HumaneSpot.org, from the Humane Research Council, is the world's most comprehensive resource for public opinion and behavior research about animal protection issues. This site is designed to help animal advocates be more effective in helping animals. Registration is required for some items but is quick and entirely free.
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As different communities around the world strive to find ways to preserve and protect threatened species, some are turning to tourism as a means of bringing in revenue to be used towards conservation efforts. However, tourism still has an impact on the environment and animals. This study from Morocco looks at how exposure to tourists is affecting the body size, coat color, and the amount of parasites found in local Barbary macaques, evaluating each group based on different levels of tourist exposure.
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In this well-researched editorial for The Veterinary Journal, Annette Litster presents a strong case for the support of trap-neuter-vaccinate-return programs, which she argues is the best method for both controlling and moderating free-roaming cat populations. Addressing issues such as the effectiveness of lethal animal control methods, human abandonment of cats, and the contention that free-roaming cats are a threat to avian species conservation, Litster discusses each aspect in turn and provides compelling evidence that non-lethal programs are the best possible solution. Email this Research Citation
This two-part blog series examines some of the central ideas from Carrie Freeman’s 2014 book “Framing Farming: Communication Strategies for Animal Rights.” This week we look at "Strategic Recommendations for Vegan Advocacy", an examination of specific frames through which advocates can make thier case to a variety of audiences for a variety of reasons. Next week, we will publish an excerpty from the book that explains how to frame animal agribusiness and eating animals as unjust, including a cruelty and suffering component.Email this Blog Entry
How is one report into the welfare of farmed animals from fifty years ago still changing laws for animals around the world five decades on?This year is the 50th anniversary of the 1965 United Kingdom (UK) government-commissioned investigation into the welfare of intensively farmed animals, led by Professor Roger Brambell. The findings of the Brambell Report stated that animals should have the freedom to "stand up, lie down, turn around, groom themselves and stretch their limbs." This recommendation became known as Brambell's Five Freedoms.
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," researchers say, "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 centred around efficiency and profits, not animal care.Email this Research Citation
It's been a busy week at HRC. Our latest study on vegetarians and vegans went viral -- there's obviously a lot of interest in plant-based diets and related trends! Some of the coverage about the study has focused on how many people go back to eating meat -- along with some ill-founded conjecture as to why. But there's actually a lot of good information for farmed animals in our research and in other recent studies.Email this Blog Entry
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