Humane Society Institute for Science and Policy
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Stress: An adaptive problem common to plant and animal science
No full textIt is very hard to determine whether plants have “felt states,” but they do have specific states, such as stress, that depend on sensory input from their environment. Plants do not have neurons or brains, but they do have xylem and phloem, as well as many signalling molecules that are dynamically distributed in their bodies, enabling them to produce systemic responses to environmental stimuli. One common topic in plant and animal science that may or may not prove to involve sentience but that does involve the same molecules is stress
What Do Pet Owners Believe About Dog and Cat Emotions?
No full textWhile some philosophers disagree, most dog and cat owners know their pets experience emotions. Researchers recently asked pet owners about the number and types of emotions they observed in their cats and dogs. There were significant individual differences in the degree to which owners thought their pets experienced emotions
How Can Meat Consumption Be Both Increasing and Decreasing?
No full textThe percentage of Americans who do not eat meat has doubled in the past two decades. Per capita meat consumption in the U.S., though, has not changed in decades and remains among the highest in the world. The moralization-polarization effect explains this paradox. Cognitive dissonance may induce some people to eat less meat but others to eat more
Animal Shelter Management of Feline Leukemia Virus and Feline Immunodeficiency Virus Infections in Cats
No full textApproximately 5% of cats in animal shelters in the United States test positive for either feline leukemia virus (FeLV) or feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which translates to more than 100,000 positive cats managed by shelters each year. Little is known about the current status of retroviral management in animal shelters, particularly in regions burdened by chronic pet overpopulation and high shelter admissions, such as the southern United States. The purpose of this study was to describe feline retroviral management in Florida shelters. Shelters were surveyed on practices including selection of cats for testing, diagnostic techniques, and outcome options for cats with positive test results. Responses were received from 139 of 153 animal shelters known to admit cats, including 55 municipal shelters (40%), 70 private shelters (50%), and 14 private shelters with municipal contracts (10%). A total of 115 shelters (83%) performed at least some testing, most using combination point-of-care devices for simultaneous FeLV antigen and FIV antibody screening. Of shelters that performed any testing, 56 (49%) tested all cats for FeLV and 52 (45%) tested all cats for both FeLV and FIV. The most common reason for testing was screening adoptable cats (108 shelters; 94%) and cats available for transfer to other organizations (78; 68%). Testing cats in trap-neuter-return/return-to-field programs was least common (21; 18%). Most common outcome options for positive cats included adoption (74; 64%), transfer (62; 54%), and euthanasia (49; 43%). Euthanasia following a positive test result was more common for cats with FeLV (49; 43%) than for cats with FIV (29; 25%) and was more common in municipal shelters, rural shelters, shelters taking in \u3c500 cats a year, and shelters with overall live outcome rates for cats \u3c70%. Although Florida shelter compliance with national guidelines for identification and management of FeLV and FIV positive cats was variable, most had live outcome options for at least some of their cats with positive test results. Increased access to training and practical programmatic tools may help more shelters implement cost-effective testing protocols, reduce risk for transmission to other cats, and support the best outcomes for this vulnerable population of cats
Bird Flu: Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza – An Update
No full textIn the last few years, a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza (HPAI) virus has caused the deaths of millions of seabirds and waterfowl worldwide, and many more millions of factory-farmed poultry being culled to halt the spread of the virus. WBI wrote about the emergence of this virus and its potential danger to humans in our last WellBeing News. The virus continues to spread and mutate and has caused the deaths of some mammals and a few humans
Comparing U.S. Groups’ Openness to Pro-Animal Actions
No full textAs animal advocates know, an outreach tactic that is successful with one person will not necessarily be successful with all people. Advocates rarely launch campaigns with no idea of who will be seeing their ‘asks’ (i.e., requests for pro-animal actions). Even in the case of passive tactics such as billboards, advocates may know who frequents that part of the city. For example, they may be near a university, meaning their audience will include a high proportion of students. The United States public is diverse and groups of people can differ greatly in their opinions. Rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, advocates could be more effective in their outreach by taking the preferences of their audience into consideration.
Much of the research that has been done on the U.S. public’s openness to various pro-animal actions has focused on one or two actions at a time, such as adopting a vegan diet or voting for cage-free ballot initiatives. Many studies have also only been able to consider a small number of participant characteristics, such as age, race/ethnicity, and gender. As a result, the amount of data comparing asks and characteristics has been limited.
Through a survey of thousands of U.S. residents, we add much-needed data on the various segments of the U.S. population to animal advocates’ tool belts. Our results show how likely different segments of the U.S. public would be to take 18 different pro-animal actions. These results also allow advocates to compare subgroup differences across approximately 20 different characteristics. Advocates working with a particular group can compare which asks are most likely to appeal to them: for example, people with children in the home, people in rural areas, or people who are concerned about climate change. Alternatively, advocates working on particular asks can see which segments of the population may be the most likely to support their campaigns: for example, adopting a vegan diet, not buying animal-based materials like leather, or writing a member of Congress about farmed animal welfare
Sentience: back to the science from the words
No full textContributors to this discussion acknowledge ambiguities in the terms used, including ‘feelings’, ‘behavior’, ‘cognition’ and ‘sentience’ itself. Yet they continue to use such words without reference to scientific criteria established by experimental psychology
Disentangling sentience from developmental plasticity
No full textPlants, like animals, display remarkable developmental plasticity, inviting the metaphorical use of terms like “decision” and “choice”. In the animal case, this is not taken to be evidence of sentience, because sentience is a complex product of development, not something that guides it. We should apply the same standards when evaluating the evidence in plants. It is hard to overstate the contrast with the case of invertebrates such as octopuses, where pain markers that were originally developed for use in mammals have been clearly demonstrated and plausible neural substrates for sentience have been identified
Crazier hypotheses: Panpsychism
No full textAbstract: Segundo-Ortin & Calvo (S&C) invite readers to consider seriously the hypothesis that plants have phenomenal consciousness or sentience. Their case is based on behavioral evidence to support their hypothesis. While the hypothesis seems crazy to many, there is a crazier hypothesis – panpsychism – according to which everything is sentient. We discuss panpsychism to raise a number of philosophical questions about S&C’s hypothesis
Multiple ways to implement and infer sentience
No full textSegundo-Ortin & Calvo’s (S&C’s) thorough review of “plant neurobiology” presents evidence supporting the possibility of plant sentience. They make a compelling case that plants anticipate, assess risk, cooperate, mimic, and pursue goals, as do their animal counterparts. S&C point out that there is a double standard: behavioural patterns associated with subjective experiences in humans are considered valid for inferring cognition in non-human animals but not in diverse other systems including plants. We argue that cognitive functions, including sentience, can potentially be achieved by very different systems and their disparate substrates. We offer some context from the basal cognition literature and suggest that the deep insights of neurobiology have relevance far beyond neurons