visit and delivering information, rather than the zoo space itself. READ MORE

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Should Protections for Research With Humans Who Cannot Consent Apply to Research With Nonhuman Primates?
This paper considers how and why current protections for research with humans who cannot consent (such as children and those with severe dementia) can apply to nonhuman primates. Navigating the slippery and often contentious questions around moral significance of nonhuman animals, the author gives compelling examples of research projects where using nonhuman primates would be clearly unacceptable. These are then used as a baseline for determining a general principle that "individuals who are unable to consent should be enrolled in nonbeneficial research only when, at the very least, there is sufficient reason to believe that the potential benefits of the research justify the risks it poses." Though the author does not make claims around what might constitute justifiable benefits, he does offer interesting possibilities for how nonhuman primates can assent / dissent from particular research, even if they cannot officially "consent." READ MORE

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Policing Farm Animal Welfare in Federated Nations: The Problem of Dual Federalism in Canada and the USA
This paper outlines problems with (and proposes some solutions for) the creation and enforcement of effective laws protecting farm animals in the United States and Canada. Taking a long view that includes an agro-anthropological analysis of how current farm animal protection laws came to be, the paper highlights how, in the both the U.S. and Canada, agriculture is a unique institution. "Achieving substantial shift in farm animal production methods, means a coordinated societal initiative to disseminate and have adopted a new societal norm." The authors argue that some kind of continental regulatory oversight, as well as more direct cooperation with policy-makers and NGOs, are possible solutions, but that any changes will cause friction with the prevailing industrial practices centered around efficiency and profits, not animal care. READ MORE
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