A New Framework for the Assessment of Animal Welfare: Integrating Existing Knowledge from a Practical Ethics Perspective

When making an assessment of animal welfare, it is important to take environmental (housing) or animal-based parameters into account. An alternative approach is to focus on the behavior and appearance of the animal, without making actual measurements or quantifying this. None of these tell the whole story. In this paper, we suggest that it is possible to find common ground between these (seemingly) diametrically opposed positions and argue that this may be the way to deal with the complexity of animal welfare. The model will have to be acceptable for the different parties that will be affected by it and real benefits for the animal should result from it. This will be the basis of a practical ethical approach. All this can be condensed into a model that essentially is made up out of three basic elements: the classical welfare analysis with an existing welfare assessment tool, an assessment of the stockholder, and an implementation of the Free Choice Profiling technique. This new framework does not pretend to be a different or better animal welfare matrix; it is intended to integrate existing knowledge and to provide a practical tool to improve animal welfare. It identifies whether there are welfare problems on a farm, if present whether these problems are caused by the housing system or the stockholder, and what can be done to improve the situation.     

Qualitative Stakeholder Analysis for the Development of Sustainable Monitoring Systems for Farm Animal Welfare

Continued concern for animal welfare may be alleviated when welfare would be monitored on farms. Monitoring can be characterized as an information system where various stakeholders periodically exchange relevant information. Stakeholders include producers, consumers, retailers, the government, scientists, and others. Valuating animal welfare in the animal-product market chain is regarded as a key challenge to further improve the welfare of farm animals and information on the welfare of animals must, therefore, be assessed objectively, for instance, through monitoring. Interviews with Dutch stakeholder representatives were conducted to identify their perceptions about the monitoring of animal welfare. Stakeholder perceptions were characterized in relation to the specific perspectives of each stakeholder. While producers tend to perceive welfare from a production point of view, consumers will use visual images derived from traditional farming and from the animals natural environments. Scientists perceptions of animal welfare are affected by the need to measure welfare with quantifiable parameters. Retailers and governments (policy makers) have views of welfare that are derived from their relationships with producers, consumers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and scientists. All interviewed stakeholder representatives stated that animal welfare is important. They varied in the extent to which they weighted economic considerations relative to concern for the animals welfare. Many stakeholders emphasized the importance of communication in making a monitoring system work. Overall, the perspectives for the development of a sustainable monitoring system that substantially improves farm animal welfare were assessed as being poor in the short term. However, a reliable system could be initiated under certain conditions, such as integrated chains and with influential and motivated stakeholders. A scheme is described with attention points for the development of sustainable monitoring systems for farm animal welfare in the long term.     

The Idea of “Ethical Accounting” for a Livestock Farm

This paper presents the idea of a decision-support system for a livestock farm, called “ethical accounting”, to be used as an extension of traditional cost accounting. “Ethical accounting” seeks to make available to the farmer information about how his decisions affect the interests of farm animals, consumers and future generations. Furthermore, “ethical accounting” involves value-based planning. Thus, the farmer should base his choice of production plan on reflections as to his fundamental objectives, and he should make his final decision only after having seriously considered the various consequences for the affected parties. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

What's wrong with animalby-products?

Without looking beyond the conditions under which laying hens typically live in the contemporary U.S. egg industry, we can understand why the production and consumption of factory farmed eggs could be judged immoral. However, the question, What (if anything) is wrong with animal by-products? cannot always be adequately answered by looking at the conditions under which animals live out their productive lives. For the dairy industry looks benign in those terms, but if we look beyond the conditions under which milk cows live, we can better understand some animal rights activists' reasons for objecting to dairy products. The contemporary U.S. dairy industry requires a slaughter industry between one-seventh and one-third the size of the contemporary beef industry. Today, beef slaughter is vastly more humane than poultry slaughter, but if today's beef slaughter industry is judged emmoral, the contemporary dairy industry should be judged similarly immoral, because the two are wedded. This is the deep reason for moral suspicion of the dairy industry.     

张家界国家森林公园不同土壤类型土壤动物群落的初步调查研究

2000年8月对湖南省张家界国家森林公园森林土壤进行了土壤动物调查，获各类动物1972个，分隶属于4门8纲24目，其中螨类和弹尾类为优势类群，双翅目和膜翅目为常见类群。初步研究表明，森林旅游对土壤动物类群和个体数目都有较大的影响。     

Effects of Management of Domestic Dogs and Recreation on Carnivores in Protected Areas in Northern California

Abstract: In developed countries dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are permitted to accompany human visitors to many protected areas (e.g., >96% of protected lands in California, U.S.A.), and protected‐area management often focuses on regulating dogs due to concerns about predation, competition, or transmission of disease and conflicts with human visitors. In 2004 and 2005, we investigated whether carnivore species richness and abundance were associated with management of domestic dogs and recreational visitation in protected areas in northern California. We surveyed for mammalian carnivores and human visitors in 21 recreation areas in which dogs were allowed offleash or onleash or were excluded, and we compared our observations in the recreation areas with observations in seven reference sites that were not open to the public. Carnivore abundance and species richness did not differ among the three types of recreation areas, but native carnivore species richness was 1.7 times greater (p < 0.01) and the relative abundances of native coyotes (Canis latrans) and bobcats (Lynx rufus) were over four times greater (p < 0.01) in the reference sites. Abundances of bobcats and all carnivores declined as the number of visitors increased. The policy on domestic dogs did not appear to affect species richness and abundance of mammalian carnivores. But the number of dogs we observed was strongly associated with human visitation (R²= 0.54), so the key factors associated with recreational effects on carnivores appear to be the presence and number of human visitors to protected areas.     

Research Training for Releasable Animals

Abstract:  Restrictions on training potentially releasable animals such as those undergoing rehabilitation care or wild-caught captives have limited our understanding of sensory processes, cognition, and physiology important for conservation of species. It is common practice among several U.S. federal agencies to limit training of animals available for release. The behavioral argument justifying this practice is that training habituates subjects to people and conditions them to associate people with rewards such as food; habituation to and positive associations with people will lead animals into dangerous situations after their release. If under special circumstances research training is permitted, all trained behaviors must be extinguished before release because behaviors will transfer to the natural setting. Research on animal learning and memory indicates that these may not be accurate scenarios. A review of the literature on habituation, classical and instrumental conditioning, and compound conditioning suggests that learning within a research setting does not add to learning that already occurs in procedures associated with basic feeding and care. In fact, animals probably learn less about people in a training setting. Furthermore, context-specific effects on memory limit behavior transfer from captive to natural settings. Extinction is strongly susceptible to context effects, which suggests that extinction does not effectively transfer to the postrelease setting. Counterintuitively, extinction of responses to experimental stimuli under some circumstances may enhance undesirable learning about humans. Under those circumstances in which isolation from human contact is difficult or undesirable, behavioral research can present an ideal format for minimizing learning about humans and provide biological information important for conservation.     

清初“摊丁入亩”政策对环境的影响

清初“摊丁入亩”政策对清社会经济的恢复发展确实起到了促进作用,但同时对环境也构成了巨大威胁,引发了地表植被遭严重玻坏、自然灾害频繁、珍稀野生动植物大量灭绝等一系列环境问题。剖璞见玉,对今有史鉴作用。     

Variation in Population Parameters: Adaptation to Toxic Environmental Factors

Some mechanisms of adaptation of natural populations to toxic environmental factors are discussed. The dandelion and hole-nesting birds are used as examples for demonstrating that an increase in the variation of reproductive parameters upon chemical environmental pollution favors the survival of those individuals in the populations that are better adapted to changes in the climate and other environmental conditions. The increased variation in reproductive parameters may promote the elimination of less fit individuals from populations. The ensuing energy loss is the cost of maintaining the population size in the chemically degraded environment.     

中国畜牧业地理集聚特征及其演化机制

农业地理集聚是有效实现农业分工的空间组织形态。以畜牧业为例,采用基尼系数、专业化指数、产业集中度和产业平均集聚率等指标与模型,分析了畜牧业地理集聚的发展特征、演变态势及其形成机制。结果表明:1980-2011 年中国畜牧业地理集聚程度不断增强,呈现出先增强后减弱再到稳定上升的阶段性演化特征,但不同畜产品生产的地理集聚过程差异显著;省域尺度上,畜牧业平均集聚率重心不断北移,逐步形成了北方地区高度集聚、南方地区中低度集聚的空间分异格局;畜牧业地理集聚格局经历了由自然集聚到空间重构再到空间优化的过程,自然资源禀赋、农业生产力以及市场与政策,在不同时期主导着中国畜牧业空间格局的演变,构成了我国畜牧业地理集聚格局的演化机制。