WBI Studies Repository (WellBeing International)
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Do Anxious Owners Raise More Anxious Dogs?
Get PDFRecent studies have reported similarities between the personalities of dog owners and their pets. The reasons for this relationship are unclear but several studies suggest the causal arrow points from owner to pet
Can a Moral Machine Make Good Decisions About Animals?
Get PDFAn artificial intelligence algorithm called Delphi that mimics how humans make ethical judgments has been developed by a team at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence. Delphi was tested on a variety of ethical issues involving human use of animals where she mimicked many of the inconsistencies found in surveys of human attitudes. For example, as with actual humans, Delphi concluded that animals had the same rights as humans but then concluded that it was acceptable for humans to kill and eat cows
Well-being Centers and Global Happiness
Get PDFSeveral well-being and happiness research centers and policy units have been established in the last decade at major universities. For example, Harvard’s School of Public Health established the Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness in 2016, while Oxford University launched its Wellbeing Research Centre in 2019. In Europe, the Danish Happiness Research Institute was founded in 2013 as an independent think tank. In the Netherlands, Erasmus University houses the Erasmus Happiness Economics Research Institute and the World Database of Happiness. Erasmus University established the first chair in Social Conditions for Human Happiness in 2000. We should also call attention to the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. While it does not have “happiness” or well-being” in its title, its director, Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, is a founding editor of the World Happiness Report and has played an important role in developing global well-being thinking
The Comfort Dog Project of Northern Uganda: An Innovative Canine-Assisted Psychosocial Trauma Recovery Programme
Get PDFIn 2012, BIG FIX Uganda, an American-based animal welfare organisation, began offering veterinary health services and animal welfare education in northern Uganda to improve the wellbeing of animals and their guardians. In 2014, the organisation expanded its inclusive health platform with the creation of the Comfort Dog Project − an animal-assisted psychosocial intervention for survivors of war trauma through the facilitation of human-dog companionship. This article focuses on how blending community trauma counselling with dog training and bonding instruction can improve the social and emotional skills of dog guardians while creating loving, stress- buffering relationships with their dogs. Fifty-nine guardians and their comfort dogs graduated this 20-week animal assisted trauma intervention between 2015 and 2020. Psychological assessments taken pre- and post-graduation, as well as annual follow-up testing over a 4-year-period, indicate that this therapeutic model can be effective at reducing the symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and improving the wellbeing of both the guardians and their comfort dogs
Animal Relinquishment and Pet-owner Resilience
Get PDFIn 2021, it is hoped that the world will slowly return to normal as an increasing proportion of national populations are vaccinated. Such a return will likely mean fewer people working from home and more pets spending their days with less human companionship. Animal groups are concerned that people who have obtained new pets may surrender them to shelters when social distancing measures are relaxed and, perhaps, when moratoriums on foreclosures due to arrears in rent and mortgage are lifted. However, a recent study of pet ownership in a low-income community and an examination of pet surrender in previous financial turndowns indicate that the human-animal bond may be more resilient than animal advocates fear
Animal Welfare at the United Nations
Get PDFThe Africa Network for Animal Welfare (ANAW) is developing a resolution on animal welfare to be put before the United Nations Environment Assembly in 2022. Animal welfare is gaining traction in the various UN agencies and in other international bodies thanks to the activities of organizations such as ANAW, World Animal Protection and the new World Federation for Animals
The Economics of Biodiversity The Dasgupta Review Full Report
Get PDFIn 2019, Her Majesty’s Treasury (UK) commissioned Sir Partha Dasgupta, an economist and Professor Emeritus at Cambridge University to produce an independent, global review on the Economics of Biodiversity. Sir Partha was assisted by a multi-disciplinary Advisory Panel that included representatives of public policy, science, economics and business. The Review argues that countries should de-emphasize GDP as an index of progress and instead should focus on a national Wealth measure that includes an accounting for Natural Capital. After World War II, when the world was very different from what it is now, Sir Partha argues the economic questions being faced could be studied most productively by excluding Natural Capital and focusing on Produced Capital (e.g. infrastructure) and Human Capital. But today, as economists have begun to devise methods to value and to track Natural Capital, it is becoming apparent that while Produced and Human Capital may be increasing, Natural Capital is declining. The Review analyzes what we know about Natural capital and begins to address how Natural Capital might be incorporated into a valid assessment of national wealth and long-term sustainability
The Dasgupta Review and the Economics of Biodiversity
Get PDFSir Partha Dasgupta, an economist at Cambridge University, was commissioned by the UK Department of the Treasurer to produce a report on environmental economics and global sustainability. Sir Partha, assisted by an advisory group of international experts, produced a 600-page volume and a shorter (103-page) summary of the full report. The report emphasizes the distinction between Gross Domestic Production (GDP) measures (which tracks the annual flow of resources) and national Wealth (which values the total asset base) and argues that the world should be paying far more attention to wealth, including the wealth provided by “natural capital assets.” Natural assets are still mostly being ignored even as the world has begun to include other intangible assets (e.g. human capital) in national wealth measures. Sir Partha notes that GDP can be increases over the short term by spending assets but that such a strategy is unsustainable. He also notes that the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals do not track national wealth and therefore do not include a measure of sustainability
South Africa Changing Direction on the “Sustainable” Use of Wildlife?
Get PDFThe South African government published a report by a High Level Panel on the future of its policies to protect wildlife, support local communities and provide for sustainable use. The panel recommended halting lion breeding operations to produce body parts and for canned hunting and also recommended that South Africa should not urge CITES to establish a legal trade in ivory. The report represents a substantial shift in the management of wildlife in the country
Animal Welfare in China by Peter J. Li
No full textPei Su, CEO of ACTAsia, reviews Animal Welfare in China by Peter Li. This “comprehensive” and “well-researched” book challenges the widely held impression that Chinese people are inherently abusive Tales of WellBeingards animals