WBI Studies Repository (WellBeing International)
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Biodiversity: Is it important and if so, why?
Get PDFHow important is global biodiversity and the interactions and interdependencies of all life for the well-being of people, animals and the environment? Do these interdependencies among all life forms lead to the logical conclusion that “biodiversity” is important (or even essential) to understand and protect? There is a steadily growing movement to recognize the importance of biodiversity even if some of the efforts are hidden from view
Animal Agriculture and Climate Change
Get PDFEarlier this year the prestigious EAT-Lancet Commission called on the world to eat less meat to slow climate change. Three other reports in the last year echoed that message, including two published in Science and Nature, and one produced in partnership with two UN agencies and the World Bank. Even the normally cautious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change noted in its October report the “increasing agreement that overall emissions from food systems could be reduced by targeting the demand for meat and other livestock products.” This marks a major change. The climate movement long ignored the inconvenient truth of meat’s greenhouse gas emissions — so much so that a hit documentary alleged a Cowspiracy between environmentalists and the meat industry. PETA activists grew so frustrated at Al Gore’s evasion of the issue that they trailed him in chicken costumes in a hummer, accusing him of being “too chicken to go vegetarian” (he later went vegan, though it’s unclear what role the chicken costumes played). A lot has changed since then. Major environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, National Resources Defense Council, World Wildlife Fund UK, World Resources Institute, and Friends of the Earth, now encourage people to eat less meat. Even the UN’s Environment Program and the World Economic Forum have highlighted animal agriculture’s contribution to climate change, as did The New York Times in a major feature this week. This is welcome news for the climate. Animal agriculture contributes a substantial share of greenhouse gas emissions — though the best estimates peg it at 14.5%-16.5% globally, not 51%, as some activists claim based on one unpublished study. (The US percentage is lower, mainly because US total emissions are so large.) The Nature study’s authors warn that a global shift to a “flexitarian” diet is “essential” to keep temperature rises under the 2C cap by 2050. This also sounds like welcome news for animals. Some animal advocates now argue that the global attention on climate change offers the best hope to end factory farming. So could we help farm animals by focusing more on the climate
Climate Change and COP26
Get PDFA brief primer on what, how, and why of the current global attention to climate change and this latest meeting of countries in Glasgow at COP26
Bear Bile Farms Are Being Phased Out in Vietnam
No full textIn the last decade, bear bile farming has ended in nine of the sixty-three provinces and municipalities in Vietnam. There are now only seven provinces with more than 10 bears in bile farms. Animals Asia is nearing its goal of ending bear bile farming in the country
Kairavi - The Comeback Calf
No full textRead about the elephant calf Kairavi’s battle with a deadly herpes virus and the special care she received at the Oklahoma City Zoo
World Happiness 2021
Get PDFThis year’s World Happiness Report 2021 unsurprisingly looks at how the world is faring under the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim of this year’s report was two-fold – to look at the impact of the pandemic on the structure and quality of people’s lives and, second, to evaluate how governments have dealt with the pandemic
Do School Closures Cause a Surge in Dog Bites to Children?
Get PDFStudies in the USA and the UK reported a significant surge in children treated for dog bites in hospital emergency rooms during the lockdown. Dog bites to children usually increase during the summer months but the increases during the summer of 2020 were much greater than usual. This increase may have been caused by the closer contacts between children and dogs during the lockdown or dog behavior may have changed with more people in the home. As schools re-opened in the UK, the number of dog bite admissions at the hospital emergency room began to decline
Rhino Decline Shock
Get PDFThe Kruger National Park in South Africa is home to the largest population of wild rhinos in the world. But a 2019 census documenting a dramatic decline in the Kruger rhino population in just ten years has shocked rhino conservation organizations. The park last conducted a census of its rhino population in 2010 when it estimated that there were over 10,000 rhinos in the park (mostly the southern white rhino but also including a few hundred southern black rhino). But the latest census estimates there are now only 3,500 white rhinos and 270 black rhinos in the park – a 70% decline in just ten years
Extending animal welfare science to include wild animals
Get PDFNg’s (2016) target article built on his earlier work advocating a science of welfare biology (Ng 1995). Although there were problems with the models proposed in Ng’s original paper regarding the balance of pleasure and suffering for wild animals, his call for a science of wild animal welfare was a sound one. This does not require a new discipline but just an extension of the existing frameworks and methods of animal welfare science to include wild animals
Review of the Evidence of Sentience in Cephalopod Molluscs and Decapod Crustaceans
Get PDFBirch and colleagues have developed an important and useful framework for evaluating the evidence for sentience – namely, the capacity to experience pain, distress and suffering, in cephalopod molluscs (cuttlefish, octopods and squid) and decapod crustaceans (including crabs, crayfish, lobsters, prawns, shrimps). Birch and colleagues develop eight criteria in their evaluation framework which are used to weigh the evidence from over 300 scientific publications. The report also investigates the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices on these species. The report concludes that cephalopods and decapod crustaceans are probably sentient