Zoo Animal Welfare

The continuing existence of zoos and their good purposes such as conservation, science, education, and recreation, can be ethically justified only if zoos guarantee the welfare of their animals. The usual criteria for measuring animal welfare in zoos are physical health, long life, and reproduction. This paper looks at these criteria and finds them insufficient. Additional criteria are submitted to expand the range of welfare considerations: natural and abnormal behavior; freedom and choice; and dignity. All these criteria should play a role in analyzing zoo animal welfare and interests but dignity has the overriding part because it impacts on both animal and human interests.     

Ethical Considerations of the Human–Animal-Relationship Under Conditions of Asymmetry and Ambivalence

Ethical reflection deals not only with the moral standing and handling of animals, it should also include a critical analysis of the underlying relationship. Anthropological, psychological, and sociological aspects of the human–animal-relationship should be taken into account. Two conditions, asymmetry and ambivalence, are taken as the historical and empirical basis for reflections on the human–animal-relationship in late modern societies. These conditions explain the variety of moral practice, apart from paradoxes, and provide a framework to systematize animal ethical problems in a broader field. This allows the development of ideal relationships as moral orientation across anthropocentric or sentientistic ethical theories. These ideal relationships are called the patronage-model, the friendship-model and the partnership-model. The ethical problem of creating transgenic animals is discussed in the light of these ideal relationships.     

The use and abuse of scientific studies

In response to Evelyn Pluhar'sWho Can Be Morally Obligated to Be a Vegetarian? in this journal issue, the author has read all of Pluhar's citations for the accuracy of her claims and had these read by an independent nutritionist. Detailed analysis of Pluhar's argument shows that she attempts to make her case by consistent misappropriation of the findings and conclusions of the studies she cites. Pluhar makes sweeping generalizations from scanty data, ignores causal explanations given by scientists, equates hypothesis with fact, draws false cause conclusions from studies, and in one case claims a conclusion opposite of what the scientist published. Such poor reasoning cannot be the basis of an argument for moral vegetarianism. A broader search of the literature and attention to reviews and textbooks in nutrition shows that each of Pluhar's claims is suspect or incorrect. Pluhar has not undermined my central claims: even if animals have certain rights and well-planned vegetarian diets are safe in complex industrialized societies, these diets cannot be so regarded if the presuppositions of high levels of wealth, education, and medical care do not exist; and, women, children, the aged and some ill persons are at greater risk on restrictive vegan diets. Thus, any duty of moral vegetarianism is not categorical but provisional in nature.     

元代自然资源的保护和利用探幽

元代1264年定都燕京后,为加强政治统治,在中原先进的农耕经济影响下,改变过去“逐水草而居”游牧经济的生产方式,在积极保护动、植物资源和合理开发利用土地、水资源等方面,采取了一些恢复和发展农业生产的举措。剖璞见玉,对今仍有史鉴作用。     

Sustainable Agriculture: New Paradigms and Old Practices? Increased Production with Management of Organic Inputs in Senegal

Farmers in Sahelian countries are confronted with a variety of soil fertility and management problems. During the last two decades, NGOs have worked with farmers and research institutions to develop and test practices that will increase food production, while at the same time enhance the natural resource base.Since 1987, The Rodale Institute (RI) has worked closely with farmers' associations and government institutions to promote regenerative agriculture-farming systems that prioritize the use of local resources while improving them as they are used to grow food, using agro-ecological methods. The Senegalese Agricultural Research Institute has collaborated in this program as a partner of RI. The Senegal Regenerative Agriculture Resource Center model has been applied as a new and viable approach that builds on traditional knowledge and farmer-to-farmer exchange.Research results on soil conservation and improvement have shown that fields spread with amended animal manure or compost yield greater harvests than fields farmed with traditional methods.     

Effect of Monitoring Technique on Quality of Conservation Science

Monitoring free‐ranging animals in their natural habitat is a keystone of ecosystem conservation and increasingly important in the context of current rates of loss of biological diversity. Data collected from individuals of endangered species inform conservation policies. Conservation professionals assume that these data are reliable—that the animals from whom data are collected are representative of the species in their physiology, ecology, and behavior and of the populations from which they are drawn. In the last few decades, there has been an enthusiastic adoption of invasive techniques for gathering ecological and conservation data. Although these can provide impressive quantities of data, and apparent insights into animal ranges and distributions, there is increasing evidence that these techniques can result in animal welfare problems, through the wide‐ranging physiological effects of acute and chronic stress and through direct or indirect injuries or compromised movement. Much less commonly, however, do conservation scientists consider the issue of how these effects may alter the behavior of individuals to the extent that the data they collect could be unreliable. The emerging literature on the immediate and longer‐term effects of capture and handling indicate it can no longer be assumed that a wild animal's survival of the process implies the safety of the procedure, that the procedure is ethical, or the scientific validity of the resulting data. I argue that conservation professionals should routinely assess study populations for negative effects of their monitoring techniques and adopt noninvasive approaches for best outcomes not only for the animals, but also for conservation science. Efecto de la Técnica de Monitoreo en la Calidad de la Ciencia de la Conservación     

Mechanisms of changes in population numbers of Caucasian red deer (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Cervus elaphus maral</Emphasis>) in the northwestern Caucasus

Mechanisms of changes in the numbers of red deer in the Caucasian State Biosphere Reserve (the northwestern Caucasus) were studied from 1958 to 2004 using simulation models developed on the basis of concepts concerning the combined effect of density-dependent and density-independent factors. The results show that changes in population numbers are accounted for by larger (more numerous) local subunits, with small groups remaining relatively stable. In the periods of depression, such a mechanism provides for the maintenance of the spatial population structure.     

Minimizing Harm in Agricultural Animal Experiments in New Zealand

Intrusive agricultural experimentspublished in New Zealand in the last five yearsare reviewed in terms of the degree of animalsuffering involved, and the necessity for thissuffering in relation to research findings.When measured against animal welfare criteriaof the Ministry of Agriculture, thirty-sixstudies inflicted ``severe' or ``very severe'suffering. Many of these experiments hadquestionable short-term applications, had anapplication restricted to agriculturalproduction or economic growth, or could havebeen modified to prevent or reduce suffering.     

Methane fermentation of dung from litter-free reared domestic animals — an optimisation study

Data on the quantity (27 453 tons from litter-free reared animals in Bulgaria, only) and the chemical and energy characteristics of dung produced in intensive management farms for domestic animals suggests that technologies combining biogenic elements recycling with energy utilistation and dung decontamination are expedient to be applied on these types of farms. To this effect a fermenter was designed and a mathematical model (a Chen-Hashimoto model based computer programme) was applied, as a result of which the optimum methane fermentation parameters were determined. The technological methane output (Y_v) — indicator of biogas production efficiency (output/dm³ fermentor volume) showed an optimum at temperature 55°C and period of exchange 6 days. The methane output per unit mineralised organic matter in the substrate (B) — assumed as an indicator of ecological efficiency (maximum organic matter degradation) exhibited an optimum at 33°C for 15 days period of exchange.